Spitfire Kit Build

[stephane.savard]

February 1, 2008

My new project, just got it yesterday evening. After quite a bit of scratch-building, I felt like tackling a kit!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/001_spitfire_kitMedium.JPG

[beto9]

What size engine?
I always said if I ever got to do a warbird would be a Spitfire, a Mosquito or a P38...
I got the Spit last year, .25 size, wing separated in the second flight, claimed the warranty to Great Planes, got it new and now is waiting for that rare season... SUMMER!
Hope to see it soon! How's the kit quality?

[bob forest]

That picture, what is that wood, what is it for. how can you make a plane out of those pieces of wood. I buy a plane and it arrives all pretty much put together. Stephane, you must be very old, I heard back in the 40's people built that way, but I never dreamed I would see something like that today. Was it something you found in an old attic. That is going to take you 10 years to build.

[stephane.savard]

It's a Top-Flite kit, .60-.75 two-stroke or .70-.90 four-stroke. Some time ago, umm, well, last winter actually, I had bought a Saito 91 four-stroke from Bob Forest originally intended for the Fieseler Storch which I'm still working on sloooowly. Turns out that underestimated the work involved on that aircraft, and I wanted something easier to work on for a bit. I haven't given up on the Storch, but it will be a long term project.

I never thought I would actually make a Spitfire, considering how its a rather popular aircraft (I'm more of a Typhoon / Tempest fan), but I couldn't find any worthwhile plans with laser cut parts of it. I then came very close to getting a Brian Taylor designed Hawker Hurricane, but again, lack of fiberglass parts and canopy was a problem. So I turned to the kit manufacturers, and here I am!

This is the forth kit I will be building (i.e. Aerostar trainer, Airsail Chipmunk, Skyshark Stuka, and now the Top-Flite Spitfire) and based on experience, the kit quality appears to be mediocre to quite excellent! :)

First, the wood quality, and is where the kit suffers. One particular piece is of the worse balsa I have EVER seen. It's rock hard and actually has a knot! I'd be worried to put a pin through it and splitting the wood. This is a plank that holds two of the die-cut wing ribs. Fortunately the rest of the wood appears to be of much better quality. I'll only be able to really get a better sense of the wood as I build, and if needed I'll replace some of the wood.

Of all the kits I built, the Stuka was by far the best since it was laser-cut, and once you work with laser-cut parts, its hard to go back. BUT, this is a good point of this Spitfire kit, the die-cutting is excellent! No crunching at all. And strangely enough, a select few of the parts are actually laser-cut too. And stranger still, the photos in the instruction manual shows all laser-cut parts :)

I haven't checked out the hardware much (still in the plastic bag), but it appears like I'll be keeping most of it. The nylon horns appear pretty good at least. This is probably due to the fact that Great-plane, hobbico and Top-flite are all owned by the same company. So most of the hardware come from these companies. For example, the motor mount that comes with the kit is a good quality Great Planes adjustable nylon mount. The same you would buy at the hobby shop.

Then comes lots of plastic. The cowl, wing fairings and some scale details are provided with some fairly thick ABS plastic. I may replace the cowl with an aftermarket Fiberglass cowl from fiberglass specialties. The Chipmunk's original cowl had eventually broken down from the engine vibrations, and the replcament fiberglass cowl had been great until the crash at the last funfly (incidentally, I had won a Hobbieville gift certificate at our last funfly, which I used to purchase this kit :) ) There's also a big sheet of decals, but they are unusable to say the least. The colors of the roundels are not at all the right shades of red or blue. But I'll likely use paint anyway instead of decals.

And that's it really! I've been reading a lot of threads over at rcscalebuilder.com on the Top-Flite Spitfire, so I already know how to avoid lots of the gotchas, and things that I will likely improve. BUT, one thing that I know for sure is that I MUST build light... lighter than I ever built. Nearly all scale builders have had to add about 12 to 16 oz of lead to the nose.

Also, hows this for marketing - the kit box says that the plane should weigh between 7.5 to 8.5 pounds. Then they proudly state inside the instruction manual that the prototype came out at 9.5 pounds! And, everyone that builds one of these (i.e. as reported in all the build threads) claim to be around 10 to 11 pounds with the added nose weight... makes me a bit nervous :)

Build pictures will come soon :)

[stephane.savard]

Bob,

...and the worse part of it, is that at the end of it all I will have spent more money to get to the final result than simply buying an ARF!

As for time, I hope to finish this by June or July - the build is fairly straight forward (especially when compared to the Storch and its gazillion parts and bloody metal work).

Well, I'm off to build!

[beto9]

Hats off to you dude! You still have the stamina... I go with Bob, my last stick built was the Goldberg Extra that is now in Shawn's hands. A terrible builder given the known poor quality of the wood used and the old design of the kit. But it flies like the angels...
I wouldn't mind to build a plane from the cut parts used today to assemble the high quality ARFs. Somebody stepped in and said "Well, if it us who is going to build it lets make it all fit together". There is a lot of forethought about how the parts go together, where the electronics and glow components will go and how will they affect the final product and the high quality ARF companies are learning to make good products and then the talk in the forums sell their products (or sink them....) That is the best advertising today!
Oh, shoot, a lousy day and I am given to philosophizing...

[Dwight Macdonald]

Stephane, you must truely have building in you blood ... with all the great ARF's arround! Keep up the good work!

[Eric Marchand]

I know how Stephane feels. Putting an ARF together or buying a used plane must feel to him like he's flying somebody else's plane. Building it himslef makes it his own.

I feel the same way about motorcycles...I gotta take em apart and rebuild (modify them before I have fun with em.

[stephane.savard]

Eric's got it real close, buying an ARF feels like someone's had all the fun already. I don't connect with an ARF as I would with something I built with my own hands. Plus, I've always liked working creatively. Actually, the first reason I wanted to get into the hobby was to build a kit, it wasn't the flying that attracted me, though getting to fly what I create is the cherry on the sundae!

Okay, so on with Day #1 of the build. Actually, I've been asked so many times how much time I spend working on a plane, that for this build I wanna document it differently. Every time I work on my plane I'll make sure to take at least one picture and post it. At the end of it all, I should have a fairly acurate answer as to how long it takes :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/002_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/003_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

The instructions started me off on the stabilizer, which I'm happy to report has an actual airfoil, and not a silly plank. As you can see the die-cutting really is great, nothing like I've seen in the past with other kits. All the ribs have tabs on them so that the correct taper can be built in. The ribs attach to the stab core, and a trailing edge is glued on. And this is one of those strange bits - the stab core is laser cut, and the ribs are die cut.. go figure!

Oh, and the syringe is my glue applicator. This way I make sure I put only the necessary amount of glue exactly where I want it. Like my last builds, I use yellow LePage's carpenter's glue. Within 15 minutes the glue is dry enough to be handled, and I get a few minutes of working time. The stuff is much better than CA.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/004_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

All the sheeting that came with the kit is 1/16" x 3" x 30" balsa, and was not exactly the lightest. In the above photo, two sheets are glued together to make a 6" wide sheet, and another sheet is cut in two to make a 6" wide and 15" long sheet. These will be used for sheeting the stab and fin. Since I have to watch out for weight, especially on the tail, I weighed each individual sheet of wood. Turns out that most of the sheets were 13 grams, with one going up as far as 22 grams! I ended up using three sheets at 9 grams each. After sanding, the 6" x 30" sheet was weighed at 17 grams. Doesn't seem like much, but every gram I save on the tail is tripled because of the nose weight I end up saving as well.

I read in a thread once, "take care of the ounces, and the pounds will take care of themselves". It's easier than I thought.. If I manage to save an ounce only 16 times, that's 1 pound less in the end! :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/005_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/006_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

And this is where I left it off today, one side is sheeted, and tomorrow I finish it off and go on to the elevators.

Also, please excuse the quality of the images, I'm using my old 2 megapixel point and shoot camera since I can just leave it on the work bench and not worry about dust and glue :)

[stephane.savard]

Day #2

Only two new pictures for today since I worked only on a few time consuming items, plus I had to get out the house for some chores unfortunately.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/007_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

First, I finished sheeting the stab and then did a rough sanding of the leading edge. Actually, this leading edge was quite the chore - the balsa provided is extremely hard, making it very difficult to sand down to shape. On the upside, it makes for a nice dent resistant leading edge!

I also started on the elevator halves.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/008_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

Next comes the wingtips and shaping the elevator halves. This is where I stopped today, I want to give the new wing tips time to dry before starting on shaping them.

All this shaping and carving and sanding is taking quite a bit of time, but a razor plane and the electic hand sander helps a lot.

On another note, Top-flite should take a little more care with their wood selection. I weighed the elevator cores (i.e. piece with the oval cutout) and one did not register on the scale, while the other half registered at 4 grams! Also, in hindsight I should have hollowed out a bit of the wing tip blocks, but too late now.

[stephane.savard]

Day #3

Work continues on the stabilizer and elevators...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/009_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

This is the first time I try this, and am a bit nervous... tack glueing the elevator to the stabilizer. Basically, three small drops of glue were added to the trailing edge of the stab, and the elevator was glued on. The instructions have me do this so I can shape the tips correctly.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/010_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

Waiting for the glue to dry, I've jumped ahead a bit in the instructions to start building the fin. The construction is exactly the same as the stab, except this time I used the dremel to cut some lightening holes.

Only now looking at this picture have I realised that I used a bit too much glue, I should have wiped that off :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/011_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

Back to the stabilizer and elevators, I've glued on the tip blocks to the elevator halves.

By the way, this Top-Flite kit is meant to be a Mk IX Spitfire, and so far this is what I'm aiming for. But, Top-Flite doesn't hide the fact that this is a sports scale model! Why am I mentioning this now? Well, the elevator tips are not "scale" according to the reference book I've borrowed from a friend. In fact, the tips on this kit only appear on Marks before Mk IX. So, knowing that this is a sports scale kit, I'm not going to be changing much, basically keeping it sports scale.

On the other hand, I haven't yet decided on the color scheme yet, and there are a few Mk V color schemes that interest me. In that case by only changing the radiator under the port wing, I can make a convincing Mk V :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/012_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

And back to the Fin yet again. I want to make sure that the glue on the stab is perfectly dry before sanding and carving, so I'll be working on it on Day 4.

The kit provides some CA hinge material for the hinges, but I'll be changing that to robart hinge points. I also reduced the number of hinges - top flite wanted me to put a total of four hinges, and I felt it was over kill. I'll have two in the upper fin, and one at the bottom of the rudder.

That's it for now, today was about 1.5 hours worth of slow paced building for those who are curious :)

[beto9]

I can see how much you enjoy building. A very careful and precise one. Keep posting...

[Dwight Macdonald]

Nice! I love to see an airplane kit coming together! Do you think it could be lightened a bit by cutting more holes in the sheeting? The old kits and plans had a lot of solid balsa blocks and total sheeting over the structure but the light new ARF's use much less wood ... made to fly and not crash ...

[stephane.savard]

Sure, someone could easily cut some holes in the sheeting, but, umm, why would anyone do that to a perfectly good sheeting?! :)

Most warbirds will have full sheeting to try and replicate the full-size aircraft's metal skinned surfaces. Plus, it is blasphemy of the highest order to use monokote on a scale aircraft - especially a warbird! Full-size airplanes are made of either wood, cloth or metal, not plastic :D Fiberglass gives one of the best surfaces for painting and adding things like recessed panel lines - which I may try to do once the airframe is complete, IF the weight has been kept down.

Anyway, some of this will be revealed now...


Day #4

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/013_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

Tonight I spend about an hour and a half before dinner carving and sanding the stab's tips. If theres a chore in a kit, it certainly is the stab tips. Usually small, and close enough together that it shows if one tip is different than the other. I ended up doing a fairly good job I think!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/014_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG


Here's a shot of the other side, and of course now I continue with finishing the elevators. The ribs are being glued on just then, and will be shaped a little later.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/015_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

An overal view of the entire stabilizer and elevator structure. Top-flite provides some fairly large lightening holes already, and when choosing the wood for the elevator ribs, I weighed all the 3/8 x 3/32 x 24" sticks that I had available and used the three lightest. Unless the wood is really completely unsuitable, I'm not planning on replacing any of whatever came with the actual kit, BUT, I am selecting the lightest wood for the tail.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/016_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

While waiting for some glue to dry, I continued a bit on the fin. The sheeting is finished, and I even have the leading sanded to shape. And yes, the leading edge is curved on purpose.. the Spitfire's fin is not perfectly straight. Actually, at this point the fin is complete, and I am now going to move onto the rudder.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/017_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

And final image for the day - just showing how easy some tasks are if the right tools are used. Shaping the ribs on the elevators is a piece of cake with the razor plane.

And it also brings us to a scale weight saving feature of this plane. The full-size Spitfire was all metal, except for the rudder, elevator and (sometimes) ailerons, which were fabric covered. The kit is done in the same way. About the ailerons, Top-Flite would have me build them using an open structure just like these elevators. Problem is, that only early spitfires had fabric covered ailerons. It was realised fairly early that at high speed, the fabric would balloon from the pressure and aileron control was reduced. With enough speed, roll rate was reduced to zero! So most later spitfires (including all Mk IX) had metal skinned ailerons.

What other weight saving measures am I planning? for one, I'm going to use a foam tailwheel, and I just ordered some Sullivan Skylite main wheels. I have beautiful scale tires already, but they weigh 75 grams each. The Skylites look fairly good and weigh only 70 grams for the pair.

As for the tail wheel, a scale rubber and aluminium tailwheel weighs 24 grams. The lightweight foam and plastic wheel weighs 2 grams. BUT, it's 32.5 inches from the center of gravity. How much lead do I need in the nose of the plane (10 inches forward of the CG) to counteract the 24 grams? It might not look perfectly scale, but the dark gray foam doesn't look bad from a six feet distance. Sports-scale it is!

[beto9]

Pull-pull rudder a possibility?

[stephane.savard]

Pull-Pull could be a possibility, but would involve me having to add a pushrod anyway. I need a steerable tailwheel assembly, and Top-Flite has done a good here with the rudder and the tailwheel controlled from the the same pushrod.

But, Top-flite provides a steel pushrod that travels inside a tube. This weighs a bit more than twice what a Sullivan gold-n-rod weighs. I happen to have some gold-n-rods, which I'll use to save some weight.

Also, yesterday I mentioned that the scale tailwheel weighed in at 24 grams, but I made a mistake, its 13 gr. Still, there's weight to be saved by going to the 2 gr foam tailwheel.


Day #5!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/018_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

Continuing from yesterday, I finished sanding the ribs down on the elevator.


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/019_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

Then started on the rudder. Nothing much to say really, it's yet again, the same construction as the elevators! I also broke the elevators off the stabilizer that had been previously tack-glued. Was actually very easy, and nothing damaged. The trick is to only use 2 or 3 small drops of glue.


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/020_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

On with the rudder, and I did a small screw up, whoops! Nevermind, we'll get back it to in a bit.


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/021_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

The one thing I dislike most about building planes is hinging control surfaces. After building aboiut 5 planes, not once have I got through hinging without one hinge being off center. So I'm pretty happy that for once, the elevator hinges are good! We'll see how I do on the rudder, ailerons and flaps. Only two hinges per surface, I think it's enoguh, Robart hinge points are REALLY tough - I had to cut some off once, not easy!


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/022_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

And the final picture for today, which brings us to repairing the little screw up. Just when I was about to leave the workshop after putting on the last of the ribs, I realised that I had omitted that little block of wood. So I pried up the rib, cleaned up with the dremel and put it back in.

[Chris Bowes]

I'm following this thread with envy!! and here I was considering getting the hangar 9 spitfire ARF, i think i'm too ashamed now :rolleyes:

I think I showed you these pics before as to how i finished the hinge points on a semi built Kavalier I have....

[stephane.savard]

I realise that not everyone enjoys building, or has the time to do so (especially with a baby on the way!) so ARFs do have their place in this hobby. I just wish it wasn't killing the kit industry. Top-Flite hasn't come out with a new kit in years as far as I can tell, and has discontinued some kits I wish I could have built (An Airacobra in Russian colors would have been great!). Jack Stafford has gone under, Skyshark has stopped selling kits (a shame too, considering how great they were) and around the time I got in the hobby, Pica was gone too. But not everything is bad - many more people in the hobby, so we're getting a MUCH lower cost on the price of electronics and engines! In the end, I will likely be forced to go to a large gas-engine simply because nearly all laser-cut short kits for scratchbuilding are 80 inch wing spans and up.

I remember seeing those pictures, and yes, that's mighty fine hinging you got there! My problem is that I have to deal with a trailing edge that tapers, which means that finding the center-line is not as easy as it would first appear. Second is the actual construction of the elevator halves, where I have a 1/16" core to drill into, meaning the drill bit always wants to move out of the way. Third, because the stabilizer is airfoiled (and again it tapers), I can't simply put the stab flat on the table to make sure that I drill perfectly straight. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong :) Actually, this time it went a bit easier because I started off with a pin vise drill first. But in the end, my installation should look much like yours, the hinge will be inset to the elevator leading edge.

One thing though, I have no idea how you manage to build so clean without a spot of filler yet. My own stab and fin have not had their fillers and final sanding applied yet.

I did forget to mention something about the sheeting. Turns out I might have gone to balsa that was a bit too soft and light, I have to be very very careful with it, or I'll end up punching my finger through it. Though the fiberglass surface will take care of that in the end product.

[stephane.savard]

Day #6

Only worked a bit on my plane tonight.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/023_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

First, I sanded the rudder to shape, and here we see it in relation to the fin. The parts fit is not quite perfect, a bit of an annoyance that top-flite could have fixed since first introducing this kit (the plans say 1997). For example, the leading edge of the elevators and rudder are not exactly the same size as that of the traiing edge of their respective stab and fin. From reading other build threads, I'm going to be in for a few surprises later on in the build, where the plans, manual and parts don't match each other!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/024_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

I also could not let Chris go and post his pictures of his trainer with the nice hinge line go unchallenged. So I did exactly that on my own hinges, ha! Of course, instead of having a 1/4" thick elevator, mine is more in the order of 1/2" :) But it does make a neat installation. I am still debating whether to round off or "v" the leading edge though, I may try something scale...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/025_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

And the final picture, the hinging on the rudder is also done. It turned out a tiny bit crooked, but was fixed by enlarging the hole (like I've done on all my other planes). The hinge now fits a tiny bit loose, but once the polyurethane glue expands it will be impossible to remove. The other nice thing about the polyurethane is that it expands a bit into the open structure beyond the hinge hole, leaving the hinge even more secure. The glue equivalent of pinning the hinge.

[stephane.savard]

Day #7...


Now we come to the 7th day of this Spitfire build, and the completion of the tail group. I estimate I spent roughly 17-20 hours to get to this point. It's difficult to judge because I can sometimes spend 15 minutes not doing anything more than looking at the instructions, plans and parts and seeing how to best go about a task. There are times where I literally spend an hour in the shop and have no idea what I accomplished :D

On with the first picture...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/025_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

Installed the provided brace for joining the elevator halves. I don't know what metal it is, but it was heavy. Since I have nothing to replace it with, I used what top-flite gave me. In the lower-right corner, we can see where one of the glue dots was located when tack glueing the elevator to the stab.

The next picture will begin to explain why there's a strip of wood near the trailing edge of the stab.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/026_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

This is a tool I built to complete the scale hinging job I had in mind. It's made up of a leftover part of a combat plane spar, a stick of 3/8" by 1/4" hardwood, and a strip of 1/4" sandpaper.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/027_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

And this is what the "tool" is used for - sanding a 1/32" deep "groove" at the edge of the stabilizer (and fin). The strip of wood you see is 1/32" plywood and will be fitted to this groove.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/028_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

And here's what it looks like when fitted. It will need to be trimmed.

[stephane.savard]

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/029_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

Here the same treatment has been done to the fin, and it results in a nice scale shroud hiding the hinge line. It does add a bit of weight obviously (it would have been even better to use 1/64" ply, but I had none available at home).

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/030_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

And here is the effect on the stab. When I cut the strips of 1/32" ply, I ended up a tiny bit short (see the end of the strip), a slight mis-calculation on my part. I got lazy and didn't recut a new strip, and I should have. That small triangle at the end is currently a pain trying to fill it in.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/031_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

The hinge line in action!

oh, and the top of the rudder has been glued on.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/032_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

... and the view when the rudder is flexed the other way. The difficult bit when making these shrouds is to make sure that the control surface can flex both ways while keeping in mind that the covering is not yet in place. Having a sharp razor plane is also essential I think, because trying to sand 1/32" ply while installed on the fin/stab is not easy.

So how do you like my hinges Chris? :D

The downside to all this that it took me the better part of today to accomplish this, heh!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/033_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

Here we have the rudder's counterweight sanded to shape, and yet another good view of the effect the shroud provides.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/034_spitfire_finMedium.JPG

And the final picture of the day - The fin, stab, rudder and elevators are now complete and I'm now filling in the imperfections with some lightweight filler. With my filler of choice posing in the picture.

This stuff is great, and very light (Important, note that it states "lightweight" on the can! it's not the regular spackle!) Just be careful not to put too thick a coat, and within half an hour its ready to sand. It also sands away very easily.

Oh, and in one of the pictures above, you may just be able to see where I finally ended up putting my finger right through the top sheeting of the stabilizer. I ended up having to cut out a square piece of sheeting and replacing it. In this last picture, you can just make out where the repair is located (to the left of the stab - it was previously filled with spackle and sanded smooth - just the different grain of the wood shows).

[stephane.savard]

Day #8 and Day #9

On Sunday and Monday I hardly spent any time on the plane, and there was little to show or tell. But, since I did do at least a little bit, they do qualify as "days" :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/035_spitfire_stabMedium.JPG

I did the final sanding on the stabilizer and fin on Day 8, completing the work to these pieces (note, the discoloration is caused by the filler). Therefore, the next time you see these will be when I'll be fitting them onto the back end of the fuselage. This not going to be any time soon since up next is the wing construction.

I'm fairly happy with how they turned out, and they happen to be quite light. The fin and rudder (including the hinges) weighs in at 31 grams, and the stabilzer and elevators (again with hinges) weighs in at 89 grams.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/036_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

On Day 9 (Sunday), I started looking at the next part of the construction, which happens to be the wing. I spent about 45 minutes in the shop, mostly going over the instruction, locating the parts, taking them out of the die-cut planks, and sanding them a bit.

The above picture is the only pieces that I actually prepared. These are the bellcranks for the flaps. I've used plenty of bellcranks now, and really, they aren't as bad as I first thought. These are meant to be permanently mounted in the wing, but I will likely add some access hatches. BUT, they are permanently mounted, the bolt on the other side was secured with some silicon glue. In any case, even with a hatch, there would be nearly no way of getting the actual bellcrank out - the hatches are more of a convenience for the linkages.

