Fokke RC 1/5 Spitfire MK14

[Chris Freeman 3]

A few years ago I got a personal message on our local South African Aviation site from a gent who said he had something for me. He arranged to meet me at home and the next day gave me a box of parts and said that he could not build this kit as it was beyond his skills and thought that I could do it justice. This was the first time I had heard of Fokke RC and the parts seemed very nice but the plans were poor.

I did the basics for the fuselage up to the planking stage and then stored the project. With Lockdown and more building time available I decided to get the project going again. A look at some blogs gave me some idea of how to proceed with the project. The plans just show the parts but no detail such as spar size or trailing edges or leading edges.

I decided to strip plank the fuselage so this process was started, I used 2.5mm by 12mm strips and later about 7mm strips. Lots of wood glue and pins used in this process.

[Chris Freeman 3]

The parts are all ply so it will not be a light Spitfire. The wing is designed to be split in the middle but it is hard going as all the ribs are bowed. You can see the plans have very little detail and hard to see the single line for the ribs.

[Jon H]

Watching with interest. I have the Mk XVI bubble top to build at some point.

As for weight, i would not be too worried as i have flown two spits this size before and they went very well at 20ish lbs.

What made you decide to strip plank?

[Chris Freeman 3]

I had a Pica MK 9 which was also very heavy so I am not too worried about the weight, I am trying to save some at the back end. I decided that strip planking would be the best to prevent the starved horse look that you can get if the wood mix is nort right as you need soft wood to get it to bend around the formers. The time was also available so I went with the planking. My Doctor mate does think that I do have some strange tendencies and like to punish myself. My son thinks it is good practice as he wants us to do a Peashooter!

[Jon H]

I had a pica. It was long before i worked at laser and i flew it on a saito 180 that thought it was a 150. It was always 500 revs down on what a saito 180 should have done for some reason.

Anyway it wasnt quite man enough and i got tired of the exhaust falling off so i sold the model. A shame as it really flew well.

Anyway i wont be planking mine as i consider strip planking a form of torture

[Chris Freeman 3]

The Pica I had was powered with a ST 3000 and I learnt that all props are not created equal with this aircraft. When flying with a Master airscrew 18x8 prop I could not get enough airspeed to loop without a serious dive. With a Punctilo 18x8 Smart prop it would loop from level flight.

Construction continues and I am quite happy with the way it is turning out. The strip planking does give it a nice look. I need to get the wing sheeted in the center section so that I can do the wing fillits. I am busy with the plug in tubes at the moment, I made my own outers to fit on the ali tubes. The allignment needs to be right to make it easy to join the wings.

[Jon H]

How did you get on with the construction of the fuselage as im not convinced by the idea of building the thing floating in mid air. Im tempted to cut all my formers in half and nail the horizontal keels to the building board and build it like a pica model.

I also intend to make the wing in one piece as im not a fan of 2 piece wings at this scale.

[Chris Freeman 3]

I used the JIG for the first time and it was not too bad building it this way. I did think about cutting the formers in half, I did it when I built a Dave Platt MK12 Spitfire. The fuselage when assembeled does sag on the horizontal keel so I used a strip of 50mm wide balsa glued to the keel to straighten it. It did help to have the jig small enough so you can move it so you can work on both sides of the fuselage.

Split wings can be a pain to build, I once again decided to go for the hard route. You will need to add dihedral braces if not using the tubes.

I have started on the elevators and not using the supplied ones as they are ply and only have 4 ribs and no other detail on the plans. I am now using the Brian Taylor design for these parts.

[Jon H]

Yea i will probably ditch the tubes and do something else instead with some ply braces of some sort.

I notice you didnt put the carbon spar through the tail. I cant see the point in it myself as a leading/trailing edge, top+bottom spar and fully sheeted tail should be more than strong enough.

I will look at my elevators when i get to that stage.

[Martin McIntosh]

Those look like they will turn out to be very heavy models to my mind. All that ply!

The elevator tips on my Spits. are rather vulnerable to bending/breakage so some 1.6mm carbon rod pushed through to the elevators does not go amiss.

[Jon H]

Posted by Martin McIntosh on 06/05/2020 13:38:48:

Those look like they will turn out to be very heavy models to my mind. All that ply!

Its not birch ply so its not very heavy. In not sure what material it actually is as its not like normal lite ply either. All i know is that its not especially heavy in the hand when you pick all the bits up.

My Pica spit had loads of liteply formers and i think it was 20lbs if i remember rightly. It will be interesting to see how it works out but If this is anywhere near 20-22 it will be fine.

[perttime]

Fokke RC now lists that you are getting:

1. Laser cut poplar plywood parts

2. Laser cut balsa parts

3. Lexan canopy

4. Composite cowl

... and a plan.

Edited By perttime on 13/06/2020 14:51:52

[Richard Clark 2]

Poplar ply is quite light. And amply strong.

I also think the unsheeted structure is quite nice. So much so that if I had the kit I would be tempted to sand off all the laser burns, fit some extra evenly spaced stringers to the fuselage to maintain the shape, leave off all the sheeting, and cover the whole plane with transparent yellow film.

It would end up very light, so low(ish) power could be used. Flying stresses would be low, it would look lovely, the shape is instantly recognizable, but it would be more interesting than "Yet another Spitfire".

Not always, but sometimes I like 'model planes' to look like model planes rather than real ones