[Dutkoski]

Thought I'd give this nice looking vintage sport pattern plane a go. Instead of all foam, I'll build the fuselage out of balsa with a foam turtle deck. The vertical fin and horizontal stab will be 1/8" balsa slab. The wing will be white beaded foam hotwired to shape and after sanding, a very light skim of drywall compound, sanded smooth and covered in 1/2 oz fiberglass cloth and urethane clear coat. The airfoil for the wingroot is a NACA 0015 and the wing tip is a NACA 0013

The balsa will be covered in heat shrink as I have rolls of the stuff. I could also forgo the heat shrink and simply apply a few coats of urethane to seal the wood and then airbrush a colour on it.

The really neat thing, the small electric retract units will fit nicely, so why not

It'll have a 40" wingspan and my target weight is about 20 oz's with battery. Without the retracts, the weight could be a few oz's less and maybe I will need to go that way, unless I can find a spare 6 channel receiver in the workshop.

I'll be using a Mega motor, 25 or 30 amp ESC, a 1000 mah two cell battery and four servos.

Hope to have it ready before the 17th of this month. The fuselage patterns have been made and the build will begin tonight

[Dutkoski]

The main fuselage, tail feathers and motor mount installed. Everything turned out really nice, very happy with the results. The fuselage with rudder is 35" in length and weighs 2.8 oz. so far. After sanding and installing the foam turtleneck, forward upper fuselage section and of course, the canopy, I figure it'll weigh around 4.5 oz..

[Max]

You plan on flying that indoor, John?
I'm wondering it it would be too fast for its size and weight??

[Dutkoski]

Hoping to, the motor and prop produces 140 watts of power at full throttle. We are having an event next Sunday at the Wet And Wild dome in Brampton. So the venue will be big enough. I'll hope to test fly it this week and see how slow it'll fly. The foamie Das Ugly Stik slows down nicely, so hoping this one will too.

The airfoil is pretty thick which should help with that.

What would have been nice is a small version of the Astro Hog, I had one, flew it on a Super Tiger 60. Would slow down to a crawl, great flying yet boring plane.

[Max]

I suppose it might be OK if you are flying it in a dome. In my mind I was only thinking inside a low-roofed gymnasium.

[Dutkoski]

That would be interesting Max, a lot of left turns quickly.

[Dutkoski]

Couldn't work on this project for a couple of days as luck would have it, so getting it completely done by Sunday is unlikely, however, it might be in flying condition, just not painted.

Got the wing data into the CNC program and I now have two very nice yet most important, light foam wings with a nice airfoil. Each panel came out at 1.05 oz, so 2.1 oz's for the wings.

So, I weighed all the other items, four servo's, prop, spinner, wheels, motor and ESC, less the battery, the whole assembly is 10.5 oz's so far.

So, the retracts are out, simple fixed landing gear is in. The turtle deck, cockpit and front upper fuselage still need to be made, mostly will be foam with some balsa.

I think I can make this model under target weight which will be very nice for a 40" wingspan pattern plane.

[Dutkoski]

The ailerons on the plans are full length of the wing panel, but are only 1" thick. After seeing the indoor models at the club events, I saw the ailerons were most times quite a bit bigger than outdoor models. So, I increased the size to 1.5".

The hinge material is 1 oz fiberglass cloth, 5/8" wide. It is bonded in place with Flecto water base urethane clear coat.

The hinging material and epoxy that bonds the two wing panels together increased the over weight by .01 oz

So, the wing tips the scales at 2.20 oz. not too bad at all.

As luck would have it, this model will not get finished, even partly finished, by tomorrow, also, I will not be able to go to the indoor flying event. I'll be doing drywall repairs at my daughter's new house, this is after the drywallers hired by the real estate developers repaired the drywall issues. It's amazing how they try to cover up mistakes instead of simply doing the repair properly, not much extra effort.

[Max]

Originally Posted by Dutkoski

As luck would have it, this model will not get finished, even partly finished, by tomorrow, also, I will not be able to go to the indoor flying event. ..

Heh.. Sounds like my life...
I've only been to indoor ONCE this entire winter season so far

[Dutkoski]

Time to relax in the workshop finally, all my responsibilities are done. Got the control surfaces made and hinged with 1 oz fiberglass cloth.

Got the horizontal stab mounted and glued in permanently.

Got to work and made the foam turtle deck, turned out better than I thought it would. After hollowing it out, weighed it, 5 grams.

Mounted the rudder and elevator servos, Hitec HS-55's. Figured I would have the push rods go through the fuse instead of outside, looks cleaner and more sturdy, no flex at all.

The open forward area is going to be the actual size of the hatch, plenty of space to access things. The hatch will be a single plastic vacuum formed item, the canopy will be part of it. It might be moulded out of some clear PET and inserted from inside. I'll wait and see to see how that goes.