Very Mighty Mini Douglas A-26 Invader

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Fuselage complete! Or at least fully roughed out.

26" wingspan. I'll call it an A-26; in truth, design inspiration was taken from both B-25 and A-26.

Both bombers are pretty much the same size. I've kept the wingspan proportionally to scale but substantially increased chord. With that much wing it should fly like a kite. The fuselage is to scale, but the lines smoothed a bit like on the B-25. Those big engine nacelles were scale in plan and side elevation, but a square cross-section always looks bulkier than round, so then I re-made them 2/10ths of an inch smaller on each side of the square. Tail surfaces are quite a bit larger too.

I was so afraid of the day where I would want to curve FB like the Master Series designs. I planned to build this with a cardstock top to the fuselage. During construction I just rolled over to complete FB throughout. (I still don't really know how that happened!) I'm so pleased with the result. Much victory! Very success!

I now see how paint will fix all evils.

It might be a while until it flies, it'll need to be finished up and I have some other things to attend to for a bit, but I'll post the results.

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At this scale the geometry dictated that I need to remove a bit of the wing within the fuselage to have enough height for the battery. I'd love to keep the battery forward of the wing but I believe it'll need to overlap the leading edge. I did add a flat plate of plywood in that hole (not shown). Next time I'll beef up the wing with more plywood stringers where I can alongside my foam spars near the glue line to avoid wing folding. Let's hope it's fine the way it is.
 
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jfaleo1

Junior Member
View attachment 165989
Fuselage complete! Or at least fully roughed out.

26" wingspan. I'll call it an A-26; in truth, design inspiration was taken from both B-25 and A-26.

Both bombers are pretty much the same size. I've kept the wingspan proportionally to scale but substantially increased chord. With that much wing it should fly like a kite. The fuselage is to scale, but the lines smoothed a bit like on the B-25. Those big engine nacelles were scale in plan and side elevation, but a square cross-section always looks bulkier than round, so then I re-made them 2/10ths of an inch smaller on each side of the square. Tail surfaces are quite a bit larger too.

I was so afraid of the day where I would want to curve FB like the Master Series designs. I planned to build this with a cardstock top to the fuselage. During construction I just rolled over to complete FB throughout. (I still don't really know how that happened!) I'm so pleased with the result. Much victory! Very success!

I now see how paint will fix all evils.

It might be a while until it flies, it'll need to be finished up and I have some other things to attend to for a bit, but I'll post the results.

View attachment 165990 View attachment 165991 View attachment 165992

At this scale the geometry dictated that I need to remove a bit of the wing within the fuselage to have enough height for the battery. I'd love to keep the battery forward of the wing but I believe it'll need to overlap the leading edge. I did add a flat plate of plywood in that hole (not shown). Next time I'll beef up the wing with more plywood stringers where I can alongside my foam spars near the glue line to avoid wing folding. Let's hope it's fine the way it is.

Well done this was my grandfathers favorite airplane. If you post plans I will run a build on it to test it out. looks great.
 
Well done this was my grandfathers favorite airplane. If you post plans I will run a build on it to test it out. looks great.
Thank you much Jeff. At my present level this feels like a big accomplishment.
One of the things I do @ work is intensive Cad drafting. I drew up the plans as far as my needs we concerned but I'd need to "dress" them a lot more to get them closer the the FT cutout template style. Some of the more hairy details I figured out as I went along. Shaping the nacelles to the wing and building the fuse around the wing is really more custom work (I'm still not getting the exact airfoil section that I draw. Seems to be some variation in the builds...) Cutting and shaping the fuse top pieces was done on the workbench.
How about: Let me share what I have right now and you take a look and see what you think.
 
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jfaleo1

Junior Member
Thank you much Jeff. At my present level this feels like a big accomplishment.
One of the things I do @ work is intensive Cad drafting. I drew up the plans as far as my needs we concerned but I'd need to "dress" them a lot more to get them closer the the FT cutout template style. Some of the more hairy details I figured out as I went along. Shaping the nacelles to the wing and building the fuse around the wing is really more custom work (I'm still not getting the exact airfoil section that I draw. Seems to be some variation in the builds...) Cutting and shaping the fuse top pieces was done on the workbench.
How about: Let me share what I have right now and you take a look and see what you think.

