building a model plane
Discussion
Hi, don't know much myself but there is a model air show tomorrow where you might be able to chat to some experts, check out www.southernmodelairshow.co.uk. good luck
depends on how complex you want it to be.
You can buy simple Balsa Wood kits from most good model shops, not sure on price anymore, these are quite easy to build, but you need patience. These use rubber bands to power the propeller, however, on some the control surfaces wont move.
For a fully functional radio controlled model your talking mega bucks. you could go down the route of fully functional but non flying. Ie, leave out the Engine, just put in the electronics.
I dont know enough about flying models to be of any more help tbh.
There is the other route of AirFix Kits. 1:46th scale, or even 1:16th scales, but these are F
G huge, however and nicely made kit well painted looks good.
You could always Make your own. Draw up your own plans (harder than it looks) and then build it, making the bits work that you want, and leaving out the bits you dont.
HTHs.
You can buy simple Balsa Wood kits from most good model shops, not sure on price anymore, these are quite easy to build, but you need patience. These use rubber bands to power the propeller, however, on some the control surfaces wont move.
For a fully functional radio controlled model your talking mega bucks. you could go down the route of fully functional but non flying. Ie, leave out the Engine, just put in the electronics.
I dont know enough about flying models to be of any more help tbh.
There is the other route of AirFix Kits. 1:46th scale, or even 1:16th scales, but these are F
G huge, however and nicely made kit well painted looks good. You could always Make your own. Draw up your own plans (harder than it looks) and then build it, making the bits work that you want, and leaving out the bits you dont.
HTHs.
You can buy the plans or the kits for most aircraft.
Kinda reminds me of the one that we built all those years ago as kids, "The Fledgling" it was called.
An Unpowered glider with Acoms remote control to make it all fly nicely. Took us a few days to get it all together, but proud as new parents were we, my siblings and me.
Que one big field and a nice sunny day and off we went.....and....it flew beautifully.
Not bad for a first piloting attempt methinks.
But, being as im as much a petrolhead as the next loon on here, someone (me i think) decided we needed a little more excitement. So, it got fitted with a miniature PAW diesel engine and a bloody great prop to spice things up.
Same field, different day and conditions were...well, iffy-ish to say the least.
Undeterred we decided on a launch from atop the long berm into the wind.
So the engine was fuelled and duly started.
Ailerons? check! rudder? check! elevators? check!.........this plan is flawless guys!
And launch she did...more like a freggin missile than any fledgling ive ever encountred.
And as it soared ever higher and too far left over the highway for personal comfort, it was then that i discovered a slight miscalculation in our plan.
It was bollox!
In what i now attribute to our excitement and basic dumbness to get this baby skyward, we made a fundamental error; we had forgotten to replace the nicads in the plane.......and this as it suddenly took a dive towards mother earth (right over a busy road)it dawned on us that something very smelly and brown may just be about to hit a rotating prop.....
Two or three massive loops later, engine howling like a banshee, and it came down somewhere (from our vantage point at least) on the other side of the road in the fields opposite.
Many fruitless hours of searching later and a big fat blank was drawn.We continued the search for around a week, but no trace was ever found of "The Fledgling".
We all have our own theories about where it went, from burning up in the atmosphere to going through that guys sunroof in the cortina on the road, cos "he did swerve around a bit didnt he?" Whatever. We didnt find it and we didnt hear anything more about it, but even all these years later, i still ask myself a couple of things; Why couldnt we find a big red plane with a 4 foot wingspan? and Next time can we use a rocket engine?
Kinda reminds me of the one that we built all those years ago as kids, "The Fledgling" it was called.
An Unpowered glider with Acoms remote control to make it all fly nicely. Took us a few days to get it all together, but proud as new parents were we, my siblings and me.
Que one big field and a nice sunny day and off we went.....and....it flew beautifully.
Not bad for a first piloting attempt methinks.
But, being as im as much a petrolhead as the next loon on here, someone (me i think) decided we needed a little more excitement. So, it got fitted with a miniature PAW diesel engine and a bloody great prop to spice things up.
Same field, different day and conditions were...well, iffy-ish to say the least.
Undeterred we decided on a launch from atop the long berm into the wind.
So the engine was fuelled and duly started.
Ailerons? check! rudder? check! elevators? check!.........this plan is flawless guys!
And launch she did...more like a freggin missile than any fledgling ive ever encountred.
And as it soared ever higher and too far left over the highway for personal comfort, it was then that i discovered a slight miscalculation in our plan.
It was bollox!
In what i now attribute to our excitement and basic dumbness to get this baby skyward, we made a fundamental error; we had forgotten to replace the nicads in the plane.......and this as it suddenly took a dive towards mother earth (right over a busy road)it dawned on us that something very smelly and brown may just be about to hit a rotating prop.....
Two or three massive loops later, engine howling like a banshee, and it came down somewhere (from our vantage point at least) on the other side of the road in the fields opposite.
Many fruitless hours of searching later and a big fat blank was drawn.We continued the search for around a week, but no trace was ever found of "The Fledgling".
We all have our own theories about where it went, from burning up in the atmosphere to going through that guys sunroof in the cortina on the road, cos "he did swerve around a bit didnt he?" Whatever. We didnt find it and we didnt hear anything more about it, but even all these years later, i still ask myself a couple of things; Why couldnt we find a big red plane with a 4 foot wingspan? and Next time can we use a rocket engine?
If you've never built a model before, don't expect to produce something impressive first time....
I know these things.....used to make all sorts in an earlier life, and experienced disappointments until skills improved.
If you want an instant model, try to find a second hand Corgi 1/32 scale die-cast model. They were superb, if lacking the weathered effects skilled painters achieve today with airbrushes.
Just recently found out these Corgi things were made in limited numbers and very expensive. Try ebay...
I know these things.....used to make all sorts in an earlier life, and experienced disappointments until skills improved.
If you want an instant model, try to find a second hand Corgi 1/32 scale die-cast model. They were superb, if lacking the weathered effects skilled painters achieve today with airbrushes.
Just recently found out these Corgi things were made in limited numbers and very expensive. Try ebay...
Model planes are great, but it's a learning hobby..... You never stop learning....... Ever.
Start simple.
A smallish plane that works, won't look much like a replica. A small replica is unlikely to fly.
Big working replicas do exist, but TBH, they're more for those that have done most of the learning. Big replicas are expensive, and valuable. Flying them is, understandably, more like a battle between the loss of many hours of patience (like a small child), and the massive desire to find out if it's going to fly. Kind of, desire vs restraint.
I guess a feeling to be savoured, untill a very calm sunny day in a massive field in the middle of nowhere.
The best place to start for working planes, is dead simple "control line" jobs. They're simple to make, relatively difficult to crash, and easy to fix WHEN you do crash them. Small engines that are appropriate are small enough to be nearly indestructible.
It's a good place to learn about the intricacies of reliability. When the elevator sticks, or the ether has evaporated, maybe the fuel tank is leaking, or the tailplane isn't on quite straight. It's also a great way to test ideas. You an easily experiment with thrust/mass/lift/drag.
When you've got all those things sorted you have the confidence to move on to more complexity. There really is so much detail to the hobby, it seems to me to be a shame when people buy a massive RC job, off the shelf, crash it and never bother again.
The secret of avoiding the heartache of the crashes, is restraint. Patience is a virtue, and its where the intricacies are learned. Make it a hobby and not a five minute wonder, it will repay you tenfold every time.
>> Edited by dilbert on Sunday 18th September 01:27
Start simple.
A smallish plane that works, won't look much like a replica. A small replica is unlikely to fly.
Big working replicas do exist, but TBH, they're more for those that have done most of the learning. Big replicas are expensive, and valuable. Flying them is, understandably, more like a battle between the loss of many hours of patience (like a small child), and the massive desire to find out if it's going to fly. Kind of, desire vs restraint.
