My Mighty Mini Spitfire

[GremlinRC]

Hi Flitetesters.

As this is my very first post here its probably a good idea to introduce myself. I'm Dave from Ireland. I've been building FT planes for a while now and I'm so thankful to the FT community for bringing me a whole new hobby. I really enjoy scratchbuilding to the point where I'm getting comfortable with either modifying existing designs or making whole new ones.

This is my un-maidened Mighty Mini Spitfire.



Its a hybrid with a scaled down version of the original FT Spit flight surfaces. The fuse is my own design but influenced heavily by the design of the MM Mustang.

As you can see its got a hatch like the MM Mustang.



I do like to try and round surfaces where possible. So the nose was built up with layers of foamboard and the carved sanded to shape. You can also see here that I wanted to get the bottom of the wing flush with the fuse. I managed that by adding a layer of FB on top of the wing to provide an surface to glue against inside the fuse.



The other detail I wanted to add was a decent canopy. I built a small vacformer a while back and have had good success with it. Here's a little vid of me vacforming the canopy for this spit. Sorry about the poor video quality.

.and here's a close up pic after it was cut mounted and painted.
Here you can also see the wing root fairing (is that the right word?) which I think really makes a spitfire stand out.



Overall I'm happy with the build, as always there's lots to do better but were all learning this as we go along. Finally if anyone fancies having a go at this here is a basic plan for the major components.

View attachment spit9_DG620mm_mini.pdf
..and a template for the wing root fairing.
View attachment mini_fairing.pdf

I may be able to produce a more detailed plan but that will involve a second build so I'll see how this one flies (or doesn't).

Lastly sure I may as well include a video of another FT maiden, this is my FT Mini Trainer. Actually it wasn't quite the maiden, it was the second flight after my wife didn't press the magic record button on the actual maiden

...again I want to thank the guys at flitetest for what they've given and look forward to lots more fun with flitetest.

Regards,

Dave.

 

[Rasterize]

Awesome work Dave! I especially love the canopy. I have seen several made from transparencies but they never quite capture the shape.
Will you be adding cockpit details?

 

[localfiend]

Cool man, what's the wingspan? I mad a micro spitfire based on David's plans, but I changed the airfoil to get it lighter and it went badly. Looking at yours, i5 should do fine.

Never looked at vacuum forming before. What are you using for material? Is it heated?

 

[GremlinRC]

Will you be adding cockpit details?

Thanks dude. I plan to build a second (in trop camo likely) once I see how this one flies (or doesn't) its the cog of these things that worries me, I've already had another design crash and burn because it was tail heavy. One of the plans with this is definitely to add a scale cockpit and a pilot

Cool man, what's the wingspan? I mad a micro spitfire based on David's plans, but I changed the airfoil to get it lighter and it went badly. Looking at yours, i5 should do fine.

Never looked at vacuum forming before. What are you using for material? Is it heated?

The wingspan is 620mm/24.4in

Localfiend I've just been looking at your micro spit, awesome work there. I just love how you and rasterize are replacing the paper with your own custom artwork. I wish I could do that. Unfortunately the foam board we get here in Ireland is not like the DT foam board in the U.S. The paper is slightly thicker, shinier, and doesn't peel off. I suppose I could get plain depron

The canopy is vacuum formed from 1mm polycarbonate sheet (think its sold as lexan in the U.S.). My usual worklow is to heat it up in the oven at 170c/338F until the A4 sheet sags about 1.5 inches at the center. The in one very swift and well rehearsed motion its placed over the plug and pressed down on the vacuum plate. It took me a few goes initially to get it right, but once you got it down, its soooo easy. The hard part is carving the plug. For that I use balsa as its so easy to carve and shape. It does leave a little residue on the contact side, but that cleans up easy with some micromesh. The really cool thing is, it I break it, I can just pull another

 

[Ron B]

nice job

 

[localfiend]

Localfiend I've just been looking at your micro spit, awesome work there. I just love how you and rasterize are replacing the paper with your own custom artwork. I wish I could do that. Unfortunately the foam board we get here in Ireland is not like the DT foam board in the U.S. The paper is slightly thicker, shinier, and doesn't peel off. I suppose I could get plain depron

Depron would work just fine, though I think it's usually 6mm. I've also sprayed depron directly with Super 77 spray adhesive, it doesn't melt like DTF does. Might make things easier if you can spray the foam and not the paper.

There's also this:

13.23 per case from the UK warehouse.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/..._5mm_x_500mm_x_700mm_White_UK_Warehouse_.html

It's 5mm, same width as DTF, so all of the plans would just work. I ordered a case of the 3mm to play with for micros. People are saying it's like depron. I'll know more when mine gets here.