lol yea

Tom I cant believe you managed to keep all that stuff in a trailer. Was it at least a double trailer? I lived in one for about a month when my g/f and I moved from one place to another, and it was hell. All we had was a dog to contend with hehe. My computers took up alot of space however. Well hopefully my workbench will be able to stay there for the duration, I finally like the positioning. I MAY move it upstairs into a vacant 'guest' bedroom that is empty other than boxes that I have special things in I don't want damp in the basement. At least until I build shelves down there. Winter is ok, but summer I took a hit from humidity. The upstairs is COLD during the winter. Barely sleepable during the really really cold nights. I am going to weatherproof the windows a bit more and have a ceiling fan pulling the heat from downstairs up so hopefully it will be better. THEN I may move it upstairs into that room. (OOOld house)

Welp, thanks for the comments and now it is time to get to work.

EDIT: Hey btw, did you guys noticed that these forums have seriously DIED? Colder weather coming I am sure people are dropping off as I probably will for awhile. I lose interest in things rather quickly (I blame it all on my rants HA), but I have been in this for a bit ...I enjoy building. However, even so, there is still much time to fly and bs about this stuff for most of the USA and many other countries. I was here for about 2 weeks before they made a website change. Threw me for a bit of a curve but ever since then seems like noone is here anymore? Am I crazy or have you guys noticed this also?

S

S

I figured things slowed down cause people were out flying. Thought they might pick up when it gets colder and they are inside.

Sincraft,

I checked out the link and the pictures. You have a nice looking work station. Having it down in the living room sounds like the best soultion. It would be quite an undertaking to add insualtion to an old dwelling.

I haven't noticed activity on the other threads because I've only had time to tend to this one. Dad is home from the hospital and is doing better, but needs a lot of attention while recuperating. Mom kept him taking medicine on schedule, but she died about 3 years ago. He gets confused even with a highly detailed, large bold font printout.

Good luck with the plane,

elad

Bill, Tom, Don, S.,

I read somewhere about a fellow wanting to design his own plane. From the responses he got I gather that designing and building from scratch is awfully complicated.

I mentioned before about looking at the plans on the SPAD (simple plastic airplane designs) web site. I want to try building one like one of those (I haven't decided which one yet, maybe a mid wing) but am wondering if there is some simple way to enlarge the plans that would work successfully on the first try. Do you think it would work to just use a calculator to multiply measurements of a given set of plans by a factor of 1 1/2 or 2 to get the desied size difference? Or is this simple thinking just too simple minded?

Also, is there a generalized set of mathematical proportions that can be used as a guide in designing a plane. For instance: 1) wingspan to wing cord, 2) wing surface area to tail control surface area, 3) distance from wing to tail section etc?

Maybe this is asking for too much. I would guess that it would all get complicated by things like whether the wing is flat on the bottom, semi-symetrical or symetrical. And by things like the location of the wing in relation to the fuse, ie. top wing, mid wing, low wing.

I have looked a little bit for sites on designing, but what I found was the two extremes of, either a folded paper airplane, or an introduction to what looked like a college course in engineering. ha

I don't mind using math formulas. I used them a lot when studying for those HAM radio licenses I got and enjoyed doing that. I even built a few transmitters and receivers (not from scratch) by using formulas and electronics schematics. I just don't want to start taking a course in aerodynamics at this late stage in life.

Someone said, (it might have been you, Bill) "If it looks like it will fly, it probably will." Is it almost that simple?

elad


Sure, I'm old enough to know better. But I'm still young enough that occasionally I get to make the choice. ----- elad -----

Elad:

Just about.

If you find a good design that's smaller than you want, almost without exception it will still fly well when made larger. The reverse is not true. Save the smaller versions for later when you have more experience.

If you are scaling a wooden plane up to 2x don't double the wood sizes, go to 1.25x or in some places 1.5x, but on the skins you might well stay with the same thickness. This is where you can run into trouble with your first few scratches, not knowing how to make it strong without making it heavy at the same time.