I'm terrible at making plans personally but pretty good at evaluating them. most of what I do is basic starting point templates and then beat to fit and paint to match. I may be an instructor now but I was an aircraft sheetmetal and structural mechanic (A&P) so reading drawings was what I did.
 
I'm terrible at making plans personally but pretty good at evaluating them. most of what I do is basic starting point templates and then beat to fit and paint to match. I may be an instructor now but I was an aircraft sheetmetal and structural mechanic (A&P) so reading drawings was what I did.
Haha "and then beat to fit"! Paint'll fix it.
 
I'm terrible at making plans personally but pretty good at evaluating them. most of what I do is basic starting point templates and then beat to fit and paint to match. I may be an instructor now but I was an aircraft sheetmetal and structural mechanic (A&P) so reading drawings was what I did.
And I bet this one'll need a REALLY big hammer!
 
I'll print them out and take a look. wish I had 11X17 paper on hand but they will tile out okay. They look good compared to what I usually start with. Thanks.
No thank you Jeff. I'm new here and I'm sort of startled a veteran jumps in to consider building a 2nd prototype. It's small; scale or edit as you think best. Ask any questions you have. Thanks brother.
 

jfaleo1

Junior Member
No thank you Jeff. I'm new here and I'm sort of startled a veteran jumps in to consider building a 2nd prototype. It's small; scale or edit as you think best. Ask any questions you have. Thanks brother.

The idea here is community. It matters not how long someone has been here, everyone is welcome and equal.
Small is great with me, easy to transport and cheap. Plus I really like the A-26.
The guy to ask for help in many cases especially with plans is @Grifflyer, at less than half my age, he has many times my skills as a designer and builder (darn good pilot too), but I love the build it is my "sanity time" right now and I have enough DTFB stocked up for a nice small build. A little known thing is the man who founded Flightsafety International (my employer) had A-26 time so it is double duty for me.
 
I love when everything falls together even better than you could have hoped. Your grandfather. Your employer, and then you, a sheetmetal & structural mechanic. Sounds almost like a machinist to me. My dad started out in a machinist shop. Later he went on to work for Boeing with their engineering dept. During Vietnam they sent him to Pensacola to teach the marines how to fix their Chinooks. He knew every nut & bolt in the CH-47.

I'll PM you a little more info on this model and what I did and why. And then you do it a better way.
 

jfaleo1

Junior Member
I love when everything falls together even better than you could have hoped. Your grandfather. Your employer, and then you, a sheetmetal & structural mechanic. Sounds almost like a machinist to me. My dad started out in a machinist shop. Later he went on to work for Boeing with their engineering dept. During Vietnam they sent him to Pensacola to teach the marines how to fix their Chinooks. He knew every nut & bolt in the CH-47.

I'll PM you a little more info on this model and what I did and why. And then you do it a better way.

I'm glad to help, I will slide this in with the other 5 projects going right now. LOL

My Avro Arrow, is almost flight ready, my 6s @Grifflyer 70mm L-39 is ready to mount the wing and set up flight controls (once I figure out if I am adding flaps), my mini "Bird" is done ( I will post that one soon), my 200% White Diamond is undergoing a major power plant upgrade (from 2 X 50mm to 2 x 70mm edfs and a "fuselage mod". And one more long long term project I am resurrecting and going back to work on.

Your A-26 has moved up to head of the line fo the most part.
 

jfaleo1

Junior Member
And then you do it a better way.

Well I started with this I opened the files in a vector art program and arranged parts templates to be cut on a single 20 x 30 page (saving paper). looks like the whole of the plane can be made from less than 2 sheets nice work. I will be using a lot of scrap on hand for parts too(y)
 
Yeah my box of scrap is getting way too deep... We should start a build thread of Mega-Ultra-Micro Scrap Planes. (Swappables of course.) :p
 
@Monte.C - that is one very clean build - well done. Did you laser cut or hot wire cut some pieces?
Nah it's all with a utility knife and x-acto and little sanding block and little files and sweat and tears and lost sleep and therapy and failed marriages.

Just kidding, I'm not married.
 
@CapnBry I think we've refined the BBQ skewer hatch tie-down to a bare minimum. I've now got it fitting within the thickness of one layer of foamboard (plus one subway pass).

Many thanks to Starbucks for providing coffee stirrers for building material. (Attn Starbucks, I'm open to considering sponsorship. What's your best offer?)

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