FTFC Builduary 23 by Mastermalpass

[mastermalpass]

Today I stuck the MiG-29 plans to foam and cut out the shapes.

I forgot about the quirk of the old RC Powers V4 designs where the wing plate comes in four seperate pieces. Big foamboard sheets must've been hard to come by in 2014.

Thought forward enough to cut the wings out in one piece (on the Su-34 even that was two pieces stuck together) but not for the tail. Tiny bit bummed as I cost me a little bit of time to cut them out individually just to stick'em back together. Which I've also made a start on as well:

 

[mastermalpass]

Got the front half of the fuselage folded and epoxy setting. The rear half has to stay unbound so it can go around that piece in the middle of the wing plate. Also epoxied up the outer edges of the engines and slot them in, like with the fuselage, half of them stay unglued so they can slot into the fuselage. The tail-half of the horizontal plate with the elevons can go straight in - the outer sides of the engines help hold it in place.

As mentioned in the scratchbuilding tonight thread, this design is incredibly simple with me requiring no instructions. Though likely running off the experience of two previous builds, the small number of foam pieces and distinct slots and keys distributed over it means anyone could probably figure out how to do this just by test-fitting.

Before sticking anything together of course, I bevel-cut and hinge-taped the control surfaces. Going for Elevons and rudder with this one. Seems good enough for the designer himself:

At the rate I'm going, this one should be finished tomorrow!

 

[mastermalpass]

Electronics decided to be a pain to set up. Turns out the 'DSMX' receivers I ordered were actually DSMP. So I only almost completed the MiG-29 this evening:

Just need to rig up the servos. Being almost 100% epoxied, this one is shaping up to be pretty lightweight. I'm hoping that will contribute to it being a fast mover.

 

[Tench745]

I've never even heard of DSMP...

 

[mastermalpass]

That's the MiG-29 done! I always under-estimate how long it will take to rig up servos.

Annoyingly, I've found one of the elevon servos only returns to centre when you push forward on the stick, if you return from pulling back, it holds back a couple degrees, which is gonna put a slight roll on it. I have of course discovered this quirk after sticking the wires in all nice and neat.

So I'm just gonna deal with it for now and if it really does spoil the flight quality I will change it out. Time to make a start of the Kadet!

 

[mastermalpass]

Stuck the plans for Kadet together and snipped them out.

It's mostly straight lines, so I anticipate cutting these shapes out will be the fastest shape-cut run of builduary!

 

[FoamyDM]

Today I stuck the MiG-29 plans to foam and cut out the shapes.

View attachment 235300
View attachment 235301

I forgot about the quirk of the old RC Powers V4 designs where the wing plate comes in four seperate pieces. Big foamboard sheets must've been hard to come by in 2014.
View attachment 235307

Thought forward enough to cut the wings out in one piece (on the Su-34 even that was two pieces stuck together) but not for the tail. Tiny bit bummed as I cost me a little bit of time to cut them out individually just to stick'em back together. Which I've also made a start on as well:
View attachment 235308

I love the weights

 

[FoamyDM]

Great progress. Let's hope they all fly!

 

[mastermalpass]

Thanks Foamy. I guess I should post an update:

The past three days have seen work on the Sig Kadet. Been forgetting to take photos as I go on this one. Comments do far is that it's wonderfully simple. You have a big single score and fold piece for the fuselage, two folding wing parts, then a vertical and horizontal stab. The rest is just structural.

So far, I have a fuselage built, with the power system installed:

Today, I'm gonna add all the bits that will make this easy to disassemble.

 

[Yankee2003]

Electronics decided to be a pain to set up. Turns out the 'DSMX' receivers I ordered were actually DSMP. So I only almost completed the MiG-29 this evening:
View attachment 235368

Just need to rig up the servos. Being almost 100% epoxied, this one is shaping up to be pretty lightweight. I'm hoping that will contribute to it being a fast mover.

Wow…that looks really good!

 

[Yankee2003]

That's the MiG-29 done! I always under-estimate how long it will take to rig up servos.
View attachment 235394

Annoyingly, I've found one of the elevon servos only returns to centre when you push forward on the stick, if you return from pulling back, it holds back a couple degrees, which is gonna put a slight roll on it. I have of course discovered this quirk after sticking the wires in all nice and neat.
View attachment 235395

So I'm just gonna deal with it for now and if it really does spoil the flight quality I will change it out. Time to make a start of the Kadet!

This sounds too much like me to be comfortable……
” You know it’s only an aileron servo….and I do still have a fully charged battery…..I would have to go home….put it on storage charge…..and…I can always use more rudder if the aileron servo acts up ….again…..LAUNCHING….”

 

[mastermalpass]

Wow…that looks really good!

Credit to Dave Powers and Co. for its good looks. RC Powers really put a lot of time into their designs.

 

[mastermalpass]

This sounds too much like me to be comfortable……
” You know it’s only an aileron servo….and I do still have a fully charged battery…..I would have to go home….put it on storage charge…..and…I can always use more rudder if the aileron servo acts up ….again…..LAUNCHING….”