I guess a feeling to be savoured, untill a very calm sunny day in a massive field in the middle of nowhere.
The best place to start for working planes, is dead simple "control line" jobs. They're simple to make, relatively difficult to crash, and easy to fix WHEN you do crash them. Small engines that are appropriate are small enough to be nearly indestructible.
It's a good place to learn about the intricacies of reliability. When the elevator sticks, or the ether has evaporated, maybe the fuel tank is leaking, or the tailplane isn't on quite straight. It's also a great way to test ideas. You an easily experiment with thrust/mass/lift/drag.
When you've got all those things sorted you have the confidence to move on to more complexity. There really is so much detail to the hobby, it seems to me to be a shame when people buy a massive RC job, off the shelf, crash it and never bother again.
The secret of avoiding the heartache of the crashes, is restraint. Patience is a virtue, and its where the intricacies are learned. Make it a hobby and not a five minute wonder, it will repay you tenfold every time.
>> Edited by dilbert on Sunday 18th September 01:27
If you ever get the chance, have a look round an aircraft production facility (or even component manufacturer).
Everything is right, down to the last detail. A lot of it MUST have come from experience (read: accidents) but when you see nuts and bolts with INDIVIDUAL serial numbers you get some idea of how amazing planes are.
I know people who work on them are fairly cynical (just another crate), and some of the manufacturing procedures are horrifically labour-intensive and/or tedious, but the fact that decades-old machines can still go up and down reliably, when almost new cars can't even manage a trip to grandma's, speaks volumes for the technology.
I'm off to Shorts in Belfast again next week, where incomprehensible Irishmen still rivet thin strips of alloy together to make Learjets, chunks of fuselage for other planes and engine nacelles for Airbusses.
Just a shame that the Sunderland flying boats no longer ease down the (now fenced-off) slipway in to the Lagan. Progress isn't necessarily improvement.
As well, I'll be dropping into the aero engine plants near Dublin, where gas turbines are dynamically balanced to ludicrous tolerances and every last blade is x-rayed, dye penned, MPI'd... and licked clean by a lesbian leprechaun for all I know.
So next time you're on a plane and the 'Fasten Seatbelts' sign goes out, lift a glass to the guys at Rolls-Royce, GE, Lufthansa Airmotive, Pratt & Whitney, AE Turbines, ELE, BAE Systems, Goodrich, Bombardier and god knows who else, for doing their jobs properly and getting you up there
And when you 'knock a model together', spare a thought for all the engineering brainpower that went, or goes, into the real thing, and make sure that yours is as good as it possibly can be before you point it at the sky
Everything is right, down to the last detail. A lot of it MUST have come from experience (read: accidents) but when you see nuts and bolts with INDIVIDUAL serial numbers you get some idea of how amazing planes are.
I know people who work on them are fairly cynical (just another crate), and some of the manufacturing procedures are horrifically labour-intensive and/or tedious, but the fact that decades-old machines can still go up and down reliably, when almost new cars can't even manage a trip to grandma's, speaks volumes for the technology.
I'm off to Shorts in Belfast again next week, where incomprehensible Irishmen still rivet thin strips of alloy together to make Learjets, chunks of fuselage for other planes and engine nacelles for Airbusses.
Just a shame that the Sunderland flying boats no longer ease down the (now fenced-off) slipway in to the Lagan. Progress isn't necessarily improvement.
As well, I'll be dropping into the aero engine plants near Dublin, where gas turbines are dynamically balanced to ludicrous tolerances and every last blade is x-rayed, dye penned, MPI'd... and licked clean by a lesbian leprechaun for all I know.
So next time you're on a plane and the 'Fasten Seatbelts' sign goes out, lift a glass to the guys at Rolls-Royce, GE, Lufthansa Airmotive, Pratt & Whitney, AE Turbines, ELE, BAE Systems, Goodrich, Bombardier and god knows who else, for doing their jobs properly and getting you up there
And when you 'knock a model together', spare a thought for all the engineering brainpower that went, or goes, into the real thing, and make sure that yours is as good as it possibly can be before you point it at the sky
A basic Spitfire with all the radio control gear will probably set you back about £300. If you try and learn to fly on this you will destroy it and have to spend about another £120 to replace it, depending on whether you destroy other things at the same time (people, houses, cars etc). This will be an electric model. I would reckon on adding another £100 for a fuel model.
