I'm just about finished with the engine compartment. I decided to put the servos up front for the throttle and bomb drop.I put a baffle behind the engine, slanted down to the scale baffle. This should help direct the air flow down and out. It also forms a compartment for the servos. I put the on off switch,the charge jack,and the remote glow plug conection in the radio compartment behind the cockpit. I still have to find out what size tank to use. It shouldn't take too much for a 9 min flight.
Steve

Not a whole lot of time for building, between the move and the holidays. I did finish the engine compartment, and started on the bottom panels. I made the parts from aluminum and attached the baffles with straight pin rivets.
Steve

I finished a couple of cockpit details. The trigger cables for the Vickers & Lewis guns are black phone wire, attached to the triggers with 1/16 aluminum tubing. The copper "tubing" for the synchronizing gear is 14 gage copper wire. The bomb release and shutter lever are patterned from pics of the French #3 cockpit. Now all that's left are the magneto, and mag switches, and the cockpit will be finished.

Progress has been slow lately. I'm still waiting for accurate three views of the wings. I'm ready for a building binge
Since I had to move two servos to the area in front of the tank, I lost some of the room needed for fuel. The largest pre-made tank I could fit in was only six oz. Not enough for the .91 RCV. So I made a metal clunk tank to fit the space inside the scale tank. It came out to a little over 9 oz. That should be plenty for a competition flight. Now, all I have to do is make the catch tank for the crank case breather, and the enging comp. will be finished. Hopefully by then I'll have the drawings I need to start on the wings.
Steve

I got the new three views from WWI Aero. Very detailed, and the wings match my photos.[sm=thumbup.gif] So, I've redrawn my wing plans, and am back in business. I am using Carbon fiber tubes for spars,carbon fiber trailing edge, and 1/8" dowel for leading edgd. I stack the 1/16 balsa for the ribs, drill for the spars and leading edge, and cut them with a band saw, notching out for the trailing edge. With this method, the wings are straight, strong and light.The end of the rear spar fits into a hole about 1" in a hard balsa extension for hingeing the aileron. Tips are 3/32 plt. cap strips are 1/33 balsa. The wide ribs are actually two ribs sheated with 1/32 Balsa.

I finished up the top wing this morning. The cabane is sheeted with two layers of 1/64 ply. The sections are joined with 1/8 music wire, bent to 5deg. for dihedral. The brackets on the bottom go around, and are soldered to the brass spars.
Steve

Steve :

Ive been looking at your build and it is absolutly amazing, I cant think of words that will do it justice.
When you posted on my build thread, I think you had me confused with someone else but Im glad you did because I wouldnt have found your thread.

I am going to enjoy seeing how you do this stuff.

I thought my bomb racks looked great until I seen yours. I just cant believe them and everything else too. Your Fuselage detail is incredible.

I think I know how we might have met, It might have been one of my questions I post once in a while. When ever I cant figure something out Ill post it out where everyone see's it.

I hope you dont mind if I post a link on my thread to yours so my other friends can see your build. They would like to see it too Im sure.

SEEYA, TIM

Hi, Tim. Thanks . If you go to the R/C Scale forum, You'll find a more in depth thread on the build. There's a lot more interest in the R/C side.
Today I did the " wing tank". The leading edge of the cabane is a tank on the full size. It's divided so that about two thirds holds gas, and one third is the expansion tank for the radiator.
I simulated this by punching " rivets" into a peice of .005 soft aluminum, and laminating it to the sheeting with contact cement.
I'll post a thread on how to do the rivets under R/C Scale How to's.
Steve

Man, that looks great.
Its probably just the picture but is your center section sheeting going to show ? Because it looks like you stained it.

I wish I had tried putting some sheet metal on my plane but I will on the next.

Ill check out the R/C Forum, I thought we were in it here.
See what I did to find this was I did a search for SE5a and then looked for your avatar.

Im going to learn a lot from you !!

Ive learned quite a bit from the guys on my build thread. See my plane is my first attempt at building something scale and after seeing other planes and especially yours I realize that mine is more like simiscale.
I think I have descovered that there really isnt no end, You can go for about like mine or you can really go for it and build like yours and some other guys Ive seen. And even then I bet you guys finnaly say, "OK thats enough".

What Forum are we in here ?
Is it "Radios, Batteries, Clubhouse and more >> Control Line" ?

Im not to great at navigating these forums.

