speedbirdted
Legendary member
Some of you know how lately I've had to downsize my workshop considerably so that kinda prevents me from doing any large scale building for the time being until I can get back into my normal shop. But it doesn't stop me from building completely 
So for now I am in small airplane mode. You might have seen the Pacific Ace in my other thread that I built a new wing for and cleaned up the fuselage, and it flies beautifully - however I tried it indoors in a gym and while it could do it it was really begging for more room. So it's now a park flyer - but I still have the indoor plane void to fill
Went on Aerofred and found this! Like the Pacific Ace, but it's a 20" wingspan. I think this was kitted by someone (Modelcraft?) because this is a redrawn plan from the early 2000s. I was given this plan ages ago at a SAM meetup and it just kind of sat until today.
I have a bunch of these all-in-one bricks and geared coreless motors lying around out of UMX planes that died horribly (I think this one was from a Vapor that fought a heli and was literally turned to powder) I thrust tested this motor and it gives about 30g which should be fine up to 50g ish. All the electronics by themselves are something like 13g so that leaves some room for airframe weight.
Other than adding an elevator and somewhere to put the electronics I think I won't really have to deviate from the plans in any major way. This is where they will sit. There's enough room for the battery and board to lay side by side. The wing can come off, which is nice - a lot of the time with rubber planes the wing is glued on and you have to make some sort of weird hatch or secure the battery to the bottom when you use electric power.
To keep it light... I'm going to cover it in this stuff. Tissue is really not my specialty (outside making a couple test squares I've never even touched the stuff in my life) so I tried to pick a fairly simple airplane to do which would keep compound curves and the like to a minimum.
This was just the stuff I could find lying around my house. I don't know where it came from and frankly I don't know if it'll work - is there a special kind of tissue that's better for airplane use? It seems to shrink up plenty tight...
I'm not sure which colors to use. White for the fuselage and rudder seems like it would look nice with yellow or green wings...
That also leads into my next dilemma - I'm running out of dope to use! I was given a mostly empty bottle of Eze-Dope by a club member after we had a discussion about tissue models. I don't think it'll be enough to complete an airplane with which makes me think do I either just buy more, or do what some people seem to do which is just use a 50/50 mix of alcohol and water to shrink the tissue and stick it down with school glue? I tried both and the shrinkage and adhesion both seem fine. Are there any cheers/jeers with either method which I'm missing?
I also need to get another balsa stripper before I can even start this build. My old one got lost in the commotion of having to move all my modelling stuff into another room. (it also wasn't really meant to be a permanent solution)
More to come...
So for now I am in small airplane mode. You might have seen the Pacific Ace in my other thread that I built a new wing for and cleaned up the fuselage, and it flies beautifully - however I tried it indoors in a gym and while it could do it it was really begging for more room. So it's now a park flyer - but I still have the indoor plane void to fill Went on Aerofred and found this! Like the Pacific Ace, but it's a 20" wingspan. I think this was kitted by someone (Modelcraft?) because this is a redrawn plan from the early 2000s. I was given this plan ages ago at a SAM meetup and it just kind of sat until today.
I have a bunch of these all-in-one bricks and geared coreless motors lying around out of UMX planes that died horribly (I think this one was from a Vapor that fought a heli and was literally turned to powder) I thrust tested this motor and it gives about 30g which should be fine up to 50g ish. All the electronics by themselves are something like 13g so that leaves some room for airframe weight.
Other than adding an elevator and somewhere to put the electronics I think I won't really have to deviate from the plans in any major way. This is where they will sit. There's enough room for the battery and board to lay side by side. The wing can come off, which is nice - a lot of the time with rubber planes the wing is glued on and you have to make some sort of weird hatch or secure the battery to the bottom when you use electric power.
To keep it light... I'm going to cover it in this stuff. Tissue is really not my specialty (outside making a couple test squares I've never even touched the stuff in my life) so I tried to pick a fairly simple airplane to do which would keep compound curves and the like to a minimum.
This was just the stuff I could find lying around my house. I don't know where it came from and frankly I don't know if it'll work - is there a special kind of tissue that's better for airplane use? It seems to shrink up plenty tight...
I'm not sure which colors to use. White for the fuselage and rudder seems like it would look nice with yellow or green wings...
That also leads into my next dilemma - I'm running out of dope to use! I was given a mostly empty bottle of Eze-Dope by a club member after we had a discussion about tissue models. I don't think it'll be enough to complete an airplane with which makes me think do I either just buy more, or do what some people seem to do which is just use a 50/50 mix of alcohol and water to shrink the tissue and stick it down with school glue? I tried both and the shrinkage and adhesion both seem fine. Are there any cheers/jeers with either method which I'm missing?
I also need to get another balsa stripper before I can even start this build. My old one got lost in the commotion of having to move all my modelling stuff into another room. (it also wasn't really meant to be a permanent solution)
More to come...
