wonwinglo

*** Grahame the full size machine is awful to fly,same problem lots of adverse yaw,one of the Shuttleworth pilots told me this,could be also why they wanted to sell her off a couple of years ago also ?
One example used to fly from the Duke of Richmonds airstrip at Badminton pre-war.
I think challenging is the word ! very draggy due to all of those struts,mine needs to be flown onto the ground rather than a glide approach.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Greyhead

I must admit that none of my biplanes have had a very good glide angle, just so much drag from wires and struts etc.! The SE5a would fly very slowly; almost hover with a bit of head wind, but still needed power to land.



The Albatros was the worst, that massive fuselage, even though it was very streamlined for its time, has so much drag. Even at only 54" span the Laser 70 certainly didn’t overpower it.



Landing with a fair amount of throttle needs quite a lot of practice but when it goes right it makes for a very scale like touch down and that’s what scale modelling is all about isn’t it?

Greyhead

I was recently asked what prompted me to take construction photos during this build, well it wasn’t for self-gratification or indeed with the intention of producing this thread!

When I became “interested “ in the Elf I suggested to the better half that we were long overdue a visit to our friends and relatives in Leicester; by chance this happens to be fair proportion of the way down to the Shuttleworth Collection (crafty or what?). Whilst the wife and sister-in-law hit the shops my brother and myself headed for Old Warden armed with a newly acquired digital camera. We discussed the pros and cons of the Elf and decided to build “parallel projects”, his was to be 10% larger to accommodate a Laser 80. I started with the fuselage and Dave with the wings, the idea being to “share” the problem solving which is always required on a project of this nature by e-mailing photos of any problems / solutions as we went along. Unfortunately due to a medical problem Dave only got a far as one wing panel but, luckily as it turned out, I continued with the running commentary.

Would I do it again? You bet I would!!

I’m one of those modellers who enjoy building and flying in equal measure, it must be very frustrating for the ARTF brigade waiting on the English weather; producing this thread has allowed me to “re-live” the build and hopefully pass on some useful ideas at the same time.

wonwinglo

And very successful it has been too Grahame,like yourself the building is very much part and parcel of the hobby and I never treat this as a chore,nothing nicer than seeing a model slowly evolve,more power to your modelling elbow for 2005 ! perhaps we will see another biplane project evolve ?

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Glider Guider

Have you decided on a new project yet Grahame? Following a link in this month's Aeroplane http://www.vought.com/heritage/html/down.html there are some 3-views of Vought aircraft and the VE-7 took my eye as a 'different' subject with the advantage that it should be possible to mount the engine upright as with the SE5. Showing my ignorance this is a new plane to me but one with pleasing lines, I may give it a go when my PIK 20 renovation is complete.

Greyhead

Techydave

I agree it looks as if it’s got nice proportions for a RC model. I was interested to see the photo of the floatplane; our flying site at Redmarshall is in a dip and is prone to flooding so that conversion might come in handy!!

Grahame

duncan

A very useful site. Pity other manufacturers didnt have something similar for modellers. See Dave Platt`s "Kingfisher" magnum opus in this month`s RCMW (Jan 05).

Greyhead

It has been pointed out to me that the method of building the wings is not very clear. This from my brother who has seen the finished article so I’m surprised nobody else has commented! Having gone through the thought processes to devise the method it seems fairly straightforward to me but hopefully this will clarify things a bit.

TYPICAL WING SECTION





Remove shaded section from ribs and make additional sections for “riblets”. Stack together and drill 1mm hole in approx. the marked position.

Make the balsa web by gluing together strips cut from sheet balsa (approx. 2” x the width of the sheet).

The assembly sequence is:

1. Thread ribs onto rear spar, pin into position over plan and glue.
2. Glue 1/8" x1/4” spruce spar in position.
3. Glue 1/16” balsa web in position, NB grain direction from LE to spar.
4. Glue 1/4" x1/4” spruce spar in position.
5. Thread removed rib sections and any “riblets” onto a length of button thread to form a “necklace”.
6. Glue rib sections and “riblets” in position.
7. Glue upper and lower LE sections in position.
8. When dry fix one end of thread to a solid point, tension the thread and fix the other end.
9. Soak the thread with thin Cyano.

Greyhead

I got talking to another modeller recently about the pros and cons of adjustable tail incidence, basically is it worth the trouble? Here are my thoughts on the matter and a couple of photos to prove the point.

If the mechanism is “out in the open”, as is the case with the Elf, then I’d say as it needs to be modelled for scale authenticity the small amount of extra work involved in making it operational is well worth it. If it is hidden and you’re not worried about perhaps having a fair amount of elevator trim on show why bother?

The full size is adjustable in flight but I thought that was a step too far!



The tail is mounted on brackets made from thin steel and attached via ball joints to allow for the fact that the brackets are fitted to the tapering fuselage sides.

The adjuster consists of a 2mm rod threaded at both ends with a nut soldered at one end. The rear of the fuselage has a dowel, with a length of snake inner down the centre, into which the adjuster is screwed in or out to alter the tail incidence. A lock nut goes the other side of the rear tail brace to keep things solid.

The braces are attached to the tail and fuselage by steel brackets again using closed loop adaptors and 14BA nuts and bolts. There is very little movement at the fixing points as the tail incidence is altered and the bolts don’t need to be slackened.



In this shot you get a good view of the tailskid, moulded using epoxy and carbon fibre and the elevator operating arm. The closed loop for the rudder goes in the space between the fuselage and the tail plane.

wonwinglo

Grahame,now this idea I really like and approve of,it has always been my contention that more models fly badly due to incorrect tail incidence,the problem is as we all know that fixing the tailplane is very much an hit and miss affair,a few thou can make such a very big difference to the trim of the model in flight and more often than not we continue to fly our models out of longitudinal aerodynamic balance,by incorporating such a feature as you have here the aircraft can be made to perform to its peak in terms of aerodynamic efficency.Incidently the late Howard Boys once wrote that it was very doubtful if any model had its tailplane set correctly on its very first flight ! so who are we to argue this very valid point froma true pioneer of scale model aircraft.
Incidently in flight tailplane trim would not be impossible to achieve just as the full sized counterpart.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/