When we enlarged the Duellist 2/40 and kitted the Duellist 2/60 we went from a little over five feet span to more than seven feet with almost no increase in weight.

Enlarging a SPAD is just as easy, and a lot cheaper. You might need an additional yardstick spar, just look at others in the size range you want. There are several sizes of the "QUHOR" to choose from, for example.

Usually I discourage a first time scratch builder, but the wannabe scratch builder often starts by asking what glue, what wood, how big, it becomes obvious he has not had the experience needed. But if you start with an existing design and scale it you might consider it to be a scratch, but it's more a plan build, and you have the guide to lead you.

Would advise a couple of kits to get the idea of material sizes, so forth, before attempting to scale one, though.

Bill.

Bill,

Thanks for the guidelines and the encouragement.

I'm not even ready for a balsa kit yet until I can fly. ha But the spad seems like it could take a licking and go on ticking, as long as it doesn't do the dirt auger bit and spoil the engine.

The biggest spads, with plans, are about 48" wingspans. My Eagle is about 63" wingspan and I'd want the spad wingspan span at least that, maybe even 96".

Now I will show my inexperience with a few questions about wood. I was thinking of using a hand picked, as light as I can find, spruce 2x4 for the spar. I have a table saw I can cut wood as thin as a sheet of paper with, well almost. I was thinking of doing that instead of experimenting with balsa. By doing that I can make the wing thicker than with the yardsticks.

I was also thinking that by cutting two pieces of the stock to about half the desired final thickness and using CA to glue it together, but taking care to turn the grain to run in opposite directions, it might make the wood stronger than the same single piece of stock cut to the desired final thickness.

Any thoughts on these ideas?

Thanks,

elad

Elad:

A good quality, well cured spruce 2x4, and a table saw, should give you a lot of good wing spars. But the spar is not the source of a SPAD wing's strength.

The real strength of a SPAD wing is its (almost) triangular section, so long as the triangle does not collapse they approach being inpossible to break. The yardstick keeps the section from collapsing.

The exception is in the larger planes, where a joint is necessary to get the desired span. Then the spar has to be strong to prevent failure at the joint.

Gluing two thinner pieces side by side will not be materially stronger than a single spar of the same thickness. And spruce glued with CA will probably be weaker, since the CA doesn't work well on the harder woods. An easy strong spar is basically an I-beam. If you decide yu need a 3/8" thick spar, 1 1/2" high for example, cut two sticks 3/8"square, and fill between them with a 1/8" web, with the grain of the web running vertically between the top and bottom sticks. If you cut shallow grooves in the top and bottom sticks for the web to fit into it's even stronger. And use a good grade of white glue for assembly. Epoxy will also work, but you need to be careful, epoxy can add a lot of weight in a hurry, and be sure to use a very slow cure if you decide on epoxy. The one hour and faster epoxies are not as strong as they could be.

This should be enough to get you started, and maybe bring up some more questions.

Bill.

Now THERE is something that would qualify me right out of my airfield. I did a true measure yesterday when I was flying er, afterwards. And it is 200ft x 27 feet paved. With a 27 feet on each side leway before you either 1. kill buildings or 2. drop over a hill with boulders. Overshooting the runway is bad bad bad bad and undershooting is pretty bad. SO something THAT large, although what I have wanted to build for a long time...would put me into a new airfield. sigh. Well back to dreaming I guess. I am not even sure how I will handle the landing with this bipe if I get it finished and fly it eheh.

S

Bill,

Thanks for the information. At this point you gave me all the answers I need. I'm just looking for simple and quick until I want to get a lot more involved in building. Even then, I'll probably just buy a kit.

Constructing the web, etc. for the I-beam sounds like much more than I want to get into at this time. Since the strength of the coroplast wing comes from the shape of the wing and construction of the wing material I'll just take the easy route of making the plane bigger than the plans call for.

I'll venture a guess that when considering engine size I can just weigh the plane and compare what's commonly offererd for the same size/weight of commercial kits. Will that work?

elad

S,

I wish every model RC flier could have as nice a flying field as my club has. Our landing strip is about 3,400 feet long, was at one time the town's airport landing strip and is still used as the taxi way. A few weeks ago a Cesna 182 taxied past waiting club members on it's way to the new runway.

