Troop 17 Aviation Group
Member
Hello everyone, I'm planning my next build and come needing advice/ideas. I am planning on building a Ja 37 Viggen roughly following the FT plans (with extensive pro-scale modifications of course 
). Mods would include weapon rails and missiles, center mounted drop tank, nav/beacon/strobe/logo lights, and high intensity landing lights, scale paint scheme, afterburner LED's, and retracts. I plan to use Grayson Hobbies 70mm EDF Base set to power it and to make my own retracts following Hillda Flyers design (I can post a link if you guys do not know the one to which I'm referring). The problem that I'm running into, and that many others have ran into, is "how do you mount retracts on an FT Viggen, a plane with a wing only one sheet thick?" I have a few ideas on how to work around this, but am always open to suggestions:
1) Mount retracts in such a way that the mechanism is disguised by the weapon rail. This is aerodynamically inefficient though and the plane might not fly.
2) Create a layered KF style wing (4 layers thick) and sand it to shape. This would require quite a bit of hot glue, sanding, and carving to accomplish.
3) Create a fold over version of the Viggen wing. This would be insanely complicated to accomplish as the wing is curved and has a high angle sweep. Would most likely involve a multi-section folded wing design.
4) Create a balsa wing, monokote it, and paint it to match the rest of the model. Would be easy enough to do, but I've never worked with balsa before and would require new equipment and skills.
I would also like to mount the landing lights in the leading edge of the wings. This should be easily accomplished on a balsa wing as long as I skip monokote between the leading edge of two ribs. Thoughts on this? Thanks!
Sky Pirate
). Mods would include weapon rails and missiles, center mounted drop tank, nav/beacon/strobe/logo lights, and high intensity landing lights, scale paint scheme, afterburner LED's, and retracts. I plan to use Grayson Hobbies 70mm EDF Base set to power it and to make my own retracts following Hillda Flyers design (I can post a link if you guys do not know the one to which I'm referring). The problem that I'm running into, and that many others have ran into, is "how do you mount retracts on an FT Viggen, a plane with a wing only one sheet thick?" I have a few ideas on how to work around this, but am always open to suggestions:1) Mount retracts in such a way that the mechanism is disguised by the weapon rail. This is aerodynamically inefficient though and the plane might not fly.
2) Create a layered KF style wing (4 layers thick) and sand it to shape. This would require quite a bit of hot glue, sanding, and carving to accomplish.
3) Create a fold over version of the Viggen wing. This would be insanely complicated to accomplish as the wing is curved and has a high angle sweep. Would most likely involve a multi-section folded wing design.
4) Create a balsa wing, monokote it, and paint it to match the rest of the model. Would be easy enough to do, but I've never worked with balsa before and would require new equipment and skills.
I would also like to mount the landing lights in the leading edge of the wings. This should be easily accomplished on a balsa wing as long as I skip monokote between the leading edge of two ribs. Thoughts on this? Thanks!
Sky Pirate
