Peter Garsden Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 I agree with you Steve - that is why I rebuilt the front of the Hawk in balsa and dispensed with the plastic moulded cowls. It is undoubtedly stronger and better than plastic which just wouldn't stand up to hard slope landings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McLaren Posted February 28, 2016 Author Share Posted February 28, 2016 Having received new supplies of soft 1/2 inch balsa (along with my skyhawk wood order), I was able to finish blocking the upper fuselage deck. Then after a bit of sanding, it looks like this. Then I really struggled to find the right shape around the nose and the canopy. In the end, I printed some card templates scaled up from a different mosquito model plan, And used them to help me gradually fine tune the shape. Getting the right nose shape is so important to making it 'look' like a Mosquito! In the end I'm quite pleased with it. It will only ever be semi-scale, because the basic fuselage shape is not really right, but I'm hoping it will be good enough to fool the casual observer from a 100yards - as long as I don't put it next to any true scale versions. I've also done some more work on completing the nacelles - building the upper front sections in balsa blocks again. I've left part of it as a removable hatch in case I ever want to fit motors. But I think I will tack them in place and cover over them initially, so that they don't show. Since the model now has the sold MkVI nose, I have had to modify the canopy to be consistent. I cut out the front corners, then softened the angled part of t he front screen in a bowl of hot water and attempted to straighten it out. Its not perfect, but again I'm hoping it will fool the casual observer... Any tips on how I can get that front windscreen to be genuinely flat? Can you iron canopies? without imprinting a nasty texture onto them? As you can see in the photo above, despite my best efforts, when I position the canopy where I now think it should go, it does not sit completely on the upper fuselage plug! So I will have to chop a little more of the balsa out of the nose section and add it onto the fuselage plug. Last thing for today - I forgot that there were more plastic mouldings to deals with yet. But adding these radaitors was very straight-forward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Cooke Posted February 28, 2016 Share Posted February 28, 2016 That's coming on really well Steve, an impressive and quite unconventional build!! You will find the A-4 very boring and old-skool in comparison on the back of this!! Will you have the Mossie ready for our April meet?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Blackburn Posted February 28, 2016 Share Posted February 28, 2016 Looking good, Steve - I wouldn't use plastic mouldings again either; I don't think they're any lighter, TBH, and (speaking personally) I doubt that they make the build significantly quicker. Had you thought about moulding a canopy? Matt Sea Vixen thread has a how-to... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McLaren Posted March 13, 2016 Author Share Posted March 13, 2016 Yes, I thought about moulding my own canopy, but it's rather a lot of work, and I want to get this build finished for April. It was supposed to be a quick and easy build to fill a few spare hours in the early winter, but it's grown into quite a complex and slow build - seems to happen every time! I might do my own canopy at some time in the future, but for now I am going to make this one work. This is glazing the missing bits in the front corners:- And now there's only a little bit of filling and sanding to do before I can get started on the covering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Cooke Posted March 13, 2016 Share Posted March 13, 2016 Looks great Steve - major milestone to get the airframe complete and bathed in some sunlight... looking forward to seeing this in April Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Meade Posted March 14, 2016 Share Posted March 14, 2016 Looks great - every inch a Mossie. Nice work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Garsden Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I really admire your patience and perseverance. I read how you painstakingly work round problems to achieve scale and think, there is no way I would go to that sort of trouble so well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McLaren Posted March 23, 2016 Author Share Posted March 23, 2016 Thanks Guys. It's not really 'achieving scale' Peter. It's just getting close enough to make it good enough for your own eye. At several stages in this build I was thinking it wouldn't be good enough for 'proper PSS', and I might just fit some motors and fly it in the back field. But I'm actually quite pleased with the final result. I just need to keep it well away from any true scale mosquitos! I haven't balanced it yet, and it's not covered or painted, but it's already weighing 3lb 6oz., or 54 oz. as shown in the pictures above (including battery and Rx). It feels a bit heavy, but then it's got a bigger wing than any of my other PSS models. I shall balance it this weekend and find out if it possible to get enough lead in those spinners! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Meade Posted March 23, 2016 Share Posted March 23, 2016 Cripes what's "proper pss"? If it looks like a powered aircraft when its in the air, jobs a good 'un. You can tell that's a Mossie from a mile away Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erfolg Posted March 24, 2016 Share Posted March 24, 2016 If you have to put lead in the spinners, could it not make sense to put electric motors in, with folding propellers, with a lipo stuck in the nose, along with any lead needed to make the model balance, where you want it. Purely as a safety measure. Certainly been impressed with the build. Although I am a little disappointed in that it is one demanding build, as well as a high time consuming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McLaren Posted April 10, 2016 Author Share Posted April 10, 2016 And this is it all covered and painted. It took 7.5oz of lead in the spinners to balance it! I haven't weighed the whole thing yet, but it 's not going to be floater! Anyway, ready to go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Cooke Posted April 10, 2016 Share Posted April 10, 2016 Looks the business that Steve, I do like the D-Day stripes on the underside of the fus - very striking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Meade Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 ooooh, very nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Tayler Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Steve, I too am building a Cloud Mosquito. I have modified the nacelles with blue foam,so they take brushless outrunner morors and look better.. I am currently fighting the plastic fueslage top and bottom. Please could you tell me what materials you used to "paint" your model.It looks very nice indeed. Thank you. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Mackey Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Another cracker there Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Garsden Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Looks great Steve - looking forward to seeing you at the weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Houghton Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Great job Steve, with oodles of eye-appeal. You've had an interesting 'journey' with this one, and achieved a fine result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McLaren Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Thanks guys. I am looking forward to the weekend too. I don't think I have flown since October! Dave - good luck with the fuselage plastic mouldings! You may have read that I gave up on the front half of the top one, but I hope you have better luck.I covered the balsa parts with solar film. It seemed to stick reasonably well to the plastic bits (which I have decided are probably polystyrene). Then I painted the solar film with Prymol, taking care not to get it on the polystyrene. Then I painted everything with Revel Aqua color acrylics. I think these are intended for plastic kits so they seem to work fine on both polystyrene and solar film. The adhesion on solar film seems to just the same whether you use Prymol or not, so you could forget the Prymol in my opinion. Just 1 pot of dark green, 1 of grey, and a mixture of 1 light blue and 1 light grey for the underside, was all I needed. And they are less than 2 quid a pot. It seemed to need 2 to 3 coats to get an even covering, but you can recoat after just 1 hour, so it doesn't take long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Tayler Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 Dear Steve, Thank you for the very useful information on covering/painting. Now for some more polystyrene bashing! Yor plane looks lovely.I await a report on how it flies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McLaren Posted July 24, 2016 Author Share Posted July 24, 2016 Just to finish the story off, a short report on the maiden flight. On Friday the 1st July, I got an email from Andy Blackburn saying that the incredibly rare phenomenon of a good westerly wind at Ivinghoe was going to occur on the Saturday! Scott Edwards was going to maiden his Canberra, and I should bring my Mosquito! I checked the forecast and it appeared to be true! I charged my batteries more in hope than expectation, since I have turned up a few times for a forecast 'good westerly' only to be let down by the wind strength, or the direction, or both! But when we arrived at the slope at about 10.00am, it still appeared to be true! The forecast was 17mph. Andy measured 25mph on the edge of the slope. Scott maidened his Canberra first (see his blog for details), and then it was my turn. Andy performed the launch, and it flew away pretty much and straight and level. There is just the one photo to evidence that it did fly (thanks to Jim Wright - ISA president). In fact, it flew very well. I had balanced it at the position shown in the Cloud models plan, and that seemed to be just right. It needed a few clicks of down trim to get a bit more speed, and only 1 click of left. I had set the aileron deflections based on the the plan, to about +10mm, but only -5mm - to give some differential. That proved to be not quite enough - roll rate being a bit slow. It also felt like there was a bit of delayed response to aileron input, but Andy B suggested that that this could be because I had programmed in a bit too much expo. I flew it for about 10 to 15 minutes - gaining confidence and feel, and started to really enjoy the look of this model. Landing took 4 attempts! Mainly because this model has quite a lot more momentum than my other PSS models. The all up weight of my version was 65 oz. I have estimated the wing area at 3.45 sq feet, so that makes a wing loading of about 18.8 oz/sq ft. It just doesn't seem to slow down much coming into wind! Time constraints meant that there was the only flight on the day. But I have made some control adjustments, and I look forward to having another go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Twist Posted July 24, 2016 Share Posted July 24, 2016 Hi Steve, Well done on the Mossie maiden. Certainly looks the part in the air and the overall look of the photo is very atmospheric. Regards H Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Houghton Posted July 24, 2016 Share Posted July 24, 2016 Fantastic. I presume the the initial concerns about wing section vanished as soon as she flew. Well done Steve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Meade Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 Great launch, lots of lift it seems too! You must be very pleased with that Steve, and rightly so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Garsden Posted July 26, 2016 Share Posted July 26, 2016 Steve - can only sympathise and suggest you mix in some spoilerons - I used the butterfly channel, on some transmitters it is crow brakes and attach it to the throttle channel - both ailerons up about 60 degrees or as much as you can, and about 4mm of down elevator, and it will come down a treat. I used stick up for neutral, and down for application, others do it the other way round. Same system as for F3F models. I have the same problem with the JP but with spoilerons it just stops and floats down to earth as though in vertical hover mode. Try it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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