Radio Control Scale 2010/07

Also included in this column:
• WW I aircraft technology
takes off
• A visit to Arizona Model
Aircrafters
• Windsock Datafiles for
your library
• Informative Web sites
The Olympics of Scale competition
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Scale Stan Alexander
Components of the Arizona Model Aircrafters 1/4-scale Fokker
D.VII kit, waiting for assembly. All formed wood parts are laser
cut.
Alex Kennedy with his Sopwith Camel, which was built to 1/3 scale
from Mick Reeves plans. Alex competes in F4 Large Scale with this
beautiful model, which is powered by a Laser-200v engine.
Pete McDermott’s 138-inch-span de Havilland D.H.9 was built
completely from scratch, including the carbon-fiber wheels and
spokes. Tires are rubber stretched over foam cores.
Petr Tax of the Czech Republic scratch-built this French WW I
Caudron G.IV bomber. It spans 165.35 inches and is powered by
two Laser-200v twins. The only items Petr did not make are the
engines and radio gear.
WHILE WATCHING THE 2010 Winter Olympics, my wife and I
listened as winners told the 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’re building kits,
you will not be as competitive at that level as if you don’t.
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.
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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 they might never have been built.
These models are extremely well-documented, -built, and -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 do more difficult maneuvers, the
more you are rewarded, with more than a score
of 10. On the flip side, points are deducted at
the same rate if you do those maneuvers
poorly.
There are getting to be fewer craftsmen
who build models from scratch; thus 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 use to
make your own details are readily available.
The Hansa-Brandenburg C.I in flight over the desert. It can be purchased from Arizona
Model Aircrafters as plans only or as a kit in 1/4 scale.
This 1/4-scale Nieuport 27 is from Arizona Model Aircrafters. Kits
come with interior, instruments and leather, nine-cylinder dummy
engine, Lewis & Vickers guns, spun-aluminum cowl, and vintage
wheels.
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Some WW I models fly exceedingly well.
Why? Because 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.
The in-line engine-powered airplanes were
generally laid out to have a nose and longer tail
moment, unlike many of the radial-engined
aircraft. Some of the radial engine-powered
designs had large, bulbous cowlings, which
attracted drag on the airframe, 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, protection for pilots, better
and more powerful engines, stronger fabrics,
and the 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 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 WW I wheels.)
In addition, they sell vintage white tires and
other tires of the WW I period. All products are
available in different sizes, to match modelers’
needs for that special Scale project.
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
100 MODEL AVIATION
custom kits with all of the detail parts.
Kits are available for the 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 colors, 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 why the company keeps to WW I
models, even in different scales, is that
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 WW I 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 WW I 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 WW I buffs.
On the Web: Nearly every month, e-mail
arrives informing me of new sources of
information, kits, or other resources for Scale
Call Toll Free:
888-829-4060
7414 Burton Drive, Liberty Twp, OH 45044
All Aero-Pac’s are $15.95 + $5.50 s&h for the fi rst, $1.50 each additional.
• Each Aero-Pac is devoted to a single airframe.
• The documentation comes on a cd-rom and is
viewable in any modern Mac/Win web browser.
• Includes 8-point walk-around, exterior & interior
details, enhanced close-ups, and a 3-view!
• All wording (n-numbers, nomenclature, etc.) are
shot close-up and head-on for easier duplication.
Visit airbornemedia.com to
see all of our Aero-Pacs
Scale Documentation
for the Digital Age.
Aeronca 7AC Champion
Get the free app for your
phone at http://gettag.mobi
SNAP THIS WITH YOUR
SMARTPHONE FOR MORE!
modelers. Not long ago I received a message
about a company I’d never heard of.
AerodromeRC is located on the West Coast,
and it has a great selection of models.
Almost all of them are from WW I, 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 WW I 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 WW I.
The site features information about
restorations of various WW I fighters and
pursuit aircraft and has videos with sound.
There is ample material to look at 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
Sources:
FAI F4 Scale Sporting Code:
www.fai.org
Arizona Model Aircrafters
(602) 971-5644
www.arizonamodels.com
Windsock Datafiles
001-44-1442-875838
www.windsockdatafilespecials.co.uk
AerodromeRC
(831) 393-0991
www.aerodromerc.com
Memorial Flight
http://memorial.flight.free.fr
Balsa USA
(906) 863-6421
www.balsausa.com
Bob Holman Plans
(909) 885-3959
www.bhplans.com
Glenn Torrance Models
(919) 765-0814
www.flygtm.com
Proctor Enterprises
(503) 651-1918
www.proctor-enterprises.com
National Association of Scale Aeromodelers
www.nasascale.org
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