Mighty Mini Bf-109 Swappable - Build Thread

localfiend

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Oops. I was looking at pictures a few hours ago to see how hard this might be to do. Didn't plan on drawing anything yet, but it just kinda happened. :eek:


24.25" Wingspan, and should work well with both the F and the A power packs. I anticipate that weight will be similar to all the other mighty mini warbirds, and I'm hoping it will also be able to be built under 250 grams.



Here's the PDF of what I'll be building from for those who might want to look more closely. I imagine that a lot will change, like usual. I also won't have the formers, canopy, or decking stuff done until I fit stuff together by hand first.

Mighty Mini Bf-109 Beta v.1 Plans Tiled

I know most people don't put up plans until later in development, but I think it can be helpful to watch the process through from the beginning. If you're thinking about designing your own stuff, seeing other's early mistakes might help you out. :D

Should have been working on other projects, (have the new fuselage design for the Hughes Devastator printed out and awaiting building) but my work table is covered in fish tank stuff at the moment.

After this last work week being so busy I needed something to relieve some stress. I did some looking around the forums, and found some full size BF-109's and some 800mm versions that were based off the spitfire. Some of them looked pretty darn good, but they had a bit too much spitfire in them for me to want to shrink them down. Looks like TOWNC might be building a mini version, but it's way down towards the bottom of his list.


So, I decided to draw from a 3-view like I normally do:



Should be able to keep a lot more of the scale details this way. The Bf-109 is weird, the horizontal stabilizer is above the pilots head! This will be getting the full clear canopy treatment, and depending on how the hatch design turns out, I may just fit a scale cockpit into it from the beginning. The Bf-109 nose is way longer than the zero, so I should have plenty of room for added detail without worrying too much about balancing.

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Most Recent Version is Beta v.2

Mighty Mini Bf 109 Beta v.2 Full
Mighty Mini Bf 109 Beta v.2 Tiled
 
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Just getting started with RC flight, but hope to get my skills up to speed so I can fly all of these mini warbirds soon! Can't wait!

Thanks so much for your contributions on these. My favorite fighter planes definitely come from the WWII era.
 

envy

Junior Member
I'll be watching this thread with eager anticipation, I'm close to finishing the mini P-51 and it would be great to have somthing for it to dog fight with :D
 

localfiend

I like 3D printers...
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Just getting started with RC flight, but hope to get my skills up to speed so I can fly all of these mini warbirds soon! Can't wait!

Thanks so much for your contributions on these. My favorite fighter planes definitely come from the WWII era.

Build, fly, crash, repeat. Using FT style planes you can increase your skills very quickly. When you don't care so much about crashing, you spend more time flying and trying new things. You'll be to flying Warbirds in no time.

I'll be watching this thread with eager anticipation, I'm close to finishing the mini P-51 and it would be great to have somthing for it to dog fight with :D

That's the goal. The P-51 needed an enemy, just like the Zero complemented the Corsair.
 

localfiend

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Been doing a little "Research" in War Thunder.

Here's a few screenshots:











Even though it's very easy to get distracted the game is a great resource if you're trying to get a look at something you're having trouble designing. It has just about every WWII Warbird as well as a lot of the early jets. It's also free to play.

Sorry if I just sucked hours away from your life. :D
 

Sneeky7

Member
Ive been playing War Thunder all weekend. I've been trying to grind through to the Bf-109's, but I'm about 10x better at winning playing tanks than flying the airplanes. Thinking about just buying the Romanian 109G-2.

Been doing a little "Research" in War Thunder.

Here's a few screenshots:











Even though it's very easy to get distracted the game is a great resource if you're trying to get a look at something you're having trouble designing. It has just about every WWII Warbird as well as a lot of the early jets. It's also free to play.

Sorry if I just sucked hours away from your life. :D
 

localfiend

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Ive been playing War Thunder all weekend. I've been trying to grind through to the Bf-109's, but I'm about 10x better at winning playing tanks than flying the airplanes. Thinking about just buying the Romanian 109G-2.

I haven't even tried the tanks yet. Been to focused on flying. I mostly stick to US planes, just grabbed the Bf-109 to take it for a test drive and look at the canopy from the inside.


Building these things keeps getting faster and faster.

Not quite done, and I still have some things I want to change, but it's close.



All control surfaces are scale, except ailerons which I made a bit bigger. Would have been to hard to get a mm control horn on them otherwise. We'll see how it does in the air with such small vertical and horizontal stabilizers.



Toothpicks are great for these small planes. Elevator is raised up to it's proper height.



I have a few more scale touches to add. It needs exhaust, and once I install the power pod, it will be getting a radiator under the nose along with landing gear. Also needs the antenna installed, and I'm thinking of ways to make a simple steerable tail wheel.



Weight will be very close to all the other mighty mini warbirds. I'm thinking it may end up slightly lighter than the zero when the rest of the guts are installed.



Looks like a Bf-109. Hopefully it will fly like one. I want to destroy it with a P-51. :cool:

Reference pic:

 

Rasterize

Maker of skins and decals for foam board RC planes
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This is awesome! You are getting way to good and fast at this! I love the options there are for art for this thing but between Mustang variants, the Corsair, and the Zero I'm going to have some serious time management issues. Permission to suspend the Zero and work on this. :rolleyes:
I even have my RML color chart ready. :) Thinking one of Adolf Gallands color schemes.
But of course I'll wait till your done.
 

