RC Giants
John A. de Vries, 4610 Moffat Ln., Colorado Springs CO 80915
NOT THAT this column will be anything close to earthshaking; however, the prime subject is of sufficient importance to bring to your kind attention.
The "magic word" this month is accessibility.
Because our Giant Scale models have to be transported to the flying field, most of them are designed to have removable wing panels. That makes things quite a bit more cozy in the car or van, and requires us to assemble things when we arrive at the flying site.
With a bit of forethought (and by paying close attention to the construction drawings), the field assembly should go smoothly; that's accessibility. But that's not really what I'm "selling."
Let's pose the problem that your engine won't pop after you've got your model assembled. Can you get to the engine without too much of a fuss?
If you've attached the cowling with some small, albeit hidden screws, it should expose the ironmongery at the front of your model. You should have a small box of cowl screws in the field box, in case one or more of them decides to "go west" into the grass.
You've got a good spark at the old hunk of machinery, so the problem's probably with the kill switch (not likely) or with the fuel supply.
Now you have a real problem: the old 32-ounce tank is buried somewhere behind the firewall, and somewhere close to the radio's battery.
You can check the fuel line in front of the firewall to make sure it isn't kinked, but the problem may be in the tank. The clunk may have fallen off, or the fuel line is plugged up somewhere.
If you built things correctly, you'll have access to the fuel tank by simply removing a prebuilt panel; that's much easier than fishing for fuel tanks through the wing opening.
If the fuel tank's access panel is balsa, it's a good idea to face the panel and the area where it fits with thin (1/16") plywood. That will give you a nice, tight, relatively "invisible" parting line, and can often be disguised as a scale separation line in the cowling.
In most cases, the radio installation in a Giant Scale model gives you great accessibility to the battery (or batteries), the servos, and the receiver. There's plenty of room in the fuselage.
Just make sure you can get to the mounting screws and that little screw in the middle of the servo's actuating arms. That's not a big problem, unless you've installed aileron servos in each wing panel.
Of course, though, you provided a close-fitting plywood cover over the aileron-servo boxes; otherwise, there's no accessibility unless you chop into the wing structure. Then you're going to have to recover and repaint that area. Darn!
And there are those elevator and rudder servos in the rear of the fuselage. Most builders leave them pretty well uncovered—for shame!
Please make sure you can get to the empennage servos if you hide them inside the fuselage, if for no other reason than to adjust the clevises and take the trim off the transmitter.
Most Giant-Scale builders don't pay much attention to accessibility when perusing the three-views they may use for documentation, but full-scale-airplane builders usually design a sort of removable panels on their designs to permit checking the critical parts of the airplane.
The panels may be attached with Dzus fasteners, or even with sheet-metal screws. The gas-tank and wing-inspection panels on a Beech C-45 are attached with 45 screws each (ask the man who's unscrewed and rescrewed them at least twice!).
It isn't too difficult to simulate the scale inspection panels, and duplicate them if they'll contribute to the accessibility of your model's parts. There are some neat small piano hinges available that will allow you to fix an access panel in place.
In the days of fabric-covered biplanes, the inspection panels were usually inspection ports, and were covered with celluloid or isinglass. That made checking aileron bellcranks an easy job—you just had to look.
If you're modeling a Golden Age aircraft, it wouldn't be all that difficult to duplicate the see-through inspection panels; they could serve the same purpose they did on the prototype.
Another nifty use for scale inspection panels is to cover such unsightly items as receiver switches, charging jacks, kill switches, refueling ports, and retract air-refilling valves.
It does take a great deal of "horseback engineering" to get all of these items firmly attached behind the scale inspection panel, but it sure is worth it from an appearance standpoint—and it won't be difficult to get to them.
As I indicated at the outset, accessibility isn't an earthshaking topic; however, if you plan for it when you're cutting balsa and spruce, it will make life much easier when the model is ready to fly.
You've got it made if you can disassemble your model and gain access to all of its mechanical, electronic, and air-supply components without having to cut things apart! Thank goodness for blind nuts!
Ol' California buddy Larry Klingberg sent me a very interesting bit of mail.
He found a neat "chip" folder that presents all of the Rust-Oleum "tint" paint colors. There must be a million chips! (Actually, there are 104.) If you're flying with a gas engine, there are enough colors to satisfy practically any scale paint job.
Of course, you're going to have to ask for some of the more exotic colors using Rust-Oleum's names.
A great Cub Yellow is called Goldenrod, a good British green camouflage is entitled Dried Fern, and Mushroom Gray looks about right for the undersides of World War II US Army Air Corps fighters and bombers.
You'll have a great cream color for your Art Chester's Jeep if you don't mind asking for French Vanilla, and you can doll up the bottom of your Spitfire with Mint—a dead ringer for duck-egg blue.
There's not a really good white or aluminum/silver amongst the chips, but there's a great black called After Midnight. Rust-Oleum has come up with a great and valuable array of colors that will be dead-on scale. Only the names have been changed, to satisfy the artsy-craftsy types.
I know that you've heard it ad nauseam, but the old rule still applies: after you've balanced your model's big propeller, paint the tips of the blades white or yellow. Then check the balance again before you bolt the propeller to the front of the engine.
Guess which dork abused that rule lately? Fortunately it was only a minor nick on one finger, but that wouldn't have happened if I'd taken my own recommendation.
Given today's prices for Giant-Scale propellers, a more solid "encounter" might have broken a propeller, as you now know. Don't be cheap with props, they will save you from an emergency-room visit, and would have been extensive!
It's a good idea to pour a bit of white or yellow paint into a shallow container (the top of the paint jar works well), then dip each blade tip into the paint to get a nice, even coating. It looks neat, and the paint job will be even.
It's difficult to project what all of you will be doing in April, when this column is printed in the June issue. Today is the 24th of January, and it's too darn cold to even contemplate a building session at the workbench out in the garage.
I trust that those of you with heated workshops (or those of you who live in Southern California or Florida) have your 2000 winter project well enough along that you'll be test-flying now. Lotsa luck!
Back with you next month. MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