Life's too short to do EVERYTHING properly! 😂

 

[mastermalpass]

Thought I'd do an update while I break for lunch. I cut some plywood, glued some M8 Nylon nuts and formed the means of my removable vertical stab:

I stuck an M8 Nylon bolt through them, then put hot glue on the undersides of the outer plates, being careful not to get any on the vertical stab itself. As the glue set, I checked and adjusted the vertical alignment of the vertical stab to make sure its mounts would hold it straight. Then I cut a hole in the fuse, removed the bolt and removed the stab:

At this point the CoG is still good; that wood file resting across the table is stopping it from teetering over the edge of the bench. Next, I over-engineered the tail end and set up the surface to receive the horizontal stab. The horizontal stab is now held in place by the vertical stab. The whole assembly being secured by one Nylon bolt!

For ease of assembly and vice versa, the servos are actually going to be mounted on the vertical and horizontal stab respectively, simply only needing to be plugged in. Next step now is the wings - they will inform how the fuselage should be finished.

 

[mastermalpass]

Ages ago, I bought these aluminium tubes from Homebase. I think it was 2017 and I was thinking I'd put them in a Bristol Blenheim or something. Today, they finally see use. I cut a piece of the wider tube to go in each wing spar and a piece of the narrower tube being the length of them together.

I laid the main wing spar down and glued the outer tubes in place.

With the outer tubes glued in I flipped the foam spars over and glued them down. Before going any further, I cut the Flapperons and hinged them up.

Next was sussing out the mount. The original uses a skewer and elastic tie set up, but as you could probably tell, I want the wings to come apart, so I'll need a different solution. I measured out a piece of foam to join the top fuse and accompanying piece of plywood with an M8 Nylon nut recessed into it. Two additional pieces of plywood for each wing were also cut and drilled.

I glued them to the wings and also set a magnet into each spar for good measure.

With that sorted, I finally glued the wings over. Turns out I needed to bevel-cut the trailing wing spacer to allow for more movement in the flapperons - I think the original was just elevator and rudder.

Then I cut a hole for M8 bolt.

Next, I will need something to hold the front of the wing on. I sussed out a shape and drew that on plywood.

The front holders will run down the sides, allowing for windows to be cut into sides of the cockpit. The plywood will also provide a strong vertical mount: the wing will have notches to go up against these vertical to make the alignment easy to find and hold.

That's enough workshop for today. Hopefully tomorrow it will see completion. Here's a pic of it so far in all its gargantuan glory, propped up at the height I'd like it to stand on its landing gear, next to wheels I plan to use on it.

 

[Yankee2003]

Ages ago, I bought these aluminium tubes from Homebase. I think it was 2017 and I was thinking I'd put them in a Bristol Blenheim or something. Today, they finally see use. I cut a piece of the wider tube to go in each wing spar and a piece of the narrower tube being the length of them together.
View attachment 235649

I laid the main wing spar down and glued the outer tubes in place.
View attachment 235650

With the outer tubes glued in I flipped the foam spars over and glued them down. Before going any further, I cut the Flapperons and hinged them up.
View attachment 235651

Next was sussing out the mount. The original uses a skewer and elastic tie set up, but as you could probably tell, I want the wings to come apart, so I'll need a different solution. I measured out a piece of foam to join the top fuse and accompanying piece of plywood with an M8 Nylon nut recessed into it. Two additional pieces of plywood for each wing were also cut and drilled.
View attachment 235652

I glued them to the wings and also set a magnet into each spar for good measure.
View attachment 235653

With that sorted, I finally glued the wings over. Turns out I needed to bevel-cut the trailing wing spacer to allow for more movement in the flapperons - I think the original was just elevator and rudder.
View attachment 235654

Then I cut a hole for M8 bolt.
View attachment 235655

Next, I will need something to hold the front of the wing on. I sussed out a shape and drew that on plywood.
View attachment 235656

The front holders will run down the sides, allowing for windows to be cut into sides of the cockpit. The plywood will also provide a strong vertical mount: the wing will have notches to go up against these vertical to make the alignment easy to find and hold.

That's enough workshop for today. Hopefully tomorrow it will see completion. Here's a pic of it so far in all its gargantuan glory, propped up at the height I'd like it to stand on its landing gear, next to wheels I plan to use on it.
View attachment 235659

Very nice.

 

[mastermalpass]

The last two days of February were spent cutting the plywood leading wing holders, sticking some lengths of foam on the wings so they can easily find and hold their alignment, forming the landing gear and mounting points for them and finally rigging up servos.

The benefit to making such a big plane easy to disassemble, is it can take all of the awkwardness out of mounting them up and getting their control horns in place:

All these servo wires will need to be plugged into extension leads, so I labelled them to remember which plug they need to go into:

And with that, the plane is pretty much completed!

Being 100% hot glued, using a lot of that and also carrying lots of plywood and a heavy duty landing gear, the weight of this aircraft is up there. With it's giant wing and flapperons, I'm sure it can get all the lift it needs, so long as the power system can supply sufficient thrust.

It is an 8x6 slow fly prop, on a 1400kv motor, fed by a 40a ESC all supplied by a 2200mAh 4S, which I'm hoping will give enough with some head room to boot.

The part I am most proud of, is how easily it comes apart and goes back together. The three nylon bolts can be operated by hand and it only takes about two minutes to go from whole plane, to this: