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BFW M23c - Golden Age German Racer.


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I'm already at least six months late starting this one but here is my latest endeavour - a BFW M23c. The full size aircraft was a between the wars racer designed by Willy Messerschmitt, so it could be said to be the forerunner of the Me109 in the same way that the S6B was the forerunner of the Spitfire. If you look at the tail surfaces in particular, you can see they closely resemble the shapes that would appear on the 109. The wingspan of the model will be 78", making for a scale of approximately 1:5.

The plans have been drawn up, the laser cut parts arrived a couple of weeks ago and I managed to make a quick start over the weekend. I really must crack on with things - I want to have this flying before the end of summer.

So this is what I want to end up with...

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Full set of laser cut parts waiting to be released from their sheets.

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After a conversation with George at 4-Max, a suitable powertrain was ordered...

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Laser cut parts released and piled up. The edges need cleaning up to remove the bumps left from the sheets, but I have never found it necessary to completely remove the slightly burned edges, except where they will show through the covering.

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Tail surfaces beginning to be stuck together. It's a small start, but a start nonetheless!

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Thanks Karl-Georg, if you can post a picture of your model I'd love to see it!

As for the racing pedigree, the M23b won both the 1929 Ostpreussenflug and Circuit of Europe races, while the M23c was developed for, and won, the Circuit of Europe the following year - so it's not entirely unreasonable to call it a racer by the standards of the day.

Jim.

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  • 1 month later...

Well I have been steadily working on the M23c but the day job has been getting in the way a bit - now I have a couple of weeks off and hope to make some real progress on the model. This is where I have got to so far...

fullsizeoutput_506b.jpegFuselage sides made up.

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Forward formers and battery tray added.

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Rear formers added, turtle deck planking complete.

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Tail blocks glued in place with a spacer to keep everything straight and I have bent a piece of steel to make a tail skid.

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The tail blocks have been planed and sanded to shape.

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Meanwhile, I have made up the battery hatch frame.

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The hatch skins have been soaked in hot water and are currently drying around this cardboard tube.

I hope to increase the rate of progress over the next couple of weeks!

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  • 2 months later...

I have been a bit lax at uploading pictures but I have been slowly progressing on the build. For the last couple of weeks I have been working on the wing, although the work rate always slows down to a snail's pace during school holidays.

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The wing joiners are aluminium rods running into phenolic tubes, the tubes being fitted to the ribs through appropriately positioned holes. I had worked out the locations of the holes in each rib in order for the tubes to sit at the correct angle, but I was very pleased that it all lined up perfectly on the building board. The Multiplex plug can be seen in the root rib - on reflection, it would have been better if I had fitted the socket into the wing, with the corresponding plug in the fuselage side as the pins are a little vulnerable here but there we go - hindsight is wonderful thing!

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Servo leads run through the D box and are now waiting for the servo to be soldered onto the end.

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The wingtips are just blocks of balsa sanded to shape in place.

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  • 3 months later...

In my last post I said that there were "only a few jobs left until the maiden".... Those few jobs have taken me three months to get around to finishing, but I finally got there last night. I made a second battery hatch so that I can swap between the two seat tourer version and the single seater with forward cockpit faired over for racing. While I was at it I also rebuilt the undercarriage as I wasn't happy with the first one. So here it is. I'll be getting some better pictures once the sun comes out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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