Hunting Provost 1/5th Project

Basic block with grid drawn

Norbert's F5A

Norbert's F5A is coming along nicely . . . He has hollowed out a large percentage of foam (mostly at the rear) which has saved in excess of 200 grams

Cessna A37 Dragonfly

Hello All,

Some progress pics on the Dragonfly project . . .

Fuselage shaped, spared (60k carbon towes) and ready for glassing

Wings cut - SD7037 to carry the estimated 3.5 kg all up weight.

Pre assembled, and ready for the next steps . . .

F18 Build - Part 6

Reports on the progress of the various projects are looking good. Paul has made some inroads on his flying "canoe" and Herman has also progressed on his Provost. Tomorrow being a holiday will probably see most of us behind the workbench instead of behind the transmitter on the field.

Time to "slice and dice" the wing. Always use a sharp exacto blade for this otherwise you get chunks torn out of the foam.

Next use a sanding block to lightly sand the bonding surface. Once again plain old wood glue was used to stick on the balsa leading edges.

After shaping the leading edges I added some wing tip blocks.

Then while the glue was drying I marked out where I want the ailerons. The stock was actually 45mm wide, not the 35mm I mentioned earlier. "Look Right" engineering determined the control surface should be 35mm wide. I will cut these free when once I've glassed the wing.

...and this is what the tips look like after shaping.

Hurricane P2

The weather has been 'unsuitable' for flying so there has been some progress.....
Mainly the workshop is becoming more chaotic, but the wings are now done. No spars but they came out really nice and plenty strong enough.
Originally the intention was to just have a weekend special - rough & ready, but now its looking so nice I'm considering glassing the fuzz.

In the mean time a Hawk has also spawned - mainly because I built 2 left hand Hurricane wings.

F18 Build - Part 5

I decided to add the aileron stock before doing the bottom spar tonight. The only decent aileron stock I could lay my hands on was 8x35mm stock from Mad Models. Probably a bit wide but I will be cutting the ailerons about 25-27mm wide leaving a sub trailing edge of 5-8mm. After measuring it off the wing, a sharp exacto blade takes care of the rest.

The aileron stock was too thick by about 2mm. Nothing a bit of creative shaping can't solve.

So out comes the hand planer. The masking tape is there so I don't accidently start ripping chunks out the foam. One slip and you have to start some unsightly patch work.

After removing the bulk of the excess balsa with the planer, the finer shaping is done with a big sanding block to ensure true flat surfaces. A quick eyeball on the end result and I'm happy.

I used polyurethane wood glue to stick the balsa to the foam. Masking tape held everything in place and while that was drying I could enjoy my dinner.

Looking good so far. The bottom carbon spars and balsa cap came next and I won't bore our blog readers with more pictures of that. Unfortunately I will now be going away for the weekend and will only be able to continue work on the project Monday evening, when I intend stripping off the foam leading edge and replacing it with a balse one, so expect an update by Tuesday.

Cheers, and enjoy the weekend!

PSSFEST - Hurricane build P1

The PSS fest is causing quite stir, so I also want to make something to take along. Not as spectacular as some of the projects we've seen and that I know about, but then again it might encourage another to do the same.

The plans are printed from the '3-view' site www.fortunecity.com/marina/manatee/272 which Paul posted. Mike has since posted www.richard.ferriere.free.fr/ which is easier to browse and seems to have better quality 3 views.

The foam from ISOBOARD is 600 wide so I scaled the 3 view to print with a 600 wingspan. The fuselage was cut out and traced onto the 80 thick board. I used Herman's Black & Decker 'mouse' to sand the fuzz and it went quick and easy with minimal mess (ouside) I've since got my own for my birthday :)

For the wings I wanted to use Alcolin Extreme Urethane & veneer but this product has been discontinued due to limited shelf life and low sales. Their tech dept recommended Alcolin Waterproof which seems to be very similar although not as strong and doesn't dry as hard. Expensive but quick & convenient. The section is S7037 (my favorite)