The plan is coming along....

Here is some more progress on my ACAD plan. I love drawing with this program.

Is this the Saito 72 Furias? What is the 411 on the plane?

It's looking good, Doug.

If it weren't for model airplanes to draw, I'd have never learned to use AutoCAD at all! (Now my boss is happy that "Cunningham can use AutoCAD", if only he knew..)

One question. I notice the nose is pretty wide, and the engine mounting beams are quite a bit narrower. I'm assuming the nose formers will suspend them, correct? Are there any issues with that? When the mount beams glue to the fuselage sides, their strength is increased a lot.

Now I know that various large fuselage ships like the Bearcat use the technique without problems. But I was wondering if you might want a strip of balsa between the inner fuselage side and the outer side of the beams, to distribute load. That IS a big, heavy motor!

Anyway, this is going to be a BIG ship, and I know it will be impressive.

Great work, Doug.

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"I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there." -Richard Feynman

Larry,

My new plane has a similar fuselage. It's pretty wide and fat. The mounts are not directly attached to the fuse side, but "suspended" in the formers. I did use some hogged out balsa to go between the mounts and the fuse side, but this was mostly an issues of paranoia. I doubt it needed it.

I guess we'll see. I should start painting it in the next couple of weeks. <grin>

Interesting note on the motor mounts being suspended by the formers. In the Galloping Comedian, this is what takes place. The engine just hangs out in space. I added balsa "shims" between the motor mounts and the fuselage/cowl. Some things just never go away.

Looks good!! Where is the fuel tank going to be?
Bigiron

> Looks good!! Where is the fuel tank going to be?
> Bigiron

In the canopy.

Hey, were's my friggin' CAD drawing?

>> Looks good!! Where is the fuel tank going to be?
>> Bigiron
>
>In the canopy.
>
>Hey, were's my friggin' CAD drawing?

What do you mean?

In my drawing at home I have your plan right next to mine so I can use it as a reference. I also steal cool little things off of it like the motor and the horns and the bellcrank. But the rest is mine.

The tank will be behind the motor as usual. The bellcrank is far enough back to allow for almost a 2" recession in the front of the wing. Should fit just fine.

Larry,

I have filled beside the beams to the fuse sides with hard balsa just as Randy says he did. Then I molded the nose fuse sides in instead of just sanding them in. It came out real strong and not that heavy as I expected.

Doug,

It does come out light. My complete fuse, sans cowl, rudder and fin came in at about 5.5oz. Molded blocks and forward fuse. Rear fuse was sheet. Great way to build one.

>>Hey, were's my friggin' CAD drawing?
>
>What do you mean?

MY COPY OF THE FURIAS 2! You just sent the picture. I want to see the CAD!

I wanted to get you top block dimensions. Also I wanted to lay the new design over some other planes.

Oh I see.

I will get it to you tonite.

>Here is some more progress on my ACAD plan. I love drawing
>with this program.

Doug;

Looks good. And, you are right - Autocad is great.

Question - are you going to do the wing in lost foam, or computer generate the ribs and have them laser cut?

The wing is lost foam. But I am in the process of getting the ribs laser cut. So construstion will go three times as fast if I dont have to cut ribs. I can still build in the foam craddle. Best of both worlds.

>The wing is lost foam. But I am in the process of getting
>the ribs laser cut. So construstion will go three times as
>fast if I dont have to cut ribs. I can still build in the
>foam craddle. Best of both worlds.

Doug;

Very interesting. In generating the .dxf for the laser cutter, are you going to generate that by using Autocad?

>Very interesting. In generating the .dxf for the laser
>cutter, are you going to generate that by using Autocad?
>
>Bob

Yes. AJT Laser can draw right from an Autocad file. So you can design it and send the file to him he loads it and cuts it out. It helps to find out the bed size of the laser you are going to be using and design around that bed size. Kyle's is 24" that is longest peice of wood he can hadle. So you design your parts to be cut from 24" peices. It really doesnt come into play except on fuse sides.

Doug,
How did you plot out the angled rib outlines? Nice plane, good job. It snowed here last night. The building season is offical . I'm using the LF method for next years airplane. Please keep us posted as to your progress.

>Yes. AJT Laser can draw right from an Autocad file. So you
>can design it and send the file to him he loads it and cuts
>it out. It helps to find out the bed size of the laser you
>are going to be using and design around that bed size.
>Kyle's is 24" that is longest peice of wood he can hadle.
>So you design your parts to be cut from 24" peices. It
>really doesnt come into play except on fuse sides.

Doug;

Let me see if I have this right. All you have to provide Kyle with is the root and tip rib, and the span. He will then "slice" up the wing, generate the rib profiles (to include the diagonals), replot them on the balsa, and then cut.

Interesting. My personal experience with this is that drawing the root and tip are no problem, and putting them into 3D is no problem. Skinning the wing in CAD is no problem. Slicing the wing is no problem. Seperating the slices is no problem. The problems come when trying to take a diagonal slice and get it to lie flat and then extract the rib outline.

Have you or 'Zilla figure out how to do this yet? Any hints would be most helpful.

If anyone else has any ideas, I am all ears...

The angled ribs...Kyle said he has a new program that will take the root and tip and the span and draw it in 3-D. Then lay the marks for the angled ribs on top and slice a verticle line where the rib is to end up. Then it just reads that angled rib to cut from balsa. As far as drawing them. I dont how to do that. As far as what you are seeing here I just measured out the jig and drew it as you would see it from a top view. Then added a trailing edge peice and the thickness of the sheeting.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-05-03 AT 12:49 PM (CST)
 
I have playing around with shapes for Dr. J. I think they have all been done.

>I have playing around with shapes for Dr. J. I think they
>have all been done.

You said it brother. The Furias shape was an accident. I left the canopy on the turtle deck and when I cam back the next day to shape it and fair it in I saw how cool it looked just sitting up on top. Then I started messing with the rudder and then it came to life. I have tried endlessly to come up with my own look and I always just eneded up with a Bear, it is just so cool looking, until the Furias came to life.

OK, you cats asked for it..

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Does the fuselage look labor-intensive enough?

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