Day #10 (today)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/037_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

So now I've begun on the wing proper. These pieces are 1/16" plywood glued to the inner wing panel ribs, their job being reinforcment for the retract units (can't properly build a Spitfire without retracts!)

The actual retracts are currently on order and I hope to get them soon. Most of the wing will be built before I actually need them, and I should have them by then. If not, I already know that the wing will no longer be pinned to the board, and I can safely move on to the fuselage.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/038_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

The final image for today, and how it currently looks in my shop. The ribs are in place, but not glued yet. Only the "horizontal" pieces aft of the spar have any glue to them. So far its coming together fairly easily.

Until next time!

[stephane.savard]

Day #11

Progress on the left wing panel today. This consisted mostly of glueing the spars to the ribs, adding more ribs (the ones reinforced for the retracts) and a sub leading edge.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/039_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

The inner most rib is tilted at an angle, which is set by using a small piece of die-cut plywood. This will set the dihedral of the wing when this wing panel is glued to the center section of the wing.

Nothing too difficult, but it still took me quite a while to complete; measure three times before glueing kinda long. I wanted to make sure everything that what is supposed to be straight is straight, and everything meant to be crooked, is crooked just right!

Oh, and I did use some thin CA for the bottom spars. The construction of the bottom spar is a bit weird, the instructions say to pull UP on the spar, while pushing DOWN on the rib, then apply glue. This is because the spar does not actually touch the building board once glued in place. Well, this technique would have me running out hands before its all over, so I put pieces of balsa under the spar to shim it, and used the CA to set it in place.

Later!

[stephane.savard]

I worked on the Spitfire both today and yesterday...

Day #12 (yesterday)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/040_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

After putting on the shear webs and the sub-leading edge, the ltop of the left wing panel was sanded down smooth. For the shear webs, the instructions only say to put them in as per the plan. The plans say to put 8 shear webs into the wing. In total, the kit provides enough wood for 18 shear webs. hmmm. Well, the plans are wrong, if I applied the shear webs as they say, I would have a lot of trouble joining the wing to the center section - therefore the inner-most shear web is left out.

For those that don;t know what a shear web is, its the sheeting thats glued against the top and bottom spars between the ribs. This adds a whole lot of strength to a wing with very little weight gain.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/041_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

After sanding the top of the wing, it's taken off the building board and the bottom tabs are removed, and the whole thing sanded. The above picture shows the left wing panel completed.

Day #13 (today)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/042_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

I started framing up the right wing panel. Its a lot faster going simply from the knowledge of doing the previous wing panel. Another two hours or so, and it'll be finished. Then work starts on the center section.

'till then!

[Dwight Macdonald]

Truely a pleasure to watch! Thanks for sharing the great pics with us Stephane!

[Badger]

Glad to see your building the Spit Stephan. I am at the covering stage of mine which I started over a year ago. Here are some pictures of my Spit. I have broken it down as I ready the plane for final sanding and covering. I too am concerned about the weight. I purchased a Super Tiger 75 and am now regreting it. I figure if we need to add weight might as well be in the engine and I might purchase a Saito 91 like you did.:)

1246

1247

1248

1249

1250

[stephane.savard]

Thanks Dwight! I'm glad to see that at least a few people are enjoying this thread :)

Robert, I keep hearing about people putting in a bigger engine to balance the plane instead of adding lead. Honestly, I don't think uprating the engine is the best choice. By uprating to a heavier engine they end up with adding possibly MORE weight than needed, why? Simply because the bulk of that weight will be at near the middle of the cowling and close to the firewall (i.e. the crankcase of the engine). The closer to the tip of the nose the weight, the less is needed!

Second, the engine upraters simply say that they then have way too much throttle, and then fly their planes at half throttle or less to keep it scale. Well, to me that just means that they just lost half the granularity of their throttle settings. I rather see a plane well powered than over powered. But that's just me :) With the 75 2 stroke (and myself with the 90 4 stroke) we are both well within the normal engine range of this kit to fly scale.

Anyhow, looking good so far with your Spitfire! I like the cockpit, is it scratch built or the top-flite kit? Hopefully you'll finish it for this summer, would be cool to have both flying at the same time :)

Also, another question, did you use Robart retracts, and if so, did you go with the 605hd or the 606 hd?

[stephane.savard]

Day #14

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/043_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

The right wing panel was framed up today. I have a very small problem with it, in that while I was gluing on the sub-leading edge, I suddenly noticed that the trailing edge of the smallest rib was off the building board by about 1/16". This might cause the right wing to have a bit more washout than the left. I'll try to correct it when I put on the top sheeting.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/044_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Now that the wing panels are done, I started on the center section. It's built in much the same way. The important bit is of course making sure that the ribs are perfectly straight, especially at the edges. These will be the mating ribs to the outer wing panels. I also continued to use a mix of CA and carpenter's glue - though I always feel a bit sick after using the CA, the stuff is evil.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/045_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

When I first did the stabilizer and the fin, I didn't show how I built the sheeting. So, here I'm going to show you Sheeting 101. To sheet the center section, I need a single contiguous sheet of 15" by 9.5". So we'll use five 9.5" x 3" to get our single big sheet.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/046_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

First we need to ture the edge of the individual sheets. Use a straight-edge, and a sharp new blade. Cut off a tiny bit off the end. If you get a particular reticient sheet of balsa, just use it as an outer edge.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/047_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Use small pieces of masking tape to hold the sheets together. Above is the first 15" x 9.5" sheet ready for glue, I also made a second identical sheet (i.e. top and bottom of the center section)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/048_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Then it's a simple case of turning the sheets over, and applying glue to the edges of the sheet. The masking tape acts as a hinge. Of course, make sure there is plenty of wax paper on a flat surface.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/049_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG


Turn over the sheet once more, and lay it flat on the bench. Glue will seep out of the seams, but that's quite alright. Using a squeegee, wipe the excess glue off the sheeting. I use old business cards, I have a huge stack from when the company I work for changed their name. I used a bit too much glue, but it's okay, the streaks will dissapear when I sand the sheeting later on.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/050_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Then use something big and heavy and lay it on to keep it flat while it dries. I use a 2" thick piece of scrap counter-top. It's heavy and quite flat. It's currently drying so I'll show the result in another post.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/051_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Finally, here's the center section after I sanding it down. It's currently ready to accept the top sheeting once ready. The flat board near the center will be the location of the flap servo.

Until next time!

[stephane.savard]

Day #14 - Part Two!

Well, after dinner I went downstairs to the shop for a few minutes and completed the sheeting.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/052_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Remove all the masking tape from the glued sheeting. Use the tip of the exacto blade to lift up a corner of the tape, and be careful, the sheeting is very fragile and dents easily.

Find a perfectly smooth surface to lay the sheeting down. I use a hand sander with fine sand paper. Again, the mooth surface is crucial, if anything is under there, it will dent the sheeting. Also, don't sand too much, only the glue joints, since we want to keep the sheeting at 1/16"

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/053_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Here we go, perfect sheets!

[bob forest]

The kit manufacture should use your explanation and pictures for their instruction booklet. You explain it very well. If anyone is thinking of building this kit, they should scrap their booklet, and use your explanation.
Really well done Stephane.

[Badger]

Stephan,
Thanks for the advice on the engine selection, agree better not to overpower the plane. My question is how to add that much lead inside the cowl. Not much space left. I have put the battery and other kit as far forward as I can get it. I'm not sure I trust glueing lead on the firewall. :confused: To answer your question I used Robart 605 HD retracts. As instructed I reversed the pistons on the retracts. One problem I did run into was putting the plumbing after sheeting the wing. I had to ensure there were no kinks and that wasn't easy. I would put the air hose in place with extra length before sheeting. On the second question yes it is the topflite cockpit kit. Goes together rather easily. I did drill out the panel and put in the dials behind with an acetate sheet covering them to make the dials look more realistic. I was quite pleased for my first try at this. Now I dread the covering part. That's why I have slowed down on the finishing but your build gives me courage to get back at it.
Thanks.:)

[stephane.savard]

Bob: my explanations are too wordy to go into an instruction booklet! A version of what I explained about the sheeting is actually found in the top-flite instruction booklet too; not too many ways to remove the skin from a cat, or to add skin to a plane :) But, the top-flite instruction booklet is full of errors, mostly mis-labling of parts, or giving the wrong size; but not a problem if experienced in at least one other kit. Actually, as in all kits or scratch build, with a minimum of study of both the plans and the instructions, any slight problem can be overcome.

Robert, when I get to the fuselage build, my plan is to build a battery box under/forward of the firewall. I got the idea from another build thread on rcscalebuilder.com. Also, are you planning to use a plastic or aluminium spinner? If plastic, check out the heavy hubs by Harry Higley (Ted's Hobby Shop has some in stock), that's 2-3 oz. of heavy brass right at the tip of the plane. This will fit inside the spinner and the extra weight will make the engine purr at idle. Transition to full throttle will be slightly slower though. If using an aluminium spinner, look into getting a brass prop washer instead, also made by harry higley, this is at least 1 oz in weight.

I have not yet build the cowl, but there's two options here. First, you can buy some lead shot and using silicon or epoxy, glue the lead shot into any voids of the cowl you can find. You could also purchase the Fiberglass specialties aftermarket cowl, it's bound to be heavier.

[stephane.savard]

Day #15!

Half a month has now gone by, time flies :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/054_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

The sheeting I made earlier has now been applied to the wing center section. I like to use yellow carpenter's glue for this. Apply a thin film of glue to all ribs and spars, and then apply the sheeting. Then it's a simple case of holding it down for about 2 minutes, at which point I can let go. The glue is taky enough to keep the sheeting on.

Better yet would be to buy some lead shot and fill some ziplock bags with it for weight. I just have no idea where to buy the lead shot.


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/055_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

The above shows some of the worst wood to come out of this kit. Some lite ply that is delaminating! Fortunately, the piece that I need (the rectangular one sticking out) is duplicated on another sheet that is in good shape. This piece went to the garbage. It's hard to see from the picture, but the rectangular piece (the flap servo mount) was also starting to delaminate.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/056_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

I cut a hole in the top of the sheeting, and inside is installed the flap servo. It is itself located on a plywood mount so that I can remove it for maintenance if required. I used a dremel with a sanding drum to round off the corners of the hole.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/057_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Here's the bottom of the center ssection of the wing, where we can clearly see the bottom of the flap servo mount. The top sheeting has also been sanded to the correct fit, and the bottom of the ribs are also sanded down.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/058_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

And here's the final picture for today, the wing dowels are glued in, and so are the plywood and laser cut wing joiners. At the back end, there's the wing holddown plate, where the nylon bolts will be used to hold down the wing.

I'm now waiting for the epoxy to dry completely before continuing.

[Chris Bowes]

Really clean looking build so far Stephane, really am enjoying see this one come together.

[stephane.savard]

Thanks Chris!


Day #16

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/059_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

Very little was done today, didn't get home until later, then dinner, etc. But, a few important things have been done. First is this picture, showing preparations for sheeting the bottom of the center section. The trailing edge would be extremely fragile being only two layers of 1/16 sheeting, one of which has to be tapered. So, I added a strip of 1/32 ply.

It does make the trailing edge a bit thicker, but not having to repair this area constantly is much better.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/060_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

And here the sheeting has been applied and trimmed to fit. Funny bit that Top-flite has me put in the sheeting after having glued on the wing holddown plate. Of course, that means I had to make a perfect hole in the sheeting before applying it! Well, I used the weakness of balsa sheeting to my advantage. I place the sheeting on the wing, and carefully pressed down on it around the wing holddown plate. This left some very faint dents on the sheeting. I then carefully cut out the hole, making smaller than required. It then became a case of removing more material until it fit.

