practice combat plane

I don't know? I just pulled out the Pat King draws (I like the thicker air foil) and it doesn't look that complex. It a straight cord wing with two rib patterns. There's a few extra pieces to the tail feathers. An hour maybe two to cut all the pieces and that long to frame the wing. And for a backyard basher, I would cover in plastic which takes less than half the time as painting. I'm thinking a week of evenings. As long as I don't loss interest, they seem to go fast. I might buy a kit from Pat.

duke.johnson wrote:I don't know? I just pulled out the Pat King draws (I like the thicker air foil) and it doesn't look that complex. It a straight cord wing with two rib patterns. There's a few extra pieces to the tail feathers. An hour maybe two to cut all the pieces and that long to frame the wing. And for a backyard basher, I would cover in plastic which takes less than half the time as painting. I'm thinking a week of evenings. As long as I don't loss interest, they seem to go fast. I might buy a kit from Pat.

I think you've got your building skills a lot more seasoned than I do. I'm learning a lot but I still have to move slow or I'll botch it. But they fly good. I'm flying my newest creation for the first time this weekend. It looks like a good one.

I don't know if my building skills are better or not. I do well with that type of thing, I can just see how things go togther faster than some. And i have crashed a lot of planes learning to fly and thus had to build a lot of planes for me and my boys. I'm just about finished with this .40 size carrier build from hell and I'll start a baby flight streak and maybe show the progress. It will be a lot faster with plastic cover for combat. I don't know if I'll do the regular color pattern. I don't like it that much.

A friend of mine gave me plans for the Dirty Beaver and the Halflite. They both look good, decisions decisions. He also cut me a set of cores to play with. It's good to have friends.

Duke, I truly believe the Dirty Beaver is the way to go. The Dirty Beaver in the single boom version appears to me to be a sledge hammer I really like this design. It certainly looks beefy enough to take on terra firma and any other punishment you can dish out. Truly a cool design and is next on my build list. For me, I want to make it Tee Dee powered and go at it. The Halflite has foam wings which I'm not against. I recently started into cutting my own foam. I haven't mastered the technique but I have a friend who's been putting me in the right direction. As long as I make the templates now, he cuts me anything I want. The Halflite is the pre design of the Litehawk. I personally feel the Litehawk is a much easier design to do. Having flown Litehawks for fun and competition for the past 5 years, I certainly can attest to their durability. I just feel that a arrowshaft design is the way to go. I know you expressed that you would like to to a arrowshaft design and a arrowshaft could certainly be substituted in some of these designs. Ken

Considering a combat plane only "practice" is a rationalization for crashing. "Oh well, I was only practicing."

quote Duke: "It's good to have friends.."

As an aside: Yes it is. Duke and I met personally yesterday at the swap meet in Puyallup, WA. Met his eldest son too. It's impressive to see a young Dad involved with his children.

"Young" being relative to my advanced years.

"Young" being relative to my advanced years. [/quote]


Thanks Dave!

Ken
I like the Dirty Beaver the best out of all the wooden planes. And the Half-lite for the foamies. I really don't like the looks of the Litehawk. I have a couple friends that cut foam, one of them has a computerized cutter and he's working on something for me.

Dave
I use the word practice to mean getting more combat flying in or non-contest.

Yes, Duke I understand.

I was only funin' you.

Yes I know. I do bash them into the ground more than I want though. More practice however you define it.

Well after to much thougth I went with the Baby Flight Streak. The first night was cutting ribs and start framing the wing. Hope I have time to keep working on it. Night number one picture.

Half-A sized combat planes ARE fast.. on 35 foot lines they're like flying .36 powered Fast Combat planes on 60 foot lines. But they are also quite robust, which is why people used to use them for practice. You can slow them down - use 42 foot lines to begin with, and use a less-than-optimum prop, line tension will suffer, though. The Light Hawk is actually very easy to fly, what with that long boom. What the drawing doesn't show is that the glass (not carbon!) boom extends all the way into the nose block. A piece of plywood buts up against the back of the block, that goes into a slot in the foam on the front, and keeps the front end solid. Some fiberglass around the nose and where the boom exits the foam helps also. The wingtips are covered with a layer of silkspan and thinned white glue. The entire plane is covered with laminating film. The bellcrank bolt is a 2-56 machine screw that goes through the boom and is secured by glued thread. The bellcrank platform is, IIRC, 1/16" ply with a hole for the bolt to go through, it glues to the top of the foam. It's pretty big, and was designed about the VA .049 Mk II, which Larry was selling. The Norvel works OK, just a little heavier. Models designed for the Cyclon/FORA/Profi would be even bigger. You could scale it down a little for reed valve, it'd probably work OK for a Tee Dee.

Get a box of Phil's Hacker wing cores and build something with the same construction with a shorter tail - I did, they worked very nicely. The boom is a piece of Glasforms tubing, A20 or C30 size. Any decent kite mail-order shop (e.g. kitebuilder.com) will carry it. Phil can also supply bladder tubing, etc. For lines, I'd suggest 30-40 pound Spectra.

If you want to build Coroplast, see if you can find some 3mm. It's a lot lighter than the common 4mm used for yard signs in the U.S. Here's my design:



This revised engine mount is practically crash-proof (there's a 1/8" ply plate that goes in front of the pieces of molding):



I've had models like this hit the dirt again and again and again, eventually the Norvel tank will crack but the only damage to the plane will be a slight crease in the coroplast. The design is capable of loops and 8s and makes a great plane for learning to do these for beginners. It is a mite too fast for many, though, but can be slowed down using a 6x3 prop with the loss of some line tension.

For Norvel .061s the diameter is 16", bring this down to 13" or so for reed valves.

Iskandar

Thanks. We have the lil hackers, half fasts, sonic chickens, and so on. I was just looking for something for the backyard, 35' lines. I started a baby flight streak for a reedy and I'm going with the dirty beaver for the TD.

The Coro planes would be fun, for that.

Gluing coroplast - it's actually quite easy, you have the "flash" the coro with flame (a cigarette lighter works fine for small areas). Then use little dots of superglue. Press the parts together, and within 30 seconds they'll be stuck so tight you have to tear the plastic to get them apart. Problem is this works well with some brands of Coroplast, not others, and some brands of superglue, and not others, so you'll have to experiment. Leadout guides and pushrod braces - pieces of paperclip. You make little holes in the top surface of the coroplast, the wire then bends 90 degrees and goes down the flutes. Then you use pieces of bamboo skewer to jam the wire in place.

Iskandar

We did the coroplast wings for a while, but we want something that handles more like our F2D planes but can be used with 35' lines. with an airfoil and all.

I would say to check out the thunderbirds site but it is currently down. Thankfully, I downloaded all of their 1/2a plans. I can send them to anyone if they know a specific one or I can upload them to RCGroups. I may have all of their larger slow combat plans as well. I have next to none of their Goodyear plans.

Rumblin' Rolla