Building a plane from scratch

Yes, the "cool factor" is one good thing, another is the way you can build a plane to be much better in terms of aerodynamic cleanliness, strength and performance than what you can buy- usually. Personally, I like to laminate curved stab and rudder outlines instead of using heavy solid blocks, taper my spars, and make them one continuous piece to avoid weak points such as our almost universal but expedient practice of building the wing in two halves joined by plywood dihedral braces. Also, thin trailing edges are better than thick- they're less draggy, and improve the precision of control, and coved control surface joints have the same two advantages. Paul

Reply to
Paul Ryan
Loading thread data ...

Nah. I use the permagrit for both the above..

Exactly. Ive just put a kit together almost entirely out of Ebay sourced stuff.

Flies great.

Depron P47 and two lage scale projects to come..at least..this year..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

And as I have gotten older, balsa dust is now driving me crazy. I wait until sanding is holding up further progress. Then I put on a mask and goggles and go on the shop porch and do the sanding out there.

I live in a swamp shack and it is powerful hot and humid on the porch and the goggles and mask do nothing to help me stay cool. And the Dremel covers the sound of the mosquitoes. There is a finite amount of time between feeling the bite, stopping the Dremel, putting it down, and then slapping the now-gorged mosquito. (One should never spontaneously slap their neck with a running Dremel or #11 in their hand.)

Much can be said for kit building. And ARF. But NRF are the most fun.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Cashion

Paul, I agree with you. I have done it both ways and if I had it over to do, I would have laminated those edges on both of my "Cumuluses" ("Cumuli") that I published. I did laminate the tips and leading edges of my "Electrolith" (also published). And my great, "Aerolith." (Not published.)

For images of these, look around in my model image files at:

formatting link
The images load, enlarge, and move fast and they are worth your visit. I have my models separated in "old" and "new-ish."

Ken

Reply to
Ken Cashion

Sportfish, The Nat. Philo. is giving good advice here. For absolute building fun and flying fun, few things can beat an older model.

We call them "radio-interrupted free-flight." Many of the old free flight modelers will admit that the most fun was the take off and landing...but the landing was often way, way over younder.

Repeated touch-and-goes with some of these models is not only superb training, they are just plain fun. Only they might be touch-and-bounce-and-touch-and-bounce-and-touch-and-go.

What you lose is aerobatics; what you gain is thermal flying. It is so much fun to have the engine off and realize the model is climbing.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Cashion

Scratch building is the way to go, but unless it's a simple profile model if you have to ask you should start with something easier.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.