John H. Rood
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Posts posted by John H. Rood
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Dry fitting the avionics box
to former F2 and the balsa/ply F3. The balsa base is 1/8" medium-hard that I found in my stash. Lying down up front is former F1, which will be modified to accommodate the A4D's shorter nose profile. The box, too may need to be shortened a bit -- we'll see as things come together.
On the plans I've now shaded in a preliminary side profile for the A4D's shorter nose, including a centerline (C/L) that runs below but parallel to the existing datum line.
Edited By John_Rood on 19/03/2016 04:08:37
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OOPS -- I didn't think to mark the lines for F2 and F3 ahead of time... so I had to back into it... AND IT SHOWZ
Because of this tardiness on my part, it proved to be a bit of a hassle to get these lines correct; in fact, from Phil's build thread I see that, to some degree, the fuselage alignment DEPENDS on them to be true. The lines on the sides are intended to slope a bit, as the box is at an angle to the fuselage reference line -- but the lines on top and bottom must be at 90 degrees. And hey yes my lines kinda LOOK a mess -- but I will be careful as this fuselage build proceeds because we really MUST have things straight and true.
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Stiffening fuselage structure for wing attach fittings: Laminating balsa with ply, and epoxying-in the lock washer for the wing TE attach point.
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Heavy 90 degree angle stock to keep things more or less right.
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The shorter nose profile of the A4D-1 is penciled-in...
...and happily the new nose profile will allow the battery box design to go in pretty much as-is...
It makes it, just!
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Titebond II Gone Bad, and its Partners in Aeromodelling Crime:
I'm trying SUPER-PHATIC for the first time, on the advice of friends. I hear nothing but GOOD things about the stuff. For USA modelers: http://www.horizonhobby.com/super-phatic%21-dlmad21
I bought these four from Horizon Hobby and service was VERY fast from Illinois to here in Boston.
They get special air treatment, these Mass Build participants...
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And yes, that cat up there is inside his exact-scale mockup of a 1/15th scale C-17 transport's cargo bay. Some crazed gent in the PSSA UK has one underway, and my cat has been enlisted as a stress-tester.
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Humiliatingly, it's been literally YEARS since I've had a workshop up and running, and so this project is a major reentry for me. My first real task has been to reestablish a workspace. Neglect is COSTLY! This has been a REAL battle, but I am now seeing light at the end of the tunnel...
My building board is a flat, heavy piece of 3/4" hardwood with a pin-friendly flip-side of Masonite sheet attached to the board with Gorilla Glue. Reference lines are helpful for me as I'm a nut about geometry and so forth.
I'm building from Traplet's laser-cut kit and it incorporates the minor fine-tuning bits discussed thus far on the Mass Build thread.
Helpful --and totally unlike my natural "chaos unravelling" project mismanagement style -- the cool list of other needed stock items!
And here's a good bit of my10+ year old stash of medium soft through medium-hard balsa, spruce, and ply. I'm dumb and unwise, but over the intervening years I actually WAS wise enuff to keep this stash well-ensconced under the bed and away from high heat, cold, humidity extremes.
And lastly here's Clancy The Douglas Tech Rep --- with The Supreme Allied Commander (a drunk feral frog) listing at times overhead with a watchful, wandering eye or two...
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Posted by Andy Meade on 04/03/2016 12:24:43:
...Will you / can you share a PDF of the changes once complete, so that others could follow?
Andy: YES -- I will do!
Edited By John_Rood on 16/03/2016 16:50:16
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"Call-sign Charlie, Lady, git outa the way!
You're blocking our view of Jester's Top Gun Tinker Toy!"
Edited By John_Rood on 03/03/2016 20:51:07
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Yeah, Phil! Really I am torn between that bird and that foxy astrophysicist CHARLIE's imaginary Aggressor A-4E out on the flightline at NAS Miramar. My first thought is to keep it simple and follow the build plan for an A-4E or A-4F; I absolutely LOVE the Aggressor colour schemes, and their overall clean lines.
But as a youngster in the 1960s I grew up seeing sometimes the bright red & white colors on jets out in the Mojave and Inyokern deserts --- and nowadays at age 61 (almost) I can DEFINITELY benefit from a bright dayglo scheme.