The members of the club realize how fortunate we are to have access to such a nice facility. We're not charged any fees and don't have to do any maintenance.

elad

Elad:

Check my club:

www.nfmi.org

Our membership is scattered over an area approximately 150 miles east to west, and 70 or so north to south.

We just picked up our Eighth field. Six are paved. The shortest is also the newest paved field, 350'x60', Rae Fritz Field, newly named, at the Escambia Model Park. We also have a large boat pond there, and c/l circles are going in, one paved and one grass.

Our fields are also scattered in our area, so nobody has to drive too far to fly.

And yes, we will allow you to be jealous.

Bill.

Elad:

Common measure is wing area to displacement. Haven't bothered to plot it, but an 0.049 wants about 250 sq", going up to a 0.60 arount 800, a 1.20 goes well at 1200 sq" area, and so forth. This is just a rough guide, nothing set in stone. A 1/2A racer might have only 120-140 sq' while the BTE "Super Flying King" has two square miles of wing area and a 2.3 cubic inch engine recommended. Two miles? Well, maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's huge.

Whatever sort of plane you want. look at kit and ARF planes of the sort you want for the engine size you want to use, this will give you numbers to start from.

Bill.

Elad
now your on dangerous ground !sounds like your hungry for more info - thats cool I have a short story for you. Once upon atime there were these two guys that liked messing with airplanes. Always around them you could hear" we could desgn one better than this, thats easy" Well off they set to do just that first they designed two simple planes to test what they wanted it to look like, then they flew these planes And they were happy with one (This in itself a small miracle). then the bigger version was drawn- fleshed out so it looked like a real plane 3 of these were cut out one was built flown and then taken to toledo where it won a 3rd prize in 2001! Now if this seems to good to be true, yes it did happen to me, only the story line forgot to say that it took 2 years to happen and hundreds of hrs at the computer -building board - $$$$$$$- now I am a pretty prolific builder, I have built about 200 planes since 1988. I would only undertake a project like that again after some SERIOUS thought I did finish one of these for me the first one is still flying well, mine was victim of a radio failure(The one I won no less) I was a little discuraged that day when driving home. The top pic is the two prototypes and the bottom one is the FORCE 5 at Toledo

OH yeah just so we dont get off the topic mine had a four stoke and was decorated in an eagle motif

Bill,

Wow!!!

You guys have great connections, know how to get things done and do a lot of work.

elad

Bill,

Thanks for the sq. in. of area to cid. engine size guidelines. That is a very helpful starting place. And the advice to compare types and sizes of kits and ARFs is helpful too.

elad

Don,

Congratulations on the fine design work and success getting the plane to work for you and for the prize at the competition.

Thanks for the reminder about all the hours etc. that will have to be spent.

Actually, I don't have that sort of project in mind. I just wanted to copy someone else's design and enlarge it a little.

BUT, knowing my past history concerning how I have gotten so deeply involved in my past hobbies I realize that what you said about being on "dangerous ground" is certainly true. ha

I once got interested in making a CB radio transceiver. As a result of that interest in electronics I ended up with an Extra class ham license and then purchasing property for the purpose of constructing, owning, and operating a CB repair shop for a livelyhood. I did nothing else for a living but repair and install CB radios in homes and vehicles for 3 or 4 years. ha

elad

you don't have to be crazy to be me, but it helps.
my dad told me recently that I should see a pshyciatrist, instead, maybe I'll become one.

Elad, Don stopped over, and we were talking about your spad idea. We are thinking that maybe you should build a kit or two before you jump into something like this. A little experience would be helpfull here. Try building that TigerII we mentioned earlier. The motor and radio from your Eagle will work just fine in it. Doing this will allow you to gain some construction skills that will help you later on.
Going flying tomorrow? Supposed to be nice here, but I have to work all day. Maybe I can fly on Sunday. If not, I'm going to work on the FW.