To add working features you are starting to talk about big bucks though and you really do need some pretty good engineering skills as most things are not available in standard kits. You will also need to spend money on radio control units with more channels. A working undercarriage is pretty easy to start off with. You can then add sound effects and other things. Just don't count on it being cheap.
Its a great way to start spending more time with your dad though. My dad and I have always planned to build a plane together and will do so when I return to Edinburgh next year.
To add working features you are starting to talk about big bucks though and you really do need some pretty good engineering skills as most things are not available in standard kits. You will also need to spend money on radio control units with more channels. A working undercarriage is pretty easy to start off with. You can then add sound effects and other things. Just don't count on it being cheap.
Its a great way to start spending more time with your dad though. My dad and I have always planned to build a plane together and will do so when I return to Edinburgh next year.
dilbert said:
Model planes are great, but it's a learning hobby..... You never stop learning....... Ever.
Start simple.
A smallish plane that works, won't look much like a replica. A small replica is unlikely to fly.
Big working replicas do exist, but TBH, they're more for those that have done most of the learning. Big replicas are expensive, and valuable. Flying them is, understandably, more like a battle between the loss of many hours of patience (like a small child), and the massive desire to find out if it's going to fly. Kind of, desire vs restraint.
I guess a feeling to be savoured, untill a very calm sunny day in a massive field in the middle of nowhere.
The best place to start for working planes, is dead simple "control line" jobs. They're simple to make, relatively difficult to crash, and easy to fix WHEN you do crash them. Small engines that are appropriate are small enough to be nearly indestructible.
It's a good place to learn about the intricacies of reliability. When the elevator sticks, or the ether has evaporated, maybe the fuel tank is leaking, or the tailplane isn't on quite straight. It's also a great way to test ideas. You an easily experiment with thrust/mass/lift/drag.
When you've got all those things sorted you have the confidence to move on to more complexity. There really is so much detail to the hobby, it seems to me to be a shame when people buy a massive RC job, off the shelf, crash it and never bother again.
The secret of avoiding the heartache of the crashes, is restraint. Patience is a virtue, and its where the intricacies are learned. Make it a hobby and not a five minute wonder, it will repay you tenfold every time.
Wise words chap!
Have an Irvine 40 Trainer, Black Horse Super Air and a GP Super Skybolt.
The Skybolt has an OS120 Surpass - but I'm no way ready to fly it.... yet
When you say 'working', do you mean a static scale model with moving bits, or a flying model?
A flying model is no good unless your dad takes up flying, in which case he would be advised to start with a trainer (and probably spend several years crashing and fixing that before he is ready to fly the spit). Flying model kits tend not to be very detailed, I think the modelling term is 'stand-off scale', it looks recognisable at long distance in the right light if you squint, but doesn't have all the detail. If you're more interested in something to put on display in the house, a smaller scale non-flying replica might be more suitable.
A flying model is no good unless your dad takes up flying, in which case he would be advised to start with a trainer (and probably spend several years crashing and fixing that before he is ready to fly the spit). Flying model kits tend not to be very detailed, I think the modelling term is 'stand-off scale', it looks recognisable at long distance in the right light if you squint, but doesn't have all the detail. If you're more interested in something to put on display in the house, a smaller scale non-flying replica might be more suitable.
wedg1e said:
lots of stuff praising the guys that build planes.
A bloke I know works for one of these 'expert' companies. Wont say who for or where.
But he mainly deals with Wings.
He has hundreds of scarey stories about refurbishing wings for aircraft, they put a piece of the skin on, and its slightly out of shape. Now you might think they remove it, and reshape it to the nearest half milimeter. Thats what I thought they would have done anyway.
No, instead, they hit it with a hammer
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