philgabanski
Active member
Anyone who loves jets aspires to have the most iconic planes in there fleet! For many that plane is the mighty Tomcat, immortalised after Tom Cruise and the Topgun movies!
While an amazing feet of engineering for its day, it was retired primarily due to maintenance costs and complexity of its VG wing system! It's this very system that makes the RC version either very expensive to Buy, complex and difficult to scratch build along with having to maintain and trouble shoot the wing system!
You do see a few simple fixed wing profile versions getting around and credit to the creators who use their artistic ability to give a scale look while in the air! But they lack a certain something.
Now I've been building various semi profile parkjets over the years. They are quick to build, cover an extremely broad performance envelope and with a little paint and detail, look the part as well. Cut out a few parts, a night with the glue gun and pretty soon you have a cool looking jet! Be it a Teen series, a Mig or SU, or even a later stealth fighter!
At some point while drawing out a potential plan for an F-14, I looked at the drawings and thought, what if the wings didn't move! I thought what if I used a KFm step to emulate the appearance of the swept back wing! Essentially a delta wing parkjet with a KFm2/3 step.
So I cut out the wing plate, wing and glove peices and started to lay them out. I was happy with what I saw so continued to build!
After layering the wing pieces, moved onto the intakes and under side!
And fill in the fuselage!
Paint it up, using a different colour for the "elevators" to better differentiate from the main wing!
Add tail, some details and electrics and you have a low cost, low maintenance easier to build tomcat!
This plane is built with basic electrics, just 2 servos with elevon mix, and esc, a motor, battery and receiver. Thats it!!!
How does it fly? Like a powered lawn dart! Its fast, rolls hard so needs some care taken. But a real blast to fly!
I'll post some flight footage (including a crash) when I get it cleaned up!
What to build next?
While an amazing feet of engineering for its day, it was retired primarily due to maintenance costs and complexity of its VG wing system! It's this very system that makes the RC version either very expensive to Buy, complex and difficult to scratch build along with having to maintain and trouble shoot the wing system!
You do see a few simple fixed wing profile versions getting around and credit to the creators who use their artistic ability to give a scale look while in the air! But they lack a certain something.
Now I've been building various semi profile parkjets over the years. They are quick to build, cover an extremely broad performance envelope and with a little paint and detail, look the part as well. Cut out a few parts, a night with the glue gun and pretty soon you have a cool looking jet! Be it a Teen series, a Mig or SU, or even a later stealth fighter!
At some point while drawing out a potential plan for an F-14, I looked at the drawings and thought, what if the wings didn't move! I thought what if I used a KFm step to emulate the appearance of the swept back wing! Essentially a delta wing parkjet with a KFm2/3 step.
So I cut out the wing plate, wing and glove peices and started to lay them out. I was happy with what I saw so continued to build!
After layering the wing pieces, moved onto the intakes and under side!
And fill in the fuselage!
Paint it up, using a different colour for the "elevators" to better differentiate from the main wing!
Add tail, some details and electrics and you have a low cost, low maintenance easier to build tomcat!
This plane is built with basic electrics, just 2 servos with elevon mix, and esc, a motor, battery and receiver. Thats it!!!
How does it fly? Like a powered lawn dart! Its fast, rolls hard so needs some care taken. But a real blast to fly!
I'll post some flight footage (including a crash) when I get it cleaned up!
What to build next?