Tom,

You might be right, maybe I should wait to build the spad. I was thinking of making the Trainer or the Stick version. The pictures sure do make the building of the things look easy though. But, flying looked easy when I was just watching someone else do it.

I won't fly Saturday because I'll get off work too late. I might run over there to watch the other guys fly. I think they might be having a burger lunch over there tomorrow as a get to gether for the families of the club members.

Well, I might take a plane over there after all. I just remembered making a paper airplane that I found on a web site. It took me an hour to figure out how to fold the thing. ha It flies about 8 feet if I release it as high as I can reach and flick it forward just a touch with my wrist. It sort of float glides to the ground and lands flat.

That's about three tads better than the way I landed my Eagle last week. ha

It rained here the last 2 days, but about noon today it got sunny. It's still short sleeve weather here.

How's the building projects coming along?

elad

Bill,
You suck. Ok, I am jealous. I am not one for a large population of other flyers, but as long as everyone is taking turns or doesn't mind flying with others up at the same time, I would love to have a larger club to belong to. My options are thin around here. One is VERY tight knit and hard to get into. You actually have to be voted in. They require AMA insurance and $40 per year, and you must show up to at least half of the montly meetings. The other, which I will enclose pictures of, is small and they put a walking trail right near it. There is always a pretty tough crosswind, and there is NEVER anyone else there. When there is, it is someone picnicing in our pavilion when there are a million more throughout the park, and of course they usually have dogs that like to chew on wings. We can't kick them out but giving dirty looks usually works for me. I am much larger and angry looking than I used to be so I use that to my advantage when I deem my rights are being thread upon. THE UPSIDE is, we require NOTHING to be there. No ama, no insurance, no joining fees. Nothing.
My other choice is an airfield that is only 10/year and ama. Large runway but it is grass (yuck) and it actually curves at the top. The runway is not very even. It's basically the top of a mountain with the grass cut very low. No pavilions or water/electric etc etc. It is however very private, you need a key to enter through a gate. It really lacks though. They need to bulldoze that and make it level and rock/bump free, put a pavilion in and some water/electric. Anyway, here are the pictures of my airfield. It's not much, but I call it home. I still have to drive 30 minutes to get there though. Notice the position of the windsock, it is constantly like that.


OH BILL, btw, what camera was this taken with? This was on your clubs site.
http://www.nfmi.org/Holley%20pics/crw_7433_std.jpg
I have a 1.3 megapixel camera, and it puts edges on everything unless I got high res , large picture size. Even then the color is horrible. I think it's the worst camera I've ever owned and am looking for something better.




S

Elad, Take your plane and fly after work. Get all the stick time you can. I wish I could get more flying time in. While our field is only a mile from Don's house, it's 25 miles from mine. Can't just run over there any time I feel like it. When I belonged to another club, I lived so close that I could hear the models. I flew almost every day. I enjoyed that and my skills were better then, too. Of course the fuel bill was larger then, too!
I ordered the fiberglass cloth for the FW today. Don is going to help me with the installation of the retracts into the foam wing. I've never done that before. The problem is how to get the load spread out as to not ruin the wing on my less than perfect landings. Always something to learn.
Have a good weekend. Let me know how the lesson went if you get the chance to fly.

Sincraft. You're field looks nice. Shade! Paved runway! Looks good to me. Our field is a good one. No trees or obstructions. It's grass. Actually it's a parking lot for an antique engine show. The owners use it once a year. The rest of the time it's ours. We can't have any permanent stuctures, tho. We do have a portapotti. What more could we ask for? It's a small club, with only maybe ten members. We're lucky that Don( from this thread) and another gentleman, seem to like to mow! The field is always in flying condition due to these two. How's the bipe coming?

Sincraft:

Be jealous again. It's a 17 megapixel camera, a Nikon FM with a 50mm F1.4 lens.

Right. Shot on 35mm film,and transferred to digtital media.

I also have a digital camera, unbelievably expensive. I've modified it to accept the Nikom lenses, so I can focus down to 3" and up to however far I want. The camera cost $12.95. The lenses? Well, don't ask. The digital camera is fine for web work, but it is far from magszine quality.

