Pilot-294
Senior Member
looking into designing and building a seaplane. i have some sketches and ideas to do it, but im still debating how to go about it. im working off a design that is heavily based on the plane from the movie porco rosso. i have some sketches in the working and i dont want it to be exactly like the one from the movie but similar idea. basically its a long cylindrical fuselage, strut-mounted high wing above the aft section of the nose and a pod style engine above the wing. i want to do about a 4-5' wing with 3.5-4' fuselage if its the 4' wing. longer for the 5'. i want to use blue foam as a base, with balsa ribs in strategic locations and spars in both the sides and bottom of the fuse. ill use most likely copper tubes for all struts and piano or guitar string for the strut bracing. i was thinking about a 500 class sport motor for the engine and a 2200-3000 mah batt. my biggest concern is where the wing is mounted. when i redesigned it the way i wanted the nose seemed to be terribly short and im worried about the cg being too far foreword to be stable and a good flier. i also want to use fiberglass for the skin (very thin) for the fact of being well waterproofed. ill post pics of my sketches tonight.