SEEYA, TIM

The sheeting is two layers of 1/64 ply. It's just that color to start with. After the fabric goes on, the rest of the ply gets it's own peice of aluminum.
The nice thing about this hobby is you can do just as much as YOU want. No more ,No less! It's all good. And you're right about reaching a point where "That's good enough!" I mean, just look at this shot. There's "Details dripping off on the grass! You gotta stop somewhere
Steve

Steve :

In that picture it shows the wire, cable, or rod what ever it is that goes to the trigger of the machinegun.
Do you have a clearer picture of that ?
I dont fully understand how the cable or what ever it is pulls the trigger or attaches to the trigger.

Yes and that picture just flat looks like a real plane.

SEEYA, TIM

That is a picture of #904. It's the only original SE5a that's still airworthy. Can you imagine flying around in a 90 year old plane.
The cable for the trigger conects inside the gun. It can be fired either from the control collum, or with the regular trigger. The thumb button on the right fires the Lewis. The one on the right fires the Vickers.

Steve :

Al right !! That is exactly what I needed.
I couldnt find out how the cable hooked to the gun and really didnt know if it was a cable or rod. Now I know its a cable and how it hooked to the trigger.

THANKS !! I just knew someone building as scale as you are would know stuff like that.
The reason I am so exited about this is I had just about give up on tring to find this out.
I had posted this everywhere and people let me know that there was a mechanism of some sort from the cockpit to the gun but they didnt know exactly what.

I dont know if you are aware of this but the Bristol F2b didnt really have a gun on the top wing. Just this one particular one I am building had one. It was squadren #22, They desided on their own to put one up there and this is the best picture I could find and there just isnt nothing in the picture to show you how it was fired.
I asume the cable was taken off in restoration and hasnt been put back on yet because the picture is from restoration photos.

If you dont mind Ill post a picture of my gun mount too. As you can tell I made it quite a bit shorter because I didnt want it to get broke off so easy.
My plane isnt turning out completely scale anyway.

THANKS a bunch Steve !!

SEEYA, TIM

SM, that is an amazing job. A hearty "WELL DONE". It's folks like you that are helping to save the very heart and soul of the building side of the hobby.

One aspect that will affect your flying is the generally farther ahead balance point used for control line flying. That means your higher than normal CG is just that much closer to the landing gear so it makes it just that much more likely to have more noseovers. One way to get around that is ensure you land with a touch more flying speed than normal and use the extra control authourity it provides to lever the tail down. Once you tip it nose up it'll stand a far better chance of it staying that way.

If you're building a mule to learn all this one try playing with the technique on that one first.

Thanks for the compliment and the tips. I built a Top Flite 1/6 scale to use both as a test bed and to learn how to fly it. It flies great, but is a handful to get it back on the ground! If I bring it in a little hot, and get it stopped before it gets back to the upwind side of the circle, it's OK. The timeing has to be precise, or over it goes!
Steve

Well, I finally got the wing panels built. Now I can make the struts, and get some bare bones shots. All the components are built now. I still have some detail work to do before I can start covering. It's hard at this point to resist the urge to "HURRY UP!!"
Steve

I'm making the cabane struts with 5/32 brass tubing. It's smashed at the top and drilled for a 2-56 bolt. The bottom fits over a piece of 1/8 music wire, bent to fit into tubing that's wired and epoxied to the fuse. The jig holds everything straight while I mess around with it.
Steve

OK. Now I've got to make a bunch of brackets, rigging wires, and the interplane struts. Then I'll be ready to cover it all up[&o]
Steve

OOps. Forgot the pics
Steve

Steve,

It's too pretty to cover...


Outstanding work. Can't wait to see it finished.


Pete

Thanks, Pete. It's been two years building. I can't wait to see it fly! Hopefully It'll be all wrapped up by June. I would like to fly it at the Nats this year. We'll see.
Steve

Steve,

I am a big SE5A fan.

Good job!! It's beautiful!

Pierre.

Thanks, Pierre.
I fell for this plane when I was 12. ( Yes, they had airplanes way back then) I thought it looked like someone took a hot rod, and put wings and a machine gun on top! How kool is that? Anyway,when I finally got the "Scale Urge", it was an easy choice for a prototype.
Thanks again for looking in.
Steve

Hi Steve!

Your '5' is just fabulous! Beautiful detail and craftsmanship.

Wished I had had your build to follow before I started my BUSA 1/4 '5' as it would have answered a number of questions and given me some good ideas - there's just so much one can do with kit planes. My '5' is all framed, waiting for covering (working out some details before starting).

Will anxiously await your further updates! Again, ... BEAUTIFUL!

Dick

Thanks, Dick. There's a thread in this forum for SE5a questions and pics. Why not post some pics. I'd love to see your project.
Well, I HAD to do it. After I started adding riveted parts, made with my new dies, the rivets on the tank just looked shabby.[&o] So, I peeled off the skin and re-skinned the tank. It really didn't take too long, and now I'm happy again At least for now
Steve