PHOTO: ANDY ZANER
PHOTO: ED VALLS
The first step in any scale modeling project is deciding upon sizing and then obtaining a set of 3-views to work from. In Andy Zaner’s case, it is blowing up an A-4 to 88 inches long (at left), which eats up a lot of the living/dining room floor. Standing on its gear (above center), Andy’s primed Skyhawk looks like the little scooter it was. His attention to detail, the ribs on the rudder and vortex generators on the tops of the wings vie for attention with the great looking refueling probe. Ed Valls’ A-4 fuselage (above right) is taking shape. With formers and tri-stock, the blue foam sides/bottom can be shaped to give the pleasing outlines of a Skyhawk.
PHOTO: ANDY ZANER
build on-going by Ed Valls) has another win- ner on his hands. You might remember him as the guy who built the prototype ¼-scale (12 feet long) T-38 that I have mentioned here in the past. Andy loves working in foam, and his Stu- max fan systems, so what’s a guy supposed to do? I need to do some more reading in the thread (found at:
www.rcgroups.com/forums/ showthread.php?t=1898841) since I’ve only had time to skim it in order to figure out the whole building concept. It seems as if form- ers are made from thicker Depron® foam and then skinned and sanded with blue/pink foam, shaped with cheese graters, sanded/ spackled and then glassed. Some very neat ideas! If you have read Keith Sparks book: Building with Foam, this takes things to a
different level and I highly recommend look- ing it over.
The interesting thing about this 1⁄5.5-scale airplane is that it is about the same size as an Avonds (or any other 1⁄9-scale) F-15, which for the most part fly on 26–36 pound thrust turbines and weigh in the upper 20s to lower 30-pound range when ready to go. Andy is flying his on 12S with a Stumax 110mm fan and his plane weighs 17.8 pounds ready to go. This is a thread that is more than worth your time to peruse; the hints and ideas are priceless, even if all you do is assemble ARFs. A video of the maiden flight can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/m4t8f6s. Is it any wonder that the “Scratch Built” sub-fo- rum of the edf forum on RCGroups is a night- ly must skim for me?
John Wiebe from Manitoba sent along some information on his latest project. He designed and built a “classic” model from balsa and ply of the venerable Yak-15 at 1⁄6 scale. John not only did the model work but machined the retracts, cut and welded the Robart struts with offset bottoms and modi- fied tops to get the correct rake, and modi- fied the four-inch Robart tires to get the cor- rect “scalish-ness”. Powered with an older TamJets TJ100, John flies the Yak on 9S 5000 mAh batteries and says that with its 2400 watts it flies very scale like, only limit- ed by not having an unlimited vertical. John says that it is a great flying model and he is really enjoying it.
That’s it for this time around, so until next time: fly safe, and trust in thrust!
PHOTO: ANDY ZANER
Andy Zaner with his latest creation (above left), an 88-inch long Skyhawk. The size of this airplane is telling when you realize Andy is wayover six feet tall. John Wiebe decided that a Yak-15 (above right) is what he wanted to model. After
PHOTO: JOHN WIEBE
drawing plans he took balsa and ply, machined his own landing gear, added a TJ100 on 9S Li-Pos and created this great flying version of this interesting early post-WW II jet fighter.
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