Five of our six paved fields have multiple runways, at most we run 16 degrees crosswind at them. Number six paved has runways 9 and 27 only, sometimes we have to go to the grass there. Fields seven and eight are, in the case of number seven, reserved for the sailplane boys, and they want grass anyway. Number eight we just got, no decision has been made on it.

Repeating myself: Feel jealous.

Bill.

[>:]

Guess I can't complain too much, well I can but..noone would listen. HA.

Our field is ok Tom, but you see how close that walking path is. A takeoff with a trainer 40 takes almost the whole runway, at least 3/4. And landing is about the same. Hard to hit something that is 27 feet wide. At least for me. Weds I went out and was doing approaches as I seem to have to push down to bring her down. That's a bad thing. So I was feathering it in, and trying for 3 pointers. I missed about 5 times and aborting the landings was easy. TODAY however, the crosswind was fierce...then about 15 feet in the air there was a turbulance that was also creating a south>north wind that accompanied the west > east wind on the surface. Then to make matters even worse, on approach you can cut the throttle to almost deadstick(off), and suddenly an updraft would lunge the model up about 20 feet. Then of course, what comes up suddenly goes down suddenly also. Thus I would have pour on the throttle, fight to keep the wings level making my plane seemingly hover for a few seconds and even slowly drop level toward the edge where I took those pictures from the walking trail, which also is only 10 feet from 30 foot high trees. Sigh. Needless to say, when I finally got it down today, I kept it there.
Like I said, it's not bad. I like the little pavilion. It's rarely camped by pilots, and 'the regulars', consist of my brother..myself..the club trainer..and a local hobby store owner that sold me that bipe.

The bipe is moving along, slowly but surely. I was stressed out yesterday because I thought I was missing some wood. It was mearly hiding somewhere else. (cause we all know I sure as heck didn't take it out of the box and put it elsewhere right?) So I have the fuse construction going along. I spend probably 1/2 of my time slowly pondering things, watching tv, peeling CA from my fingers, smoking cigs/drinking coffee...and then other 1/2 gluing, bending, shaping, cutting etc. My neighbor gave me an old craftsman table scroll saw...kinda like the one dremel makes. It makes cutting wood SO much nicer. Didn't think I would need such a thing until I had to gut all those little longerons for the fuse structure. The wood is OLD and hard. Exacto knifes bounce right off of em. The Craftsman makes short work of it. I also have a Dremel I use for sanding, etc. But right now I have belief that this thing is only useful for cutting glue away from the balsa as it drips down to the waxpaper coated plans and dries flat. It's too cumbersome to get into cracks and creavases (sp?), and even at the slowest speed has a tendency to rip into things. I prefer the good ole' fashion sandpaper personally. Unless I have bunch chucks o' crud to remove. Sandpaper is more of a personal experience, you can 'feel' the job at hand rather than tooling it which leaves thing much more rough and choppy.

Bill, if you weren't a mod I would curse at you. All that runway #1 runway #4 crap is making me jealous. :0 In all seriousness, sounds like you guys have it pretty good there. I would like to gather a group of people in my area and obtain an area which could house some basic needs. Good space, ability to place electric/water ...or at least electric. Build a brick building that would house mowers, fridges, tables over an awning. Maybe someday. Right now, the only drawback is space. I'll never be able to launch my bipe there. So I will probably join the one that is gated. I've never used a grass runway before though. This should be interesting. I can foresee landing gear repairs in my future, and stress cracks.

Here's a few pics of my current progress.

Sincraft, You're coming along fine. You shouldn't need your Dremel to sand on the fuselage. Get a large sanding block. That will keep things nice and flat, with no gouges. My sanding blocks are pieces of foam with the paper glued to them with spray on adhesive. They are the full length of a sheet of sandpaper and half the width. I can sand just about everything on a model with them, accept the tightest spaces.
Now all we have to do is get Elad to start building something. He'll never know how satisfying it is until he starts.