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localfiend

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This is awesome! You are getting way to good and fast at this! I love the options there are for art for this thing but between Mustang variants, the Corsair, and the Zero I'm going to have some serious time management issues. Permission to suspend the Zero and work on this. :rolleyes:
I even have my RML color chart ready. :) Thinking one of Adolf Gallands color schemes.
But of course I'll wait till your done.


Haha. Who am I to tell someone they have to finish projects in the order they start them. :D

Dunno when I'll finish this one, there's stuff I want to tweak, and I am going to be very busy this week. You may have to wait a bit for me to get a chance to fly it.

Lot's of room in this build at least:



Depending on where I have to place the servos for balancing, there may be room for a proper cockpit. We'll see. Leaving room for a 1300mah battery might be the better choice for flying. You could put on a bigger motor, and a decent sized 4s battery into this thing and possibly make something very fast.
 

SP0NZ

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Amazing! I'm pretty sure you are going to need to increase the size of your tail feathers though.
I think I need to pick up some additional electronics for the minis.
 

localfiend

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Amazing! I'm pretty sure you are going to need to increase the size of your tail feathers though.
I think I need to pick up some additional electronics for the minis.

Yeah, we'll have to see, if it doesn't work out, making them a bit bigger is easy. Like usual I err on the side of scale for the first build. My goal is to have a good flying plane, but I don't want it to be the same as all the others. In order to keep the hobby interesting I like to have different planes fly differently. Not necessarily better or worse, but unique.

I don't think stability is going to be an issue, not with the dihedral wings and super long tail. The length compared to the wingspan is quite a bit longer than most of the other warbirds. That may be flawed reasoning, but we'll see.

I left the scale counterbalances and am hoping that will give enough throw to make the plane fly well. Anyone know how much extra authority counterbalances give you? They seem to be on all the 3D type planes, and I don't know if that's more to help with servo torque, or control surface authority.

There's lots here I just don't know, but that's what's great about the minis. They're so fast to build that rapid prototyping is a breeze. I also need to order some more electronics, thought I had one more 12a esc, but it's disappeared.
 

localfiend

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I even have my RML color chart ready. :) Thinking one of Adolf Gallands color schemes.
But of course I'll wait till your done.

It will be awesome if you draw something up for this. I know very little about German aviation (aside from gunning them down in computer games at every opportunity), had to look up Adolf Galland.

I think something like this version would translate to the model well:



The yellow nose is all forward of the hatch, which would make lining things up a lot easier to get right. The mottled camo might be a pain though. The smoking Mickey mouse is kinda funny. Funnier after it gets knocked out of the sky. :cool:
 

Rasterize

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That's exactly the one I was thinking about. It was either that or Erich Hartmanns 109 (top) pictured here with Gallands.

Versions.jpg
 

localfiend

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That's exactly the one I was thinking about. It was either that or Erich Hartmanns 109 (top) pictured here with Gallands.

View attachment 61868

The one on top looks like it's one of the latest models. The canopy is different, and the nose is much smoother. I like it though.

Which reminds me, I think I can change some curves and get the nose looking better on the next version. I wanted to do something rounded like the Zero/Corsair, but the diameter is too small and narrow to allow for proper power pod fitment. It could probably be done, but the nose would be incredibly weak or a gigantic pain to build.


Also, for those who are interested at looking at such things, here's what the plans look like now:

Mighty Mini Bf 109 Beta v.2 Full
Mighty Mini Bf 109 Beta v.2 Tiled



Quite a bit has changed:

Fixed a bunch of miscolored lines
Moved some slots around
Fixed the H and V stab parts so they fit together
Moved the landing gear points
Strengthened the rear of the fuselage (it was way too weak on my first test)
Adjusted the angle on the bottom wing flap
Scrapped the last hatch design and started over
Drew up all the formers and decking
Added a canopy
Added under nose radiator
Drew up some additional decals to flesh out the plane a bit more
 
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localfiend

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Got distracted this weekend getting the Gladiator ready to go. Thought I was going to be indoors. Nope, looked at the calendar wrong. It's next month. :rolleyes:

So, the prototype build is completely done and ready to fly.

Weight with F pack without battery comes out to 159 grams.





And with an 850mAh 3s it's 239 grams.





Gonna try and fly it tomorrow if the weather is good. Hopefully these control surfaces will work.
 

localfiend

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Got a chance to test out the Bf 109 this morning. Met up with some of the combat crew at the local RC field.

Flies great! Got lucky on this one and nailed the CG for the maiden. Flies very smooth, roll rate is excellent without being twitchy, flies fast but can still be slowed down. Turns out the scale control surfaces are not a problem.

Was discussing this with some of the guys at the field. The tail length is about 3.5 times the wing chord, which is quite long, and is probably why things worked out well. If it works for full scale, it should be able to work when small. The rudder is even effective. You can snap roll with just the rudder and elevator, and it's quite clean.


So, I'll be organizing pictures of the build, and cleaning up plans for a build-able release. I think they're pretty much ready to go. Nothing really I want to change off the top of my head except for a bit of cosmetic work on the nose.
 

airhawk

Crashing Ace
love it congrats on the maiden i didn't know you play war thunder by the way i love that game it gives me some ideas for designs but in the past its never come out right
anyway great job.
Keep up the good work
-Airhawk