Re: Vintage RC PBY Catalina
I have being doing lots of work on my Catalina and made lots of changes to it. If you ever going to build one of these you better learn how to bend balsa. Okay so if you look at the fuselage plans it really doesn't make any sense how the fuselage all ties together. Afler lots of head scratching and beer I finally figured it out. I ended up doing lots of mods to the structure to get it too work for me and simplyfy it. Here is some of the changes I have made:
- I lowered the interior cutouts of all the formers so that there is some material left to jig it with. If you look at the plans you will see what I mean.
- Moved the wing separatiion joint out a couple of ribs and going to use wing tubes for the wing joiner. Made more sense to have the joint where the wing tapers. It also results in the center wing being wider but I have a trailer to transport it.
- I wasn't going to put landing gear on it but changed my mind. The plans call for huge chunks of wood for the landing gear so simplyfied that also by moving the main gear aft to make it lighter and more functional.
- The outer wings are going to be cut from foam as I'm going to be fiberglassing and painting the entire aircraft. I have a crappy time trying to fully sheet a built up structure.
The build is going to slow down for a little while as I have a 40% Carden Extra 260 arriving next week.
__________________
Mike
Per Ardua Ad Astral
Keep Canada Beautiful, Crash a ARF
Last edited by Mike Sebastien; 10-24-2009 at 04:00 PM.
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