Also note, for the sheeting of the center section, I had used the heaviest sheets of 1/16 balsa; the rational being that this will be the part of tyhe plane taking the most abuse when putting on and taking off the wing.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/061_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

A few jigs that come with the kit. These are placed under the wing to properly set the dihedral when gluing the outer wing panels to the center section. So guess what comes next...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/062_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

... no not yet! I did not have time today to epoxy the wing sections together, that will be next time (plus, I need to buy some 12" clamps to help)

Instead, here's some soldering I had to do. The pushrod that connects the servo to the flap bellcranks. It's silver soldered, and a mess. As with all my soldering, the area becomes a mess of blackened crud and lots of solder everywhere. BUT, the connection appears to be solid (I couldn't take it apart with pliers). I then used a grinding wheel and the dremel to clean up the joints (no more brown/black crud and extra solder).


That's it for today, tomorrow I join the wings together permanently!

[bob forest]

I can't get over how clean your work is. It is a thing of beauty. Keep it up, enjoying the thread very much. Good work Stephane.

[beto9]

I went through your other pics... I have a question about the flaps bellcranks placement: I assume that both are placed the like |_ |_ in order to translate the servo single arm movement the same....

Also, for your soldering vexations (which are mine!) of the linkage at the servo arm here is another way of skinning that cat. With this method you can do minute corrections one way or the other...

[Safety First]

How about a little soldering seminar this summer at the club?
3 basic rules: Clean,use the proper flux, heat (not overheat) the metal not the (alliage).

[xed]

How about a little soldering seminar this summer at the club?
3 basic rules: Clean,use the proper flux, heat (not overheat) the metal not the (alliage).
And don't forget to "TIN" the parts you are joining together.... I found a great video a while ago that showed how to solder stuff properly.

[stephane.savard]

Thanks Bob. Actually, that surprises me, 'cause whenever I look at some of the builds over at rcscalebuilder.com, I'm always completely amazed at how their builds look so clean! I do try to do my best, but at the same time, I do position the camera to show the best angles :D

Albert, you need to be really careful with those e/z connectors, I would not trust them on any primary control surface - and I do talk from experience! My Trainer (actually most trainers) uses these connectors, and I once lost control of an aileron when the connector let the wire slip. Thankfully, it was a trainer, and loss of one aileron only made it somewhat sluggish in turns.

But yes, your ascii diagram is spot on; the flap bellcranks will be setup so both sides push/pull in the same direction, therefore the pushrod exit hole will not be at the same distance from the centerline on either wing.

I came close to ditching the whole soldering affair, and just use the normal wire's threads at the ball-link end, with z bends at the bellcrank end. The problem with this is that the bellcrank is permanently mounted into the wing, meaning that there would be no way of connecting or disconnecting the z-bend. All will become clear in future photos!

I think a soldering workshop would be a great idea! And I am of the firm belief that soldering is a close cousin to witchcraft. Oh, and my soldering worked yesterday only after I finally tried tinning out of desperation, so that definately works :)

Luckily, I only have a single other part that needs soldering, and its part of the tailwheel, another non-primary control.

[beto9]

...forgot! For me the soldering one and only secret was: tinning the two parts before joining. I am able now to do almost clean solder joints....
The other half secret is... have something to keep at least one of the parts steady... I use a pair of pliers with the handles held together by a rubber band providing a fair pressure in the jaws... no more finger blisters!

[stephane.savard]

Day #17!

Well, just when I was about to start joining the wings, it occured to me that the flap pushrod may be too long. Lots of measuring later, I throew out the old pushrod and made a new one.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/063_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

My tools of choice and surprise! its definately messy but it worked! :D Using less heat and tinning the parts seemed to help some more. And did you know that wood burns when a butane torch is pointed at it? :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/064_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

After a bit of grinding with a dremel, some of the excess solder is removed and what looked like an aweful job is made tolerable. If it's solid, I'm happy. It's going to be buried inside the fuse anyway.


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/065_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

And the final picture of the day, the outer wing panels have been coated with epoxy and clamped to the center section. I left it like that and will not touch it until at least tomorrow, I want to make sure that epoxy cures straight.

Now I'm also stuck and cannot continue on the wing since the next steps require me to have the retracts on hand for fitting. So next build session after using the dremel to remove excess epoxy from the wing joints, I'm going to put the wing aside and we're going to see the fuselage being built.

Until next time...

[stephane.savard]

Day #18 (thrusday) and #19 (friday)


Very little time spent in the past two days.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/066_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

On Thursday, I soent half an hour cleaning up the wing after removing all the clamps. The epoxy had squeezed out of the joint a bit, and I used the dremel to remove the excess. This will allow the wing sheeting to go on correctly when I get to that part.

The above picture was taken today, and shows its current state. I do beleive I can build the entire fuselage (or nearly so) with the wing in this state, so the retracts can take their time getting to my house.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/067_spitfire_wingMedium.JPG

And today, I spent another 40 minutes glueing in the retract bearers. I made a mess with the epoxy, but luckily it will be hidden under the sheeting. I should have glued these in while I was joingint he wings, which is why the mess of epoxy had to happen.

And yes, it is quite a weird angle, the wheels will retract into the wing at a slight rearward angle. It's not entirely scale, Top-Flite had moved the gear outwards for better ground handling, but also a bit to the rear to clear the spar.

Next pictures will be of the fuselage!

[stephane.savard]

Day #20

Asd mentioned yesterday, the wing was put aside, I skipped ahead in the instruction booklet, and now I've started with the fuselage.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/068_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The upper fuselage is built first over the plans. It's a simple case of pinning the main stringers, and then adding the formers. The hardest part here was determining which formers to use, since there ar two formers for each position (i.e. Former F8, and F8b). The confusion comes from the instructions, that asked me to drill holes in F7b, F8b and F10 even though I'm working on the upper fuselage (only F10 goes on the top fuse). F7B was laser-cut and already had holes drilled into it. And F10 should not have any holes drilled in any case!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/069_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

This part is called the cockpit floor. If I leave it as it looks now, it would be at the right level for a pilot bust. But the instructions do have a plan B: the cockpit floor is already half cut (not visible in the photo) where the floor can be removed to build a FULL cockpit. I've already located the full body pilot I will use (or rather, i confirmed that Hobbieville could order it for me when ready). Top-Flite sells a cockpit kit for the Spitfire, but I'll scratch build my own. That's for another day.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/070_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here's the front of the plane. We can see the location of the servo tray, and the firewall will be placed at the very tip (where the drawing of the motor mount can be seen on the plane). I am really surprised by the amount of dihedral built into the kit, it looks like 5 degrees! Up top can be seen the remaining collection of die-cut and laser cut formers, most of them for the bottom of the fuselage.

That's it for today!

[stephane.savard]

Day #21

Well, today marks the third week of working on this plane. I'd say that on average I work on it about 2 hours each time I go down to the workshop. so this is the 42 hour mark, just a bit more than a work week :) If only I could be getting paid for this, heh!

Anyway, today is when things just got complicated and annoying mistakes happened...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/071_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

I kept hard at work on the fuselage, adding all the stringers and adding the cockipit rails. The stringers were dead easy, but the rails caused a bit of head scratching.

First, the cockpit floor was actually a bit small, so I had to enlarge the sides a bit (so much for die-cut parts). The instructions say to look at the plans for how to place the railings, but the only cross section that shows these made no sense at all - it would have been physically impossible to put on the sheeting afterwards. In the end I decided that TLAR was the way to go.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/072_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The aft stringers, nothing really complicated here. Oh, see the former marked F8? well, I'll explain what happened to it in the next pictures.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/073_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

I've also started sheeting the upper fuselage. Top-Flite went really overkill here with adding 3/32" balsa sheeting over the entire structure! All other planes I've sheeted so far has always used 1/16" and that was fine. No wonder this kit has weight issues. On the other hand, later on this means that I can be quite heavy handed with the sanding. I can be safe in knowing that I will likely not sand through the sheeting!

About former F8. The sheeting has to curve in two different directions on the back of the fuselage. Now trying to make the balsa curve isn't too difficult, all it takes is patience and a healthy dose of alcohol (to wet the sheeting, not for consumption :) ) Once wet, the sheeting will bend quite easily. But the stresses on the structure is actually pretty great, and F8 just about shattered. Nothing I can do at the moment (one crack was repaired already), but the bottom of the former will need to be reinforced when I turn the fuselage upside down.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/074_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Here's the sheeting of the front section. It's actually one long 36" sheet.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/075_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here's the finished sheeting at the front. Instead of doing as the instructions and adding more pieces to the sheeting prior to applying it, and then trying to get the sheets to join at the top, I applied 3" wide sheeting as is, and then added a small filler piece to the top to complete it. Much easier.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/076_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Good looking cockpit don't you think? Well, it has to be redone. Turns out that The canopy won't fit! After doing what you see in the above photo, I then got my doubts and trimmed the canopy and tried it on. The front curvy front of the cockpit needs to extend much further back, and even the sides are much too low (even though they are according to plan). The good news for me is that it will be relatively easy to cut away the sheeting and apply some new higher sheeting at this point.

Too bad, because the cut-out I did above is scale. By raising the sides, I'll end up with a non-scale outline here.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/077_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here's the back end sheeting. The top is purposefully left out, because a block of balsa will be glued here and sanded to the correct shape. The stabilizer saddle is not yet complete though.

And yet again, that's it for today. Next time I repair the cockpit and finish the stabilizer saddle.

[Eric Marchand]

Ok...I have to ask...I've done some woodwork on planes, my first plane was actually a kit ! I need to know :

How come you don't seem to suffer from balsa dust anywhere ? Your workbench looks like a cleanroom ! Mine would look like a 10lbs balsa bomb had exploded by now !

[Dwight Macdonald]

Nice progress Stephane! Does the full scale Spitfire have flat bottom wings?

[stephane.savard]

Eric, I keep a shopvac right next to my building board and use it between steps. Bascially, whenever a cut a piece, or sand something, I turn it on and suck up the debris :)

I don't like a dirty workbench, and after a while, when I find that too many tools are out, I usually do a cleanup and put them all back where they belong!

But aside from being a clean freak, there is a good reason for doing so. Balsa sheeting is very fragile, and any dust or bits of balsa, or tools lying around can potentially damage it.

I also keep a round bristle attachment on the shopvac so that when I vacuum the structure of the plane, the shopvac's nozzle doesn't dent the sheeting.

But it doesn't mean the workshop is clean - every single surface in my shop is covered by a thin layer of balsa dust, including my older planes. I usually have to pass the shopvac over them the first time I go flying in spring :D

Dwight: I don't know the name of the airfoil used by the spitfire, but it wasn't flat bottomed (never heard of any warbird with a flat bottomed airfoil). In WWI they were undercambered, and in WWII most were, like the Spitfire, semi-symetrical. This top-flite kit also has a semi-symetrical airfoil. Take a look at the first picture in post #43 (the one showing the full wing). Don't look at the actual wing, but underneath it, you'll be able to see the cross-section of the wing ribs on the plans - there you go, semi-symetrical.

[briankizner]

I find it fascinating to follow the construction steps. The quality and attention to detail in your work is inspiring. Have you considered sending the record of your build to the kit manufacturer? I am sure that they would be interested in it. Who knows, they may even use the feedback to make changes to their instruction manual and/or kit.

