BATTLEAXE
Legendary member
The Shrubsmacker had me thinking of another build I wanted to do since I already built the Speedster and the SE5. Smash them together! Here it is. tell me what you think:
It's not my prettiest build on the details sense. But it was quick and I think it will work. Now I haven't put in the electronics yet and I think it will make a good indoor flyer. Still using the F Pack but dial it down on the throttle some and it should fly well. Of coarse it's still a 3 channel but it should take a good beating too. I am planning on reinforcing the front end a bit with some poster board to help the PP from ripping through the foam... I know what you're goin to say, "What about the exhaust stacks that you didn't use to beef up the skewers?" I like the cleaner look
What did I do to it:
1. I extended the tail by 2" not only to get further away from the full cartoony look of the original Speedster but also to extend the moment between the wing and the horizontal stabilizer to calm down the pitch and yaw tendencies I experienced in the Speedster and SE5. Now this may add more ail weight but I also omitted the far aft bottom plate to make that up some. plus the added wing on top may add more weight to the nose in front of the CG. There is also the wing lift to drag ratio that is added given the top wing is now a factor, the maiden will tell that story.
2. The top wing was a must of coarse... being a biplane that is. I used the same build process for the added top wing as on the SE5, (same spacer plate style to maintain the height of the wing throughout). Instead of using DTFB for the struts completely I used bbq skewers. When I did fly the SE5 it was a bit of a damp day after a night rain and I couldn't wait to try it. After a few crashes in the backyard the struts became weak, warped and quickly fell apart. to fix it I skewered the hell out of it and it was solid... actually the only part of the plane that held up given the fact that my experience level is hard on planes. So I started it with the skewers to save the headache later. I also dropped the top wing by an inch for the speedier look... although I have heard that the original SE5 design had to have the wing raised for functionality improvements I found it looked to top heavy. Again the maiden will tell me that story as well.
3. The wing itself on the SE5 had dihedral split in 2 places, I changed it to one split in the center for ease of building and symmetry. The original Speedster had polyhedral but I decided it would look better with dihedral... more realistic. I also used the original shape of the Speedster wing but shortened the bottom wing by 1.5" total to make the top wing look more dominant. Like the SE5 the top wing is swept forward from the bottom. The bottom wing has also been dropped from its original position by an 1.25" overall to complete the biplane look. I doing this the center trailing edge had to be knocked out to fit in the fuse, same knock out was done to the top wing for effect. Actually looking at it from the side the trailing edge of the wing hangs down below the fuse and looks super sharp. Since the wing was dropped and notched I had noticed that I wouldn't be able to slide the wing directly into the side like on the Speedster or the Scout so I cut the back half of the bottom plate, which I also extended for support of the wing, folded the bottom flap forward from the front, placed the wing in, centered and glued it all back shut. Solid. The Speedster that I built before took hits to the wing via cartwheels and tore the wing out the bottom out the trailing edge. Hope this won't happen again.
There was a post on here, I forget from who, about a Mini Scout Biplane and it inspired me to do this one. The things I did like about the SE5 was that it was a slow flyer plane with the nostalgic biplane look, which got me to building it in the first place. And it was a more challenging build given it was one of my first MM. On top of that it also had a solid nose construction which on the other side of the coin made it less adaptable to fly. i tried a 5" prop on it and there wasn't enough prop to was around the huge blunt nose, I found anyway. So the sleeker design of the Speedster was more appealing to build a biplane from
Can't wait to fly this one. I'll let you all know how it works out and maybe get some video for you all to enjoy. Thx for checkin out my post and pls leave comments, I really appreciate the feedback.
Keep it shiny side up
It's not my prettiest build on the details sense. But it was quick and I think it will work. Now I haven't put in the electronics yet and I think it will make a good indoor flyer. Still using the F Pack but dial it down on the throttle some and it should fly well. Of coarse it's still a 3 channel but it should take a good beating too. I am planning on reinforcing the front end a bit with some poster board to help the PP from ripping through the foam... I know what you're goin to say, "What about the exhaust stacks that you didn't use to beef up the skewers?" I like the cleaner look
What did I do to it:
1. I extended the tail by 2" not only to get further away from the full cartoony look of the original Speedster but also to extend the moment between the wing and the horizontal stabilizer to calm down the pitch and yaw tendencies I experienced in the Speedster and SE5. Now this may add more ail weight but I also omitted the far aft bottom plate to make that up some. plus the added wing on top may add more weight to the nose in front of the CG. There is also the wing lift to drag ratio that is added given the top wing is now a factor, the maiden will tell that story.
2. The top wing was a must of coarse... being a biplane that is. I used the same build process for the added top wing as on the SE5, (same spacer plate style to maintain the height of the wing throughout). Instead of using DTFB for the struts completely I used bbq skewers. When I did fly the SE5 it was a bit of a damp day after a night rain and I couldn't wait to try it. After a few crashes in the backyard the struts became weak, warped and quickly fell apart. to fix it I skewered the hell out of it and it was solid... actually the only part of the plane that held up given the fact that my experience level is hard on planes. So I started it with the skewers to save the headache later. I also dropped the top wing by an inch for the speedier look... although I have heard that the original SE5 design had to have the wing raised for functionality improvements I found it looked to top heavy. Again the maiden will tell me that story as well.
3. The wing itself on the SE5 had dihedral split in 2 places, I changed it to one split in the center for ease of building and symmetry. The original Speedster had polyhedral but I decided it would look better with dihedral... more realistic. I also used the original shape of the Speedster wing but shortened the bottom wing by 1.5" total to make the top wing look more dominant. Like the SE5 the top wing is swept forward from the bottom. The bottom wing has also been dropped from its original position by an 1.25" overall to complete the biplane look. I doing this the center trailing edge had to be knocked out to fit in the fuse, same knock out was done to the top wing for effect. Actually looking at it from the side the trailing edge of the wing hangs down below the fuse and looks super sharp. Since the wing was dropped and notched I had noticed that I wouldn't be able to slide the wing directly into the side like on the Speedster or the Scout so I cut the back half of the bottom plate, which I also extended for support of the wing, folded the bottom flap forward from the front, placed the wing in, centered and glued it all back shut. Solid. The Speedster that I built before took hits to the wing via cartwheels and tore the wing out the bottom out the trailing edge. Hope this won't happen again.
There was a post on here, I forget from who, about a Mini Scout Biplane and it inspired me to do this one. The things I did like about the SE5 was that it was a slow flyer plane with the nostalgic biplane look, which got me to building it in the first place. And it was a more challenging build given it was one of my first MM. On top of that it also had a solid nose construction which on the other side of the coin made it less adaptable to fly. i tried a 5" prop on it and there wasn't enough prop to was around the huge blunt nose, I found anyway. So the sleeker design of the Speedster was more appealing to build a biplane from
Can't wait to fly this one. I'll let you all know how it works out and maybe get some video for you all to enjoy. Thx for checkin out my post and pls leave comments, I really appreciate the feedback.
Keep it shiny side up
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