Radio Control Scale 2010/07

Author: Stan Alexander

Edition: Model Aviation - 2010/07
Page Numbers: 98,99,100

Radio Control Scale

The Olympics of Scale competition

While watching the 2010 Winter Olympics, my wife and I listened as winners told interviewers how proud they were to represent the US and bring home gold, silver, and bronze medals in various events. Just watching it all happen gave me a great feeling. Our country racked up the medals, winning the most of any country that entered the Olympics.

This sort of national pride is something we should see when assembling teams of pilots and builders to represent the US at international events such as the Scale World Championships. That is the aeromodeling competition equivalent to the Olympics.

The premier class for RC Scale is FAI F4C, which is the event flown around the world in scale competition. If you build kits, you generally won't be as competitive at that level as those who construct from plans or from scratch. Constructing models from plans is accepted and will give you an opportunity to do well, but the best idea is to draw plans and build an aircraft from scratch.

I've included photos of F4C airplanes in this column, and readers have asked many questions about them: "Whose kit is that?" "Where can I buy those wire wheels?" "How do I get a dummy engine kit for that in-line motor?"

The answer to those questions is that the contestants themselves fabricate probably 99.9% of the parts and aircraft. They're usually subjects you don't see many of, or that might never have been built before. These models are extremely well-documented, well-built, and well-flown in competition.

There's a new FAI Sport Scale class, which will likely be a World Championships event in the next two to four years. It uses simplified static rules with the RC FAI Scale flight rules and schedule. The FAI class is basically the same as AMA Sport Scale, except for the K factors.

If you've flown in RC Aerobatics contests, you know about K factors. They are multipliers for the score of an individual maneuver. Takeoff and landing have higher K factors, and basic maneuvers have lower K factors. Kits, fiberglass kits, and jets are competitive in this class.

Regarding K factors, the better you perform more difficult maneuvers, the more you are rewarded, with scores greater than 10 possible. On the flip side, points are deducted at the same rate if you execute those maneuvers poorly.

There are getting to be fewer craftsmen who build models from scratch; hence the Sport Scale event in FAI competition. Check it out!

A diverse group of airplanes was flown in World War I, ranging from the F.E.2b pusher biplanes to the Fokker D.VII, which had a modern design for the time. German and some French aircraft had some of the most colorful markings and designs of the period. If you want to model one of those subjects, parts—especially 1/4-scale—and drawings to make your own details are readily available.

Some WWI models fly exceedingly well. Why? Many of the aircraft, such as the British S.E.5a, the Fokker D.VII, and the Albatros D.III to D.Va, had in-line engines, which made for a smaller frontal area. In-line engine–powered airplanes were generally laid out with a longer nose and a longer tail moment arm, unlike many radial-engined aircraft. Some radial-powered designs had large, bulbous cowlings, which increased drag, and square fuselages, which tended to make them more unstable in wind.

This was the first time aviation technology took several leaps forward. Inventions included steel-tube fuselages, pilot protection, better and more powerful engines, stronger fabrics, and interrupter gears for machine guns.

During a visit to Phoenix, Arizona, I had the opportunity to stop in and meet Jaime Johnston, his business partner Bill Powers, and builder John Deacon at Arizona Model Aircrafters. They sell scale flying models and develop and build full-scale models for museums and movies such as Flyboys, The Aviator, and Band of Brothers, as well as for the Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and the Military Channel.

The company has scale kits in sport and museum scale. It offers custom work, enlarging and shrinking plans, three-views, laser-cut parts, solid models, and metalwork.

In addition, Jaime, Bill, and John offer custom-made wire wheels that have the correct spoke count for various countries (the British had the highest spoke count on WWI wheels). They also sell vintage white tires and other tires of the WWI period. All products are available in different sizes to match modelers’ needs for special scale projects.

While I was at the facility, Jaime began running off a set of plans for a 1/2-scale Beechcraft Staggerwing model that was going to be displayed in an airport. The company sells plans for all of its kits in various scales and custom kits with all of the detail parts.

Kits available include:

Albatros D.I, D.II, D.III, and D.Va
Avro D and Triplane
Curtiss JN4, D Pusher, and F Flying Boat
de Havilland D.H.1, D.H.2, and Tiger Moth
Fokker Dr.I and D.VII
Focke-Wulf Fw 56
Hansa-Brandenburg C.I and D.I
Nieuport 11 and 17
Pfalz D.III
Spad 13
1903 Wright Flyer
and many others

Check out the Web site to see the rest.

If you have a kit from Balsa USA, such as a Fokker D.VII, Arizona Model Aircrafters has many detail parts for it and for other manufacturers’ products. These items include dummy engines, Spandau ammunition magazines, cockpit detail kits, machine guns, scale lozenge camouflage fabric in three-, four-, or five-color schemes, and rib tapes.

Jaime, Bill, and John also offer building services for models, full-scale models, and ARFs. According to Jaime, one of the main reasons the company concentrates on WWI models, even in different scales, is that the structures are simple and most of the aircraft use the same basic parts such as cowls, machine guns, flying wires, and turnbuckles.

That makes many components in the same scale interchangeable, which cuts manufacturing costs. It seems like a solid business plan.

In the past several columns I’ve mentioned Balsa USA, Proctor Enterprises, and other businesses that supply WWI aircraft and parts. This month I’ve included their contact information in the “Sources” section.

Bookshelf

For many years, the crème de la crème of books about WWI aircraft have been Windsock Datafiles, which are produced in Great Britain. They feature airplanes of France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, the US, and several other countries that produced small numbers of aircraft for the Great War.

The books include history, black-and-white period photographs, scale drawings, detail drawings of different parts, color side views, and a few color three-views—almost everything you would need to document your model, because they were designed for historians and modelers. I definitely recommend this collection for WWI buffs.

On the Web

Nearly every month, e-mail arrives informing me of new sources of information, kits, or other resources for scale modelers. Not long ago I received a message about a company I’d never heard of. AerodromeRC is located on the West Coast and has a great selection of models. Almost all of them are from WWI, and a few are Golden Age designs.

You can either purchase the plans alone or with short kits. The latter typically consists of the cut or formed pieces of wood you need to complete the model and some of the plastic parts. You furnish the hinges, wheels, sticks and sheets of balsa, plywood, and covering.

To find interesting information about full-scale WWI aircraft and their restoration, check out the Web site of Memorial Flight. This non-profit organization was formed in the 1980s to preserve French and European aeronautical heritage. Its activity is mainly centered on WWI.

The site features information about restorations of various WWI fighters and pursuit aircraft and has videos with sound. There is ample material to use for documentation.

Several of the aircraft shown are subjects of kits that are sold in the US, such as the Fokker Dr.I, Fokker D.VII, Spad 13, Morane-Saulnier Type AI XXIX, Dassault M.D.311 Flamant, Blériot XI, and S.E.5a. Check out the site; it could inspire you to build your next scale model!

Fair skies and tailwinds. MA