SBD Dauntless by ESM
 

After some time I´ve decided for a new project. I chose ESM´s SBD Dauntless. Last April I bought new ARF kit with ESM pneumatic retract. I would like to have my Dauntless with semi scale cockpit, so I bought TY´s cockpit set and one scale pilot from VQ warbirds. .

Now I´m thinking about the sheeting and rivets. I tried to make a rivets by a disperse glue and the result looks good. Probably I do all rivets by this glue.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1933904

Very nice. I'd like to add this plane to my collection as well. What motor are you going to use?

I´m thinking about some engine 20- 26 ccm. Now I have chance to buy a SPE 26, so maybe I use this engine.
I´ve begun a work on the new instrument panel, because the holes in TY´s instrument panel are very deep.
But during the drilling new holes I had problem with a blunt drill and one hole (in left corner on the botton) is on the bad place :(. Maybe I will make new front side of the instrument panel.

The 26 would probably be better then a 20.

While I know its severe overkill....I have a turnigy 50cc gasser I could put in this plane. Would actually be good for running a decent size 3 blade scale prop

Is your turnigy 50cc a twin? You could have scale diameter of a prop. Thank you for your opinion. I also think, that 26 cc would be better. I think I will need some heavy engine, because the nose of this plane is very short. I had problem with a light engine on my CMP Zero 50cc.

Finally, I decided to make a new desk for an instrument panel.http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1934109

My 50cc turnigy gasser is unfortunately not a twin. Hobbyking does have a 53cc twin gas motor listed.

Im somewhat new to gas motors myself. Ive mostly run electric in the majority of my giant scale planes or 73" size ESM/CMP planes. For instance, my ESM fw-190 D9 has a 65cc rimfire electric running on 12s lipo. Have a 73" ESM me-109 running an eflite power 110 on 8s lipo.....plus many many more. Have some glow powered planes too.....but...am starting to get into gas motors.

Ive got three gas motors actually...a DLE30 in a Gee Bee Z, an EME55cc in a 50cc size Top- Flite Spitfire, and the turnigy 50cc motor that doesn't have a home currently.

What about EME, are you satisfied with this engine?

Yesterday I recevied the SPE 26 engine from some colleague, but it looks as very old and worn out engine :(
I put it on the stand and tried to start it. The starting was OK, but it seems that the shaft is after head crash.

Here are some pictures from the project. I´ve done new instrument panel and tomorrow I would like to print instruments on the paper.http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1935302http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1935303http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1935304http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1935305

I found some good pictures of SBD instrument panel which I can use for my model.

Now I can add the pictures of the instruments to instrument panel.

The eme engine I have seems to run decent. Having an electric starter on it is nice...no hand flipping

Electric starter is more comfortable. I have a Graupner starter but this one is good only for the engine 20 cc and smaller :(
Finally I´ve done central instrument panel.

Does anybody have good pictures of the SBD´s gunsight? I have some book in PDF, but there is not any good detail of the gunsight.

Give this a shot.
http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/n...TS/SBD-2/SBD-2

Thank you for the link. It very useful.
After some day, I made small progress with my Dauntless. I did gun breeches. Both of them are made on the same side (left or right), so I had to brush one of them and made one new. Now I have one gun breeche for the left side and one for the right side.

Here are some new pictures. I´ve completed gun breeches. Next step was rear turrent. Tomorrow I would like to finish this turrent and rear guns. Rear gun carriage was too wide. I cut it and make it narrower.

The machine guns and guns carriage are done and ready for the painting. The gunner is also done.
I made a new gun breeches. I cut the old handles and next week I´m going to make new handles.

Does anybody have some good pictures of the space between the pilot and rear gunner? I think, there is radiostation, but I don´t know how it looks.

Hey I hope this helps, i'm working on a Dauntless myself.
http://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/sbd/sbd_pit.shtml

Thank you kylelord. Could you share some pictures of your Dauntless?

Hey Prekin,
Thank you for your interest! Here she is a work in progress of course. It's Ziroli's version and the parts are all handcut. I'm hoping to get it ready to maiden in the spring. I've been bouncing around on different parts of the plane. The cockpit so far is mostly styrene and some balsa for the front foot pedals. I purchased a milling machine a month ago and the tail gear is the first part I've made on it. The firewall I'm going to double with another 1/4" ply and will be removable with 12 6-32 bolts. Thats a great idea I got from the build thread of samparfit. His thread is full of great information and I've gotten tons of inspiration from Tom Pierce's website. I check his site as documentation as much as I do the actual documentation.
Here's a link to Samparfitt's thread http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-w...ess-build.html
Heres a link to Tom Pierce's site http://www.tompierce.net/SBD/
Thanks again I look forward to seeing you progress.
Kyle

I admire your cockpit, it will be really scale. The pedals look very realistic. The size of your Dauntless is something better than my ESM Dauntless. Big warbirds look better, I think, that minimum wingspan of good warbird is 80" (2000 mm). Thanks for the link to Tom Pierce's site, I´ll look at it, I know his FW-190. What engine are you going to use? I suppose some 60 cc engine, am I right?

Does anybody know which scale pilot is good as a rear gunner for ESM Dauntless? I would like to have pilot and gunner in my Dauntless, but I don´t know which is good for TY´s Dauntless cockpit set.

Thank you for your kind words! Realistic is the nicest thing to hear.
That is correct I will be using a Zenoah G-62. In my dream would I'd want either a GT-80 or a gear drive to swing the scale sized blade.
Not sure of the scale of the ESM but look into magmenpilots. I just contacted him about a pilot and he said he would be able to make a rear gunner too. I know he has other sizes too. Seemed affordable at $42 for a painted pilot.
Kyle

I´m back with the progress with my Dauntless´s cockpit. All main pieces are painted by black now. For the wear out of the cockpit is used the same method of painting as on my La-5FN. All wear out or dirty places are painted by black.
Kyle, thank you very much for the link with pictures of the cockpit, now it is very useful for me, because now I do on a "tower" between the pilot and the gunner.