[stephane.savard]

Brian, the plans say that they were written in 1997. Top-Flite has had 11 years to fix the instruction manual, plans and parts :) I'm not the only one to have come across some of the problems of this kit, reading other build threads on this plane has helped me avoid some pitfalls, and others are self-evident if the instructions and plans are well read and studied.

Small update, I worked on the plane a bit yesterday (stabilizer was glued to the fuselage), but I'll add the post and pictures of that tomorrow, nothing much to see really :)

I'm not too happy with the sheeting on the stabilizer though, while building it, the sheeting had cracked at least in two places, and I had punched my finger through it at another point. I thought all the repairs were done good, but one in particular looks awful when looked at in side lighting. Once fiberglassed and painted, it will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. The main problem is that I had to use that damned CA glue to repair the sheeting, leaving a hard spot on the sheeting. Then combined with the filler, it became really difficult to sand down that spot without sanding the good sheeting. This left a raised spot. Anyhow, I'll have to go over it with another coat of filler and sanding.

[stephane.savard]

Days #22, #23 and #24!

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been a bit more busy than usual in the past days, and I got to a point in the build that takes up a lot of time with very little work - waiting for epoxy to dry.

So first...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/078_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Right after I posted day #21, I went back to the workshop for a bit to finish up the stabilizer saddle. Bascially just the sheeting had to be sanded down to the same curve as the saddle. Not very exciting really.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/079_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/080_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Days #22 was pretty much spent fitting the horizontal stabilzer to the fuslage, and making sure that it was both perfectly horizontal and squared to the fuselage. Then it was time to mix up some epoxy and glue it on. Total time, maybe an hour. I then left it alone for the rest of the night.

Day #23 was the same as above, except this time it was the vertical stabilizer that was glued to the top of the horizontal stabilizer. It should have gone well, but an accident happened. What you see in the above pictures was taken once the epoxy was completely cured, and hides a small disaster very well.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/081_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

I had set up a few things during the time when the epoxy was curing. First, I had a builder's square setup at the back of the fin to make sure it would stand perfectly straight. That it did, the fin is perfectly straight (the camera makes it look like it's off a bit in the image, but it's not)

I also used a rubber band on each side of the stabilizer and each extended to the top of the fin, in effect pressing down (or rather, pulling down) on the fin.

So what happened in the above picture? One of the rubber bands slipped, and snapped down to the stabilizer. The force of the rubber band hitting the sheeting quite simply shattered it. Damn. I'm starting to think that choosing the lightest balasa I could find for the tail might have been a bad idea.

Anyhow, earlier tonight I had to cut off a fairly big amount of the sheeting and added a "patch". I sanded down as best I could, and then completely covered both sides of the stabilizer with lightweight filler (it currently looks awful). But, the idea is that tomorrow I will sand almost all of that filler right off, and should be left with a smooth surface. If not, add more filler, and repeat until the damned surface is smooth! :)


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/082_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Okay, so besides repairing sheeting, I actually continued on with the build tonight. Here a 1/4" plank is glued to the top of the fuselage and sanded to shape.

And to satisfy Eric, I decided that I'd keep the shopvac off just to show him that yes, I do create balsa dust like every other builder :D

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/083_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here is the turtle deck of the spitfire, with all that isn't a turtle deck removed. A bit messy don't you think?

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/084_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Here's the turtle deck after cleaning up a bit. Much better :)

That's it for tonight! Tomorrow I'll be working on the tail end again, sanding the stabilizer smooth as explained above, but also adding the fillets around where the fuselage ends and the fin begins.

Later!

[stephane.savard]

Days #25, #26, #27, and finally #28

whew, okay it's been a while since my last update, but not for lack of working on the Spitfire. What happened is that I started repairing areas that I had screwed up, and it turns out that it was more difficult than I thought, with one of the days listed above being wasted entirely as I built up the cockpit area, only to not actually liking it and starting over a second time.

Okay, so what did I do exactly?


http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/085_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Well, last time I posted I said that I had repaired the gaping hole in the stabilizer (the rectangular area in the right stab) and coated the area with a lot of filler. Well, on day #25, I sanded away almost all the filler and did nothing else. I did a pretty good job because I only needed a few more touch ups. So much for the clean build.. from now on, this white filler will start appearing everywhere as the sheeting is made as close to perfect as I can make it.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/086_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here's the cockpit area after I screwed up the sheeting around the cockpit a second time. I stripped it down to the minimum to start over.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/087_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And finally a cockpit sheeting I can be semi-proud of! White filler has not yet been applied obviously. Once the "armor plating" bulkheads and seat are added, this should look quite nice. The floor will probably also be removed to add a full cockpit.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/088_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The above is a note to self - always cut the cockpit sheeting AFTER having fitted the bloody canopy. Now the fit is good, with only cosmetic filler and sanding required.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/089_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

After those few days of repairs, nice to get back to regular scheduled building. Here the bottom of the fuselage is prepared, and like a cooking show, I show the firewall already assembled. It's made up of three lite-ply sheets glued together with gorilla glue. Oh, and Top-Flite made a big mistake, they tell me to drill the holes in the firewall with a 1/4" drill bit, but the provided blind nuts are smaller!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/090_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Almost forgot this bit, and no, the above picture is not showing a mistake nor a repair! The white filler will be slowly built up layer by layer until its the right depth, and then sanded to make a perfect fillet.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/091_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here's the final picture for tonight, showing the assemly of the bottom fuselage. More tomorrow hopefully...

[wawapilot]

I have watched closely and tried to learn. Appreciate the photos, and details.
I copied all the photos to a file,(hope you don't mind), for future ref. on my
build and repairs. Having never built a kit, only arfs and some major crash repairs, need the schooling. thanks again. Am presently awaiting yak servos,
and slowly repairing the Staggerwing fiberglass cracks, and landing gear.
Thank-you for taking the time to share your expertise. Warren

[beto9]

Oh god, Stephane, I can almost feel the taste of balsa dust and filler powder gritting my teeth!

This is going to be a gooooood loooooooking plane! And to top it, my favourite warbird....

Summer is close, only 3 months away!

[Dwight Macdonald]

Looking good Stephane! What is the filler you use?

[stephane.savard]

Warren, I don't mind you copying the pictures, if it helps you on your own build (Spitfire?) have fun! I've looked at pictures of how others worked on their Spitfires as well. And as I mentioned before, a kit build is easy, all you need is time and patience. The instructions are all in the plans and booklet that the kit builder provides. The trick is to never cut, sand or glue anything that you are not 100% sure how to do. And the best part is, if you don't understand a particular step and no one can help, invent your own, look at the plan and figure out what needs to be done to get whatever you're doing to work out correctly. For example, the cockpit above, it's not according to plan, but it works and will look good.

Albert, that's the plan! I've already chosen my color scheme and come summer I'll be ready for the Sicilian invasion!

Dwight, look back at post #21, where I discuss the usage of LePage's Poly Instafill :) Just as good as the hobby store stuff without the expense.

okay, I'm off to my workshop, pictures will likely be up later tonight :D

[stephane.savard]

Day #29

Well, I'm back, and I got a few more images to show you.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/092_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

First up is the tail wheel assembly that's provided in the kit. The above picture is what is looks like. It's actually from Great Planes. Doesn't look like much, but its the basis for what comes next.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/093_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The tailwheel assembly is modified in two ways. First, one of the "posts" on the nylon bracket is removed and then a brass tube is soldered right onto the upper "arm" of the assembly. Glad to say that the soldering went rather well, even though I had some trouble with my butane torch (it was not spiting out enough gas through the nozzle - a pin cured the problem). I did my now trademarked method of flooding the area with as much solder as possible, and then grinding away the excess with the dremel :D

The end of the brass tube is then flattened, a 1/16" hole added and the ball link added. This is the beauty of the system, the rudder pushrod will attach to both the rudder and this arm, giving me tailwheel steering.

Okay, that's it for the tailwheel for the moment, we'll get back to it later on. I only worked on this while waiting for some glue to dry...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/094_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

... and here's what was drying. The remaining formers were added to the bottom of the fuselage, and I started adding the stringers.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/095_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

This is pretty much how I left it. It was just about 9pm, and left the workshop to go watch Dirty Jobs on Discovery channel while pedalling on the exercise bike. I rarely ever build after 9pm anyways.

Also, not pictured is that I had added some filler around the cockpit area (can be seen a bit in the above picture). Today I sanded the area clean, but did not do anything more to the fuselage/fin area yet.

Later!

[Eric Marchand]

As much as I dread tis kind of building, you mamnage to make it sound and look fun...Ons of these days I'll do the same with one of my Frankenstining projects...

Oh and by the way, thanks for the messy pictures...I feel much better now...

[Sunfly]

I appreciated you sharing all the steps of that project.
Not only you put the time on the building but for sure you did spend a important amount of time on the posting.
Thank yo very much for doing this.

But now it is my turn to say something, I always have something to say..
I can't help it :D

I just want to give you an idea to replace the Z bent for the flaps bellcranks.
I am afraid I may have come too late on this thread but the idea is to use those plastics retainers that will hold in place a 90 degree bent. They could be relatively easy to disconnect. iuse them and I like them.
Personally I try to avoid Z bents, I find them cumbersome to work with.

Also about putting some weight in the spinner: this could have an impact on flying if we go too far. A rotating mass will induce a perpendicular force to the desired rotation. Ex: A right turn (rotation) will induce a perpendicular up force according to the sense of rotation of the mass (engine internal parts ,prop and spinner)
On the other hand a wanted rotation in the pitch direction say elevator up or down would induce a force in the yaw direction. A pitch up would induce a right handside reaction and vice versa. So I don't say don't do it but be aware of the effect.

Let's call those "induced reactions".
For additional weight in the spinner the best place to install it would be at the tip where the induced reaction of the mass would be smaller. The induced reaction is proportional to the turning angular speed, mass and radius.
I suggest to avoid to put the extra balancing weight in the larger radius of the spinner assembly where it may bring a noticeable induced reaction.

Some will say: there is all this turning mass of the motor prop and spinner already and we didn't notice the effect. We never got a problem.
I will answer to this: the effect is always there but there is a point where it could become noticeable specially with an aerobatic plane when the pilot executes quick yaw and pitch controls. Just be aware.

Also .. last words:
For balancing a project I prefer to see it become slightly nose heavy during the construction and then you take profit of the leverage effect when comes time to balance. Since the tail is further from the center of lift than the nose,
(often by a ratio in the area of 2.5) then having to add some weight in the tail will translate to be smaller one.
On the other hand, a tail heavy plane would require much more weight to compensate adding appreciable weight to the project... potentially.
A builder might have put the extra weight in the engine and take profit of it.
It is all a question of BALANCE not too much .. just enough.
Also we always have to focus to minimize the total weight and keep it sturdy.

Continue the good work I can't wait to see it flying.
Cheers,

[beto9]

Like I always say, we learn, we learn, we learn in these forums and then... what do we do? We crash... but at least we know why!

Keep them coming... always extremely interesting....

[stephane.savard]

Luc, well, its a lot of fun seeing the comments people leave as well, so its good fun for me too. But honestly, I tend to write a lot each time I get at the keyboard, and it doesn't necessarily take much time to write, I can't help it (anyone I ever emailed can probably attest to that :) )

About the z-bends, I used to think the same way (cumbersome), but that changes completely once I got an actual z-bend tool. It's one of those tools that I felt was too expensive for what it does (like most hobby tools), but completely changed my mind once I got it. The z-bend simply cannot be beat in terms of simplicity (buy a good z-bend tool), durability (unless the servo wheel breaks, it's not going to let go), weight (save a whole 0.01 grams ;) ), and cost. Yes, the z-bend tool will cost something, but since I've bought it I've bent a whole lot of z's, enough to pay for itself in clevises.