Here is that same particular aircraft (Bu.139934) with a different unit a bit later, circa 1961-63... some hi-viz panels are there, but they are hard to see clearly in the photo:
And below now again is my first attempt at an A4D / A-4A nose profile fitted to your 1/12th scale design. Mainly it is just shorter, a higher C/L, and the air intake is unswept and a tad further aft. Everything else looks roughly the same, and the A4D-1 had no refueling probe. As always, my main focus is to get the pilot relief tube operating properly.
Last but most importantly, if all goes to plan, the Mark I Eyeball and the K.I.S.S. principle will be in heavy rotation throughout this little project.
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Bottom line from skimming his info is that the Skyhawk commonly went with Douglas-designed 150, 300, and 400 gallon tanks, plus a whole other rig for the tanker variants.
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Andy, click on the link I posted to Tommy's page on external tanks -- and scroll all the way to the bottom... he's got some stuff there plus a link to another of his wonderfully OCD blog pages devoted exclusively to that topic!
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At a glance, the major 1960's era variants and NAVAIR designation changes:
A4D-1 = A-4A
A4D-2 = A-4B
A4D-2N = A-4C
A4D-5 = A-4E (and the A-4F profile is very near identical to the A-4E)
All the above via Tommy Thomason's aforementioned blog:
Edited By John_Rood on 24/02/2016 16:34:19
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These differences you may see above:
- shorter nose, with a higher centerline.
- engine air intake begins further aft, and its mouth runs perpendicular to the fuselage reference line.
The variance you see in canopy height and the fuselage floor/wing root area is probably just due to the difference in source drawings and the imprecision inherent in enlarging sketches with my home office printer/copier machine. I penciled-in a series of reference lines in an effort to reconcile the enlargement with the model plan, but with inexact results as you see.
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A first draft at the early Douglas A4D (-1 and -2) fuselage profile: Enlarging Mr. Tommy Thomasen's published sketches and seeing how they scale up alongside our 2016 Mass-Build 1/12th scale model plan of the Douglas A-4E/F. Just using my copier at home, manually enlarging, and drawing some reference lines; it ain't exact -- but it's a start, and I'm just praying this ain't the Scale Masters World Championships of PSS Perfection!
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Great, too, that comments from participants re: any issues with plans and wood get implemented quickly.
What I received today reflects all that imput. Very cool!
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Skyhawk True Believers, I am well and truly happy to report that, um... today the PSSA UK A-4 Skyhawk Mass Build officially made its presence felt out here in the Colonies!
A ring on my doorbell, and the postman had THIS for me!
Kudos to Phil Cooke and Matt Jones, and thanks be to Traplet for some truly fast service. It's a beautiful design and a beautifully-rendered box of balsa -- and a very pretty canopy!
Cheers to you all, good luck on your builds.
John in Boston, Massachusetts, USA!
Edited By John_Rood on 20/02/2016 21:38:55
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NOT SPECIFICALLY RECOMMENDED DURING THIS MASS BUILD:
Without permission, a 21 year old enlisted kid "borrows" a USMC Scooter for a joy hop!
This really happened!!! MCAS El Toro, Southern California.
Edited By John_Rood on 19/02/2016 21:42:15
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A better fuselage planform analysis than I posted here last night; this is from TAILHOOK TOPICS, a very detail-focused blog by a very reputable source, Mr. Tommy H. Thomasen.
Thomason's most recent book: http://www.amazon.com/Scooter-Douglas-4-Skyhawk-Story/dp/0859791602A quick link to perhaps all of his blog posts thus far re: the A-4 Skyhawk family: http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2013/03/a4d-4-skyhawk-collector.html
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And here, as demonstrated in this circa 1984 photo, is how, if we fast-forward to September 2016, mass-build PSS models of A-4F Skyhawks will do it on small, constricted slopes.
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I'm sorry I can't recall where I found the above drawing, nor vouch for its accuracy, nor give author credit, but it does give some idea of the general config changes.
Edited By John_Rood on 16/02/2016 20:49:15
John Rood's USA blog: A4D-1 (A-4A) Skyhawk, circa 1956, Southern California
in PSSA Mass Build 2016 - A4 Skyhawk
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A4D Nose Profile: Now drawing in a TOP VIEW.
I don't know why the photo is flipped sideways! Some kind of forum website software quirk?
No matter -- see that line marked "DOUGLAS REF LINE"? I incorporated it here because, to my eye, that appears to be the place -- a structural firewall, if you will -- where, forward of there, Douglas designers made future modifications to the nose profile. So I can use it as a reference point for "backdating" Phil's A-4E plan profiles to the earlier A4D configuration.