OlliePackman
Active member
I have just bought a rake of foam board and I am planning on building a large scale Wellington bomber out of it. I don't have any plans or anything this is a complete new scratch build which I am just going to throw myself into and do everything by eye. If its any good then I'll put electrics in it. If not it's a chuck glider lol. Anyway, I digress, I am fairly confident with everything except from the wings really. Because its going to be quite big and I don't want to use a ton of balsa for the spars, I'm going to do the traditional balsa method with ribs along the wing but with foam. I have watched a ton of YouTube videos but the only 2 thing I am not confident on is:
1. The shape of the ribs because this obviously determines the airfoil. I could just eyeball it but I want it to be done properly so if someone could send me a picture that I could print off for a rough guide to cut the 2 balsa guides for the hot wire then that would really help unless there is another way to cut the ribs other than hot wire and free hand because I'm not doing free hand.
2. How you get the more angular wing. All the flite test planes I have built are either the same width all the way down the wing or they are just cut at an angle at the trailing edge because it won't effect the ribs inside because there are no ribs it's just a spar. So how do I like change the shape of each rib as they get further down the wing to get the wing to be smaller width wise as it gets further away from the fuselage. I'm thinking maybe cut the trailing edge off incrementally as it goes up the wing, then stick a long thin strip of foam board up the trailing edge which will be at an angle and then I'm able to cut the foam at an angle. This will also enable me to cut ailerons in easily because I won't have to cut any ribs but I don't know if that's the right procedure.
1. The shape of the ribs because this obviously determines the airfoil. I could just eyeball it but I want it to be done properly so if someone could send me a picture that I could print off for a rough guide to cut the 2 balsa guides for the hot wire then that would really help unless there is another way to cut the ribs other than hot wire and free hand because I'm not doing free hand.
2. How you get the more angular wing. All the flite test planes I have built are either the same width all the way down the wing or they are just cut at an angle at the trailing edge because it won't effect the ribs inside because there are no ribs it's just a spar. So how do I like change the shape of each rib as they get further down the wing to get the wing to be smaller width wise as it gets further away from the fuselage. I'm thinking maybe cut the trailing edge off incrementally as it goes up the wing, then stick a long thin strip of foam board up the trailing edge which will be at an angle and then I'm able to cut the foam at an angle. This will also enable me to cut ailerons in easily because I won't have to cut any ribs but I don't know if that's the right procedure.