First, this exercise. Get a z-bend tool. Take a good piece of wire (left over pushrod after it was cut to length. What? you haven't thrown out that great piece of wire have you?!). Using a black felt marker, mark a dot on the wire. Put the wire in the z-bend tool and don't take your eyes off the black dot. Start bending the wire, and continue watching that black dot. Do a few times and you'll know exactly where to place the black dot to get the bend you want. So next time you need a z-bend, put the pushrod in the plane and mark that black dot exactly where the hole in the servo horn is located. The z-bend is perfect.

I suppose z-bends to you is just like soldering to me, I find it cumbersome and try to avoid it at all costs :)

Like a lot of things, the nose weight and yaw sounds good in theory, but in practice on this size plane (and the weight involved, i.e. 2-3 oz maximum), adding weight to the tip of the crankshaft has probably very little noticeable effect on the plane. And while we're at it, as predicted I'll be the first to say that I have experience with this on both the Chipmunk, Stuka, and the Coroplast SE5a. :)

I'll even go so far to say that a lot of times, people that end up losing control of a plane while doing tight turns or pulling up too sharply are experiencing high speed tip-stalls and not radio interference, disorientation (though often disorientation follows :) ) or strange yaw effects.

Just so as not to be mistaken, I'm not saying that the effect doesn't exist (It certainly was experienced and written about in the early WWI fighters!), I'm just saying that it is likely a non-event in our smaller planes. Also, I mean adding weight to the crankshaft using a Harry Higley weight, and not attaching anything to the spinner itself. I wouldn't trust adding ANY weight to the spinner for fear that it shatters at high RPM, sending metal parts in all directions.

If you want to see what I mean by these weights, take a look at these pictures by Andrew: http://picasaweb.google.com/AndrewJFernie/WIMAC16Sep07, they show my SE5a with the brass 2oz (or is it 3oz?) nose weight in place.

Okay, so now about the balance issue. I agree with you, I would much rather see a heavy nose than a heavy tail during construction, but the reality of scale building means that the planes don't necessarily work out that way. Many scale planes have shorter nose moments than sport planes such as a Goldberg Tiger II or an ultrastick, and in order to acheieve a scale finish, we're usually forced to fully sheet the tail and fiberglass, adding more weight to the tail end of the airframe. And we're not even talking about the added weight of paint yet! All these 'scale' ARFs that come out are much easier to balance simply for the fact that they use monokote for covering an open structure.

Thanks for the words! always good to have these discussions :)

[Sunfly]

About the weight on the front: now I see.
About the Z bent: I saw a Z bent tool at the Modelist alst summer and it had a guide were the horn hole was to be aligned. This was impoooosible to miss.
It did not convince me, I just don't like Z bent. With the price of the tool wich was about $50.00 I can buy a lot of those 90 degree bend retainers.
Every one does it the way he likes it.

But I insit and I want everyone to know that IDLZB.

Cheers,

[stephane.savard]

Might be a little while for an update, my desktop computer has failed and I'm stuck with a laptop for the moment. But, I'm still at work on the Spitfire, and when I can I'll make my usual multi-day update to this thread.

In any case, I may be stuck soon, the backordered retract system have not yet been delivered. The problem is that I will be needing the air cylinder very soon before I sheet the lower fuselage, and that step is coming up real soon!

[stephane.savard]

Days #30 to #33!

So my computer is still dead, and I've decided to purchase another, but in the meantime I'm on the laptop. I installed Picasa for the quick updates of my pictures, and connected the media reader and I can now continue keeping you updated with pictures :)

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/096_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Continued working on the fuselage by adding the rest of the stringers. The above picture was actually taken late, which is why we can see the pushrod sleeve to the tailwheel/rudder already installed. Even though its a bit messy, I use polyurethane glue quite a bit for my build. It foams up as it cures, and it great for things like attaching pushrod sleeves.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/097_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Here's the rear installation of the pushrod sleeve for the rudder and tailwheel. Despite it looking quite easy on the plans and in the instructions, it turned out to be rather diffifult to align this correctly. Hence why I had to add so much filler to cover the butchering I needed to do.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/099_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Fortunately, once everything is sanded down, the installation looks quite clean. Once the fiberglass is one the fuselage, it should end up fairlygood looking despite my best efforts to screw it up. My builds always look quite nice at the beginning, but once the sheeting comes on, there goes the nice wood :(

Another point here is that the tailwheel plywood plate has not yet been glued to the fuselage, this will only be done much later after the fuselage has been sheeted. Unless I decide to go against Top-Flite instructions, if I add the sheeting, I could have problems putting the plate back in the fuselage. We'll see soon.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/100_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

Here's the fin filet completed for the time being. Frankly, it looks a lot better in the above image than in person. If you ever want to see if you've done a good sanding job, take a small desk lamp, and shine it to the side of the work you've sanded. That's when all the bumps and scratches appear. And well, the filet has bumps (especially on the other side than what is pictured). The job is adequate I suppose, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I kept adding more filler and sanding, but it never got any better, so I decided to stop trying before I caused an accident that would need repairs. Also, the stabilizer sheeting is as fragile as ever, and a bit bumpy as well. I am very much so looking forward to fiberglassing the rear end of this Spitfire!!!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/101_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The wing saddle doublers and wing hold-down blocks. I used polyurethane glue for the blocks since the foaming action creates natural filets. t's plenty strong enough... just look at Brian's MiG combat plane, it was built using polyurethane glue, and despite his and mine's best efforts at crashing, it still flies :D

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/102_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The final picture for the day, the stringers are added to the end of the plane in preparation for sheeting. The tailwheel is still not glued in place, (I'm really wondering if I should trust Top-Flite here!).

Oh, I also decided to use the Top-Flite provided steel pushrods (not pictured). Turns out that with the weird angles it just works better, if heavier. Ah well.

So what's next? Well, I'll be adding an antenna tube somewhere in there at this point because the next step is to sheet the lower fuselage. Also in preparation for sheeting, the entire lower structure will be sanded (i.e. the stringers, formers, areas that I want to clean up before it dissapears under sheeting, etc).

And here's the thing, if you look at the first picture of this post, there's a "circle" that appear in the first two formers of the fuselage starting right behind the cockpit. This is where the air cylinder for the retracts will be located. But, I don't have the cylinder. Obviously, once I sheet the fuselage, that area is not accessible. So if I go and sheet it now, I have to trust that the cylinder will fit. And how easy will it be to mount the cylinder in there once the sheeting is in place? We'll just have to see and wait, and I'll have to hope I get the retracts soon!

[Eric Marchand]

Stephane, regarding your sanding efforts, specifically in the areas where you used filler like the fin filets, have you considered using a smooth rag and some kind of solvent to smooth out the filler surface, as opposed to sanding ?

[stephane.savard]

Well, strangely enough, yes I had thought of trying to smooth it out with a bit of water. But only for the filet. But it would not really help me in this case. I don't use a sanding block or stright sandpaper to sand the filet.

First, I did a rough "sanding" by using the dremel, just to get most of the excess filler out of the way. Then for the second part, I use a sanding pad. I bought these a long time ago at Reno-depo, it's basically a square piece of foam with gritted cloth on one side.

I get good results with the above, except that if looked at closely, there is one or two stubborn bumps in an area that is difficult to get at with the sanding. Really, the challenge is not sanding one filet, but sanding both filets so they look identical.

I'll try to get a better picture tonight to show what I mean.

As for solvents on the rest of the sanding (i.e. the stabilizer sheeting), it would be a very risky thing to try. never use any water or liquid anywhere near sheeting, because the wood will absorb it and distort. No, using a sanding block is the good answer here, and the sheeting on the fuselage is testament to the fact that filler and a good sanding block will work. The problem with the stabilizer sheeting is that I had to make some tough repairs on it, and the sheeting is extremely fragile.

Oh, and I unfortunately repaired my computer yesterday (I was really psyched into getting a new a better system to work on my digital photos :( ) Sat down and started yanking parts out of the computer until it finally booted. Turns out it was a dead videocard.

[Badger]

Stephan,
When I did my Spit I sheeted the fuse and added the retract cylinder after without problem. It fits tight and I used silicon to glue it into place. I don't think you will find any issues with this.

[stephane.savard]

Thanks for the heads up on the air cylinder, I had not yet made up my mind, but this evening I did prepare the lower fuse sheeting (i.e. glued two sheets together to make one larger sheet) in preparation. So tomorrow I just may go ahead and begin sheeting.

I feel I've done almost nothing in the past week and a half, no good long building sessions, mostly repairs and short unsatisfying sessions. Getting anxious to actually going forward with the build :)

[stephane.savard]

Days #34, 35 and 36.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/103_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/104_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

I started sheeting the lower fuselage with the supplied 3/32" thick wood. The first side did not go very well, with the wood wanting to split too easily. I would have liked to use carpenter's glue, but I used CA instead. The second side was much easier and went fairly well.

At this point, I'm going to trim the sheeting and give it a preliminary sanding with some filler being used where the wood split.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/105_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

This little guy showed up this week as well. It's literally the only 1/7th scale WWII pilot I could find that also happened to be full body. He's from Century Jet Models, and unfortunately, I'm rather bummed out by this pilot. First, it looks nothing like the pictures I saw on their website. The parts fit as awful. Seriously, the legs and torso don't even appear to come from the same guy. The detailing on him as rather awful as well, one eye appears to be missing, it looks like whoever molded this pilot was in a huge rush. And he weighs 5.1 oz

I did use the dremel and managed to get him down to 4.6 oz, and more sanding got the parts to fit better, but still. A bit of a let down, especially since the pilot sits so far back from the CG.

So here's my advice to all, stay away from Century Jet Models.

Later!

[stephane.savard]

Days #37 and #38

Here's a bit more than was done in the past days. Sorry for the lack of regular updates, some chores and another hobby got temporarily in the way :) With the long weekend coming up though, I should be able to get quite a bit done.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/106_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

The Sheeting that was shown in the previous days has been trimmed back to normal, but filler has not yet been applied. Since I still need to do a lot of work to the fuselage, it will most likely, or rather I should say, it will definately suffer a bit of "hangar rash". Or should it be "factory-floor rash"? :D

So, I'll wait as long as I can before applying the filler so that I do do so several times.

The two spots of CA glue that can be seen in the above picture is where the cockpit will be - that "floor" will be removed and another floor will be put in lower to allow for the full cockpit. Or that's the idea anyway.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/107_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

On the back end, we have the sheeting trimmed, and the plank glued in place and sanded down to the rough shape of the lower fuselage. Again, the sanding is not perfect, with some spots still raised and nothing filled yet, but that will be done only later. If you look closely, you can also see where the sheeting cracked while trying to bend it in position.

Next is the tailwheel area that will be filled and sanded to shape, and tyhe tailwheel bracket permanently installed.

I also don't have the retracts yet. Great hobbies does have them now (they've had them for a while now), but what's missing is a single sullivan sky-lite wheel (at 3.5" diameter, they are sold in singles instead of pairs). If by Thursday they still don't have it, I'm just going to tell them to drop the wheels and send the retracts. So far I've been okay without the retracts and wheels, but I can't keep stalling!

Later!

[stephane.savard]

Days #39 and 40.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/108_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

So on we go, now at the back end of the plane, fitting the two blocks of wood that will be the lower-back fuselage, surrounding the tailwheel. They are first tack-glued into place before doing some sanding.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/109_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And here we have the "finished" product. Again, no filler has been applied yet, so it looks a bit ragged. This isn't the nicest loking build I've done so far, but then again, the Stuka looked pretty ragged at times too, and in the end it turned out not so bad (well, except for those landings :D )

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/110_spitfire_fuselageMedium.JPG

And TADA! We have what is seriously starting to look like a Spitfire! I'm pretty happy to see it like this, especially after getting rather discouraged at all the raggety edges everywhere and some of the "factory-floor rash" that developped on the stabilizer tips (must have been against something during a bout of sanding).

But I'm now blocked. I need those retracts, the fuselage instructions are now asking me to put on the wing, but the wing is not complete. And I can't continue on the wing without installing the retracts. Good news is that I noticed that Great Hobbies charged my credit card on the 18th, so they must have shipped the package. I hope it gets here for early next week.

Until then, no more updates!

[beto9]

Steph, your build looks great. I think that you are too critical of the job you are doing... It will be a pleasure to take the photos of the first and subsequent flights, I am sure you will not be able to do that, your thumbs will be plenty occupied...

[wawapilot]

Its coming along beautifully..and I too believe that it will be a handful.
Hope to see its maiden flight.

[loflyer2001]

Hello Stephane;

If you want to see some info on the aircraft go to RCC Canada
Scale A/C, Brian Taylor plans built by Bill Green's thread. Nice
information. As for me, my project is of very low priority.
I still have two models to repair and a couple of fast built for
just plain fun. On my Spit; I am presently doing tests
on how to build the sliding canopy for it. I am almost there.
The tolerance is so close that I may have problems with the
thickness of the paint or I may try the RIT dye process.

Good Luck with yours.

Guy L.:)

[stephane.savard]

Days #41 to #44!

After nearly a month off building this Spitfire, I've finally got back to it. Basically, other things got in the way, including waiting for the retracts, starting into the fish keeping hobby, short vacation, and other things.

So I put the fuselage aside and started getting the retracts into the wing...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/111_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The above picture pretty much shows how the retracts bearers sit inside thw wing. Yes, it definately is a very strange angle.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/112_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

So the first order of business was to modify the retracts. Here I use Robart retracts, the same that were recommended by Top-Flite. The first modification was to take the retracts apart (5 screws each unit) and put the air cylinder into the reverse side of the retracts (as shown above). This needs to be done because the air cylinders won't fit otherwise. The second modification was to cut off the majority of the wire gear.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/113_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

Yes, I am keeping only the short bent wires in the above photo.

A cut-off dremel wheel was used to cut the wire. I belt sander was then used (not shown) to smooth out the wire ends. The white are small pieces of vinyl I used to mark where to bend the wires.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/114_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

As shown above, the retracts were fitted and dremel sanding drum used to carve out what needed to be carved out.

More to come later...

[stephane.savard]

Now that we're later...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/115_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The wheel was fitted to the Oleo strut and the strut bolted to the wire stump. Then became a very long process of retracting and extension, making sure that the wheel was in the correct position, and that no wood interfered with the mechanism.

The wheel is a Sullivan Sky-Lite, they look fairly good and are really light for their size. The oleo strut is from Robart.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/116_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

Here we have the wheels retracted up into the wing (seen from the top of the wing). They are not in their final position at this point. As they currently sit, the wheels poke out of the top of the wing and the top balsa sheeting would not fit. I heard of others having the same problem when building the Spitfire. Tomorrow I will be making small wedges of wood to insert between the retract and the wood bearers. These will end up tilting the wheels further into the wing.

Also I put the air compressor I bought from Canadian Tire into the picture. It was on special for about 30$, so pretty happy about it. It's battery operated, and takes all of 20-30 seconds to fill the air cylinder to capacity! Plus, should the battery die, there is a second "battery pack" that came with it that has a cord and 12V car adapter. I simply used a basketball filling attachment, slipped on a piece of Robart airline, and put the Robart provided filling chuck at the end.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/117_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

And here are the gear extended. The valve that comes with the Robart air kit is adjustable, so I can control the rate at which the gear extent or retract. Bonus for me is that the gear do not extend/retract at the same time (one gear usually comes in/out before the other), which is great because this is how it worked on the full-size Spitfire!

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/118_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

Here's a close-up of the functional oleo strut! They are fairly easy to install, it's basically a case of cutting them down to length (Dremel cut-off wheel works great) and inserting and JB welding a spacer at the top of the strut. Two holes are then drilled and tapped into the strut near the top (barely visible in the picture - hidden by the rib), and the whole thing can then be stuck on the retract gear wires.

By the way, the spacers are a REALLY tight fit. First take the oleo strut apart (the "scissor" is what holds it together, remove the c-washer and pull the pin). Then use a hammer to lightly force the spacer into the top of the strut.

And so that's it for tonight. Tomorrow I'll be working on those wedges, and if I finish that, it's on to sheeting the top of the wing.

Oh, someone in another thread was asking for help on Robart retracts. Sorry I didn't reply, but this is the first time I actually use them. If you still need help, ask away, I might be able to help now :)

[stephane.savard]

Day #45

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/119_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

Just a bit more today. I added the wedges to fit the retracts completely inside the wing, and while I waited for the glue to dry, I added the blocks of balsa for the flap hinges, and the flap bellcranks were glued in place with polyurethane glue.

Only one picture really, it shows all three of the abiove :)

Now that the retracts are done, I propped up the wing on some foam and filled the air cylinder. From this I readjusting the retract speed (turns out that the speed of extending and retracting is different when the wing is upwide down, duh, should of thought of that :D .

Anyway, also turns out that its only when the cylinder is 2/3rd empty that the retracts enter and leave the wing at different speeds. The good thing is that I counted how many full cycles could be done on a full cylinder...

* The cylinder is full at 120 psi.
* At around the 40th full cycle (retract and extend) the retracting speed is slowed down.
* At the 49th cycle (~30-35 psi), the wheels refused to rise up on their own they "stuck" half-way. But shaking the wing a little bit caused the wheels to finally go back up into the wing (i.e. engine vibration would probably be enough).
* at the 53rd cycle, no shaking could help the wheels up. But, even though it was slow, the wheels can still extend and lock down into landing position.

The only thing, is if I lose air pressure while the wheels are up in the wing, there is no way to extend the wheels, and a belly landing will be required :eek: There are some electronic devices that exist to automatically detect low pressure and extend before the cylinder reaches zero, but these are expensive and add weight; I'll just risk it.

Enjoy!

[stephane.savard]

Days 46, 47 and 48? The amount of time that passes between build evenings is getting difficult to track. Plus I sometimes go down and work only for a minute or two on the Spitfire, but yesterday was probably day #48 +/- 2 days :)

Also has a bit of a setback, my Shopvac died. This of technically my forth shopvac in 5 years! Building planes appears to be hard of them! My first shop vacuum died and was replaced when I was working on the Chipmunk. That second one died while I was working on the Stuka. It was still under warranty, so I while it was being repaired, my father lent me his own shopvac. That one died within a week of when I gave it back to him! And now, almost exactly one year later, the repaired shopvac died last week. Tired of paying 100+ $ for shop vacs, I went to walmart and got myself a 40$ 5 gal shopvac; since past experience shows that it won't last long, might as well keep it cheap :)


Anyhow, on to the Spitfire...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/120_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

I started by sheeting the bottom of the wings Nothing really difficult here, its pretty much like any other sheeting job.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/121_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

On the other hand, I now needed to put the retracts back into the now sheeted wings. It's not really difficult, but is time-consuming. The first bit of course is to locate where to punch the first hole into the sheeting. And here's my own trick to this. Using a T-Pin, simply turn the wing over, and from inside, poke a small hole through the sheeting. that way, you can find out where to start the hole without being off and needing to repair the wing.

Then its a simple case of enlarging the hole until the retract fits.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/122_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

There's something a bit annoying with Robart retracts. Or rather, its annoying while building the plane, but will be very good while flying and landing. Once the gear is either fully retracted or extended, the gear locks, and it is impossible to move the gear without using air pressure. Also, the air hoses must be connected to both retracts for either of them to work. Since I can only work on one gear at a time, the above was my solution. I installed both gears in place, and used a bit of foam to prevent the gear from crushing the sheeting while I constantly extended and retracted the other.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/123_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

And here is why, slowly, I activated the gear retraction, but held onto the gear, and let it slowly fall to the sheeting, where I marked the balsa and slowly cut it away with a dremel sanding drum. I did this until the gear fell in the wing neatly, at which point I simply enlarged and rounded off the hole.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/124_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/125_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/126_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/127_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg


It's not evident from the images above, but the hole is not a circle. It's actually something of an oval. This is because the wheel enters the wing at an angle. As the wing starts to reach the hole in the sheeting, the wheel is about 1/8" of an inch of touching the front sheeting. As it reaches its halfway mark, the sheet is 1/8" of an inch from touching the sheeting towards the wing tip. And finally it comes to rest well within the wing.

What complicates matters is that there is a wing rib and a the spar that prevents the hole from being a perfect oval. Which is why you can see some "flat" spots. At this point I'm not sure if I will add gear doors. The weird angle will place the doors at a weird angle. I may try making them out of cardboard first just to see what it would look like extended.

[stephane.savard]

Continuing day 48...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/128_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

I had made some 1/16" plywood hatches to cover the hole of the retract mechanism, but realised that the angle at which the retract rests on its bearers meant that the plate would not fit without a huge unsightly hole. So I glued some 1/32" plywood to the plate and made a bit bigger. I only needed a very small hole in the plywood to clear the screw. Though I might put another little round piece of 1/32 plywood to hide that as well. The enlarged 1/32" hatch also helped since I was better able to add hold down screws without drilling into the spar.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/129_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The plates installed, and the gear extended.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/130_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The above is something that I had seen in another build thread. Bascially, what I wanted is to have wheel wells. Remember when I said that the hole was not perfectly oval because of the spar and the rib? Well guess what? The wheel well got a bit complicated because of that. Also, because of the angle of the retract, as the wheel retracts, it moves backwards. That means there's very little clearance between the wheel and the walls of the wheel well (towards the rear of the wing).

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/131_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg


Here's the wheel retracted. I will now cut down the wheel well so that the sheeting will fit nicely on top, and also smooth out the inside "angles" of the weel with some lightweight spackle. Also will need to paint and fuel proof this area.

That's it for now.. will likely go back downstairs to continue working on the plane :)

[Dwight Macdonald]

Very interesting to see the progess Stephane! Have you estimated the total hours that it will take from the box to the air? If you divide the total cost by the total time, I bet you're getting a very economical entertainment cost per hour!

[stephane.savard]

Dwight:

I have no idea; originally I thought it would be finished around June, but I let pass the equivalent of one and a half months without working on it. But definately, the enjoyment factor is a heck of a lot more than an ARF. Doesn't even feel too bad crashing on the third flight; at least its not 800$+ just evaporated with no enjoyment what-so-ever.

[corsi]

Hello Stephane,

i am happy to read your very good building report especially because my top flite spitfire kit arrived yesterday :)
i have a question about your retracts from robart. What kind of robo struts did you use?
The No. 650 straight struts with 3/8 '' diameter?
The retracts are the 605HD, right?

I am looking forward to your reply and i wish you good luck and a lot of fun with your spiti :)
greetings from germany
Thorsten

(i hope that it is allowed to register and post in this forum without being a member of the WIMAC!?) :)

[stephane.savard]

woohoo! I've got an international audience :D OH, and anyone can be a member of this forum corsi; more the merrier as they say


You are correct on both the struts and the retract units. #650 Straight struts and the #605HD units. The air kit that I decided to go with is the #188VRX. I beleive its called the deluxe version. Comes with an adjustable valve and a pressure gauge. Turns out I won't install the pressure gauge though, the air compressor I use has an integrated digital gauge; and it means I have two less airline connections in the plane that could go wrong.

It's a fairly easy kit to build, so long as you read one or two build threads to know what could go wrong (i.e. parts that don't necessarily fit correctly, etc). I hope you get better wood quality than I did :)

If you have any questions about it as you build, go ahead and ask and I'll do my best to answer..

[corsi]

good morning,

thank you for your reply and for your offer to help, you are very friendly :)
i wondered about the registration form. it seems only canadian people can fill it out correctly. :D so... i had to fake it a little bit.
But i am welcome to disclose my identity.
I am 33 years old and coming from south germany near the boarder to France.
The Spitfire is my first wood-kit and i am sure it will be a great fun to build this beautiful plane.
I ordered exactly the same retract set as you do. I readed many german boards about the question of belief what retract system is the best but in the end i can say, the robart gears are the happy medium between price and quality.
If you connect all accurately, you will have no loose of pressure.
Better you try to land with gears up then with partial gears down.
So... to keep a long story short, we will see :D
First, i have to prepare a convenient building board for this size of plane.
I will follow your report tensely.

see you :)
Thorsten

[loflyer2001]

Hello Stephane and Thorstern
I also follow closely Stephane's progress on his model.
I do have a head start on him as mine, all the woodwork as been done.
We also have a modeller a friend from my Club (Les Moulins a Vent de
l'Ile Perrot) who did purchase his kit at the same time as mine and
his as been flying since last year minus the flaps. His Robarts HD
mechanical retracts did give him a lot of problems (operating from
grass strips where as for Stephane it is a pulp mill large used belt)
I had also equipped mine with mechanical retracts but have since ordered
the air ones, no big deal as there are the same dimensions.
Yes there are a headache to install. I will be operating off grass at
my club and will give a lot of leeway for clearance while installing. I like Stephane idea for covering up the retract with a sheet of plywood. Thank you Stephane I will do the same. I would like to mention to you Stephane that your scale oleo are stiff (which is the nature of it) and with a heavy wing loading such as your Spit it may create some damage as Peter my friend
did with his on his first landing (just a word of caution) I will retain the
coil spring landing gear on mine and dress up the bottom half for the
scale effect. (Cannot have both) For Thorsten my canopy will be cut
to retract. I am using styrene plastics from Railway Hobby Shops to
have it slide thru U channels and the likes.
I am a very slow builder on this one and it may not be ready for a year
or two. My modelling preference starts with the fine details and the finish.

Good Luck to you both
Guy LeBel

[stephane.savard]

Day #49 and #50!

Wow, day 50 already :)

This is dragging on at this point, I'm still on the retracts! I understand the point about the retracts being stiff, and my needing to be very careful on the landings. It will have a pretty high wing loading, but as much as I have trouble with the Stuka, the Chipmunk was a whole different matter. I think the Spitfire's lower center of gravity and shorter/wider stance on the gear will make it easier to land than my other warbird.

I do wonder though, with such a large wing, it must be more stable than the Stuka's narrow wings?

Anyway, on with the images...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/132_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

First we have the "finished" wheel well. This is the view from the top of the wing, and we can see how I sanded down the wood to the same height as the ribs. The wood bent fairly easily (once wet with a solution of water, alcohol and left over windex). No, I don't have a specific recipe - the bottle was once filled with windex, and as it got near empty, I added some alcohol at one point (great for cleaning planes). Then some other day just before leaving for the field, I found I had not enough to wash my planes, so I added some water to make it go father :)

The main problem was that the ribs and spar was in the way and prevented me from creating a perfect oval. I also smashed the wood once after retracting the wheels - I had totally forgot to cut a hole for the strut.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/133_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The poor excuse for a photo above (sorry, forgot the Macro setting on the camera) shows the solution to the uglyness. I used lightweight filler to smooth out the insides of the wheel wells

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/134_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The wheel is retracted, and fits fairly tightly into the well. There is roughly 1/8" to 3/16" clearance. Though I'm not worried about it. Should the strut bend back a bit, the wheel will simply stop. Being pneumatics, I have no worries about draining the battery on a stalled servo, and the retract is soft enough not to crush the wing/wood.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/135_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

This above is the same view but from the top of the wing. Notice the flap bellcranks have been installed some time ago (I can't remember if I had mentioned that).

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/136_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

Here's something interesting; the "inner" plate is made of 1/16" plywood, and was the original "hatch" I had made for the retracts. The weird "hole" is what I had to cut away to make the hatch fit because of the protruding retract mount. The solution as you can see was to add the 1/32" plywood plate over the whole hatch.

Very hard to see is that I also shaved part of the retract unit with the dremel sanding drum to allow the forward bend of the strut.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/137_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

And of course we come to the final pic of the day. I painted the entire inside of the wheel well and retract mount with a passable shade of "cockpit" green. Most warbirds have the inside parts (including cockpit) painted in a very particular shade of of green (Chromium?) as some sort of protection. I mixed my own with yellow, added a bit of blue, added a bit of silver, and then a good bit of gold, and well, I rather think its close enough. Please note though that the photo does a poor job of reproducing the right color. the actual paint I created is much less "vivid".

The paint is acrylic, so next I'll spray on some clear coat and the wheel wells will be complete, until the the top skin of the wing is glued on.

Enjoy!

[beto9]

"I do wonder though, with such a large wing, it must be more stable than the Stuka's narrow wings?"

A bit late to wonder, Stephane... A lot of work has been done... you are commited!

[stephane.savard]

My last day of flying and complete lack of capability at landing any of those planes in the crosswind sorta shook me there Albert. But yes, I'm comitted and it will fly no matter what :)

Day #51 and #52

Just a bit more was done in the past couple days.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/138_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

First is the hatch for the aileron servos. The hatches are already provided by the kit; all I did was place them onto the wing, trace them out, and cut. The tricky bit is first putting them at the right place since they are supposed to fit exactly on some bearers and between two ribs. The easiest thing is to use a pin to punch a few holes through the sheeting, thus marking the spot when seen from the other side.

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/139_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

The outside of the hatches put into place. Six screws are used because the servo is mounted directly to the hatch...

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/140_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

... like so. These are standard BB servos from hitec. They were last used in the Chipmunk - yes the one that lost ailerons on takeoff. heh, it was not the fault of the servos. The connector had come loose from the receiver, and I had failed to make a proper control check before takeoff. Too excited at the funfly :o

http://stephane.savard.googlepages.com/141_spitfire_wingMedium.jpg

And here I get to a bit of a problem. I need to route the connectors from the servo, all the way to the hole in the middle of the wing. The instructions are quite helpful there, saying that to connect the servo leads and the required Y-harness, I can go through the hole in the wing left by the wheel. Naturally, the instructions don't know I built up that area with a wheel wheel and cannot access the servo leads in through there :D

Putting a tub would be quite an easy thing, except that there is no straight line from the servo bay to the middle of the wing. Those pesky wheel wells again. I looked in my stuff for a suitable flexible tube but found none. So I'll have to go looking at a store. I've been thinking 1/2" aquarium tubing; it's vinyl, cheap, flexible and at the length I need a very small weight penalty.

That's it for now, enjoy!

[xed]

You can get al-cheapo electrical wiring rigid plastic tubing that is flexible enough and very light from Home Depot in the electrical section, the same area that has heat shrink for wiring servo connectors together.

[stephane.savard]

Thanks Greg, I'll check it out tonight, this is probably exactly what I need!

[Sunfly]

I don't know if this will be relevant for you but...
To pass wires in a wing I first use a piece of rope with a small weight like a screw. I drop this rope first and then I use the rope to pull the servo wire.
Simple and no added weight.

Very nice project Stephane !!

[stephane.savard]

Neat idea, but would not be practical in my case; too many ribs to pass through, and it needs to bend around the wheel well. Plus, the tube will prevent the wires from coming into contact with the flap mechanism.

One of my favorite tubes to use is an idea from Albert. Often when I go to the field, I stop by the depanneur near the 40. Whenever I do, on my way out I often take one slurpy straws (Sloche brand - I have a nice collection now!). They are exactly the right size to allow a female servo connector to fo through. The weight is probably less than a gram. Unfortunately, they are of use only in a wing that has no bends. I tried cutting the tub and forming an angle, but then the connector won't pass through.

[Safety First]

Try to use a very lite "ficelle" and suck it with a vacuum cleaner of course you have to block most of the big opening on the wing.

[stephane.savard]

Hi everyone, been a loooong time! :)

Anyone fancy a nice build this winter? I'm just never going to finish this plane. I just don't have the time considering how much I spend with the kids and other hobbies, so I want to sell it to someone that would do this Spitfire justice.

I have the full kit, the build is exactly at the point shown in the last few posts of this thread (actually, the upper-wing balsa skins are also completed for both wings). Also included is the full Robart retracts (as shown in this build), the three wing servos (Hitec 425BB) are already installed in the wing, and I'm sure I still have the three Hitec 425BBs available for the fuselage in my parts box. Also got wheels, and I have two different scale full body pilots (unpainted and unassembled). Plus you get this whole build thread letting you know what I did so far!!

I do have channel 39 FM radio Futaba transmitter and receivers if anyone has any interest in them; I now have a 6 channel spektrum to fly my little electric planes, so no need of the older glow-splattered tx.

Just send me an email if you have an interest!

p.s. though I am selling this build, I am not 'done' with the hobby, no sir! Though I'm not flying the big planes anymore, I do have a small bind-n-fly Sukhoi I occasionally fly, and another project is a 14" wingspan depron scale Hawker Hurricane with the innards from a sukhoi bindnfly. And I flat out refuse to part with my Feiseler Storch, someday I will finish it! You know, when the kids are 10 or something :)

p.p.s. I even have an Blade mSR helicopter that I occasionally bang around the basement! :eek:

[beto9]

Oh my, my, my!
A ghost from the past! Who will be next? Robert Naylor?
How are the kids? Twins, right?
How many Gigabytes of pictures you already have?

[stephane.savard]

Hey Albert!

Kids (yes, twins) are doing great, just past 2 and a half years old now, and driving us absolutely nuts asking "why?". But its absolutely great just like that! Any chance they my two girls will grow up wanting airplanes? guess that's every father's dream eh? :)

I occasionally go out for taking pictures (not as often as I'd like though), but twice now in the past two years I've been able to go down to the coast of Maine for a extra long weekend to indulge in a short photo trip. So not too much photography except in some really concentrated bursts.

However, I keep getting a pull every time I visit the workshop and see the unfinished Storch. Someday, someday, after all the renovations maybe.

[VGeada]

Hello
I have a kit like this to assemble and I am studying Stephane's instructions.
5 stars

[Krish]

Stephane, you have mentioned having a Fieseler Storch and will keep and complete it someday in the future?
Well, so do I...and would like to fly it someday with a G23 2 stroke gas and magneto.
I don't recall who made the kit...may have been Balsa USA! But I contracted with a builder I had respect for in 2002 and still my most expensive model of my 23 planes at the time. See the attached photos.

As you likely know, it was the first aircraft designed with fowler flaps and was owned by all major leaders in WW2, cud takeoff and land in 100 yards and afforded by the leggie landing mechanism which are built into this still, in storage