R/C Typhoon

[Greebo]

I know there are a few people on the BBS who are interested in R/C model aircraft so I thought I'd post these photos of my brother David's current project. It is a 95 inch span Hawker Typhoon which he is building for FAI class 1 scale competition. It is built from balsa and plywood covered in lightweight glass cloth and will be powered by a Roto 85 two cylinder in-line gas engine. Currently the main airframe is done, as well as the plugs for the cowl and canopy. Next job will be to make the mould for the cowling and then the cowling itself. The canopy mould is off at the vac-formers at the moment.

The Typhoon's thick wing lends itself to scale flying as it lets the plane fly at lower speeds than say a Spitfire, which tends to get marked down for flying at above scale speeds. The chin scoop means engine cooling is not a problem either. The big problem it has as a model is the very short nose which makes balancing it an issue without adding nose weight. To get round this David is installing all the batteries in the cowling below the engine and has tried to keep the tail end as light as possible.

[Oldman731]

Beautiful.  What nice work!

...a long way from the old Cox .049 days...

- oldman

[avionix]

Very nice work!!! 

[The Fugitive]

Gorgeous! Very nice workmanship!

[Shuffler]

Looks really good so far....

[perdue3]

Greebo, do you know which plans he used? At first glance it seems like a Ziroli plan, but I am not sure of Ziroli's wingspan. Has to be near 100". I would think that he would have scratch built considering he wants a scale master, this means using Hawker's plans scaled down.

It looks very good, especially considering he did not use fiberglass. 2 cylinder in line is an interesting choice which will give it a more authentic sound. What exhaust system is he using? For something such as this, I would hope Keleo (or some other exhaust co.) would build him a custom, accurate exhaust.

Flying warbirds has a stigma, but we warbird flyers cheat with airplanes like Typhoons, FW 190s, P-47s, F6Fs, etc. This is cheating because they are very stable at low speeds and have very wide landing gear. I have 4 different sizes and powered Bf 109's and I am telling you, the difference is shocking. A Spitfire has very similar tendencies to a Bf 109, so I know exactly what you mean. I am positive that a Typhoon would be joy to fly, especially a large one like this.

Would love to know more, thanks for sharing.

[Greebo]

David didn't use anyone else's plans, he just scaled up reference drawings to get the basic outlines and then designed his own internal structure.

His last scale project was a Spitfire Mk 9 based on Brian Taylor's plan with some structural improvements. Landing that aircraft with its narrow track gear is tricky if there is any sort of crosswind. Also it inherits the real Spit's tendency to float above the runway when it gets into ground effect. He also has an ARTF Typhoon and while this is smaller and not very scale, compared to the Spit it is a much easier plane to nail a landing with and flies more realistically in manoeuvres.

On the Spit he built a custom exhaust that exited from the rear ports of the Merlin's row of stacks. However doing this gave him no extra points score in the scale competition and it was a pain in the neck to get reliable. It took a lot of work to stop it coming undone in the air. So this time he is not bothering, he is just going to have a pair of standard bent pipes running down from the engine and then exhausting out of the radiator exit port.

[Brooke]

Wow.  That is some amazing work.

[Wmaker]

Beautifully crafted! Huge, huge amount of work and stamina involved!

That S.6B looks amazing as well, great choice of subject there!

[perdue3]

Beautifully crafted! Huge, huge amount of work and stamina involved!

That S.6B looks amazing as well, great choice of subject there!

That S.6B is an old Testors kit by the looks of it. Hard to find these days, the originals anyway.

[perdue3]

I can see what i think is a Seidel or Evolution radial too. Man has some cool toys

[Devil 505]

Beautiful build.

[Greebo]

I seem to recall the S.6B was a Dumas rubber powered balsa kit that David converted to electric R/C, he never flew it though. Converting small balsa kits to electric R/C was a thing with him a few years ago, he made an Aerographics Gloster Gladiator and also a Guillows Catalina which had scale retracting gear and tip floats!

The Seidel is for a large scale Gloster Gladiator that he started to build but has now shelved until after the Typhoon is finished. The nice thing is that there are a couple of these still flying in the UK and David was given the opportunity to go over one of them taking photos inside and out from every angle. The problem is that it would take a lot longer than the Typhoon to complete and David wants something to fly for next year. Also it will likely have similar landing problems to the Spit with its relatively narrow track and susceptibility to crosswinds.

I'll ask him for some more photos as there seems to be a fair bit of interest here.

[perdue3]

I seem to recall the S.6B was a Dumas rubber powered balsa kit that David converted to electric R/C, he never flew it though. Converting small balsa kits to electric R/C was a thing with him a few years ago, he made an Aerographics Gloster Gladiator and also a Guillows Catalina which had scale retracting gear and tip floats!

The Seidel is for a large scale Gloster Gladiator that he started to build but has now shelved until after the Typhoon is finished. The nice thing is that there are a couple of these still flying in the UK and David was given the opportunity to go over one of them taking photos inside and out from every angle. The problem is that it would take a lot longer than the Typhoon to complete and David wants something to fly for next year. Also it will likely have similar landing problems to the Spit with its relatively narrow track and susceptibility to crosswinds.

I'll ask him for some more photos as there seems to be a fair bit of interest here.

My uncle has a few converted wood models to electric, just seems like a lot of guess work and seriously design-intensive. A Gladiator would come with its own set of issues. Not quite WWI issues, but issues nonetheless. I have a .60 size Fokker D.VII that requires picture perfect conditions which are rarely found in my area. Makes you sweat even in the winter.

[Greebo]

Some more of my brother David's R/C models:

The first one is the Dumas S.6B. Normally a 24 inch span free flight aircraft, this was modified to electric R/C, given a thin sheet balsa skin and some extra detail. Not intended to operate off water but to be landed on grass. He has never flown this one.

Next is a Guillows Catalina 45 inch span static scale balsa model. This is not only modified to electric R/C but the gear and tip floats are designed to retract in the same way as the original aircraft. Again not intended for landing on water. The props shown here struggled to pull it around the sky on its test flight but larger diameter props won't clear the fuselage. So he has made some paddle blade props for flying and just keeps these originals for display.

The Dumas DH Dragon Rapide 42 inch span model needed less modification than the other planes. Just some corrections to the basic shape and a bit of extra detail.

The Aerographics Gloster Gladiator has a wing span of 21.5 inches and was designed for free flight. David made it R/C and again added some detail.

The build photos are where David stopped on his big Gladiator project for the Seidel rotary engine. When completed this will have a wingspan of 84.5 inches.

David's 84.5 inch Spitfire was built from a Brian Taylor plan but with a few modifications. This included beefing up the fragile wing spars and routing the engine cooling air through the fuselage, wings and exiting out the back of the radiator pods.

Last of all is the Aerographics 26 inch span Fairey Swordfish. Another free flight model converted to R/C David added a load of detail and even made the wings fold in the same way as the real aircraft.