RE: 1-6th Scale V-22 Osprey Prototype Build
Ok now my personal review of the plans as were originally drawn by Charles.
1: the plans came as 17 sheets showing various drawings and parts sheets.
2: the plans are all 1/2 size meaning everything has to be enlarged 200% just to be able to cut out parts and the plansheets arent large enough to build on top of.
Note: I discussed this with charles and asked abt the reason for this.
1: he told me his plane comes together by itself so that you do not need to build on top of the plans because it jigs itself into place and that people dont want to lay out a 98" peice of paper on a building board to build on top of.
a: I still prefer the plans under me to be sure it is building correctly plus it is so much easier to glance down and see what part goes where plus any notes.
b: People build on top of plans all the time. 90% of the designs out there you roll out the plans and build on top of so yes people will want to roll out plans and build on top of.
2: I asked him how people are supposed to cut out parts to build from if they are half size how are they supposed to cut them out. I was told they just buy the kit. well most people cant afford to spend $1200 or more to buy a kit especially in these economic times. if they were full size then people that prefer to hand cut their own parts can. (not that with these hundreds of parts I would lol) so in my opinion if someone has plans and only offers precut kits with half sized plans he is losing a lot of money on plans sales because the plans will add up a lot faster than the number of kits sold at plus 1K kit costs.
End of Note
3: the plans are very busy and hard to read. there are all kinds of colors for all the different types of wood. this is ok but then there are silvers in there for lines which makes it very hard to see .
4: there are all kinds of what I consider design lines on the plans that I feel should have been removed because they are unnecessary to build the plane from and would make the plans much neater and easier to read.
a: all the red lines seem to be centerlines and lines running across the various parts showing notches etc all line up, plus various other lines that are used in designing but not in construction. if those were cleaned up it would make things easier to read somewhat.
b: I would add a seperate sheet for the fuse and the wing with everything removed but the former and rib locations so that the builder can easily at a glance see where things go for framing up the items and then they can use the super detailed sheets for adding the other stuff
c: There are also lines upon other lines as these were done in layers so you may have 4 or 5 lines stacked on top of each other. From a designer point of view I would have personally cleaned all them up. if they all share the same line on a particular view then there is no real need to have stacks of lines. (personal opinion)
That was the Negatives Now the Positives
1: the plans are cad drawn so you know immediately everything is going to be pretty accurate for fitting.
2: the colored plans also make for ease of reading and with todays printers you can even make certain parts a solid color for ease in reading at a glance.
3: though a detrement to readability for framing as mentioned above, the details of the plans are very well documented and even list part numbers etc for various vendor bought parts. (like I mentioned above a couple extra cleaned up pages would make the plans wow factor)
4: snap lock construction. it makes the plane easy and fast to assemble.
5: as an example the wing sheet it shows some parts on it and the details on those parts. Later in the plans there is a seperate cleaned up part sheet which is like Imentioned abt the framing sheets and it shows all the parts cleaned up for cutting out.
6: and finally each sheet is payed out for the specific area example the wing sheet only has wing stuff on it the fuse sheet only fise stuff. this makes navigating the plans for detail info etc very easy as you can just goto the wing page and all the wing info is there on that page and you dont have to sift through fuse or tail stuff on a wing page.
Ok that is my general overview of the plans and as the build progresses I will note various pros and cons.
I also want to reiterate that these are my own personal opinions and that I am not praising or trashing any design I review I just state what I personally notice and it is up to you whether you agree or disagree with my review as everyone has their personal preferences. That is why I posted the main sheets so that as you go through my review you can look at them and judge for yourself whether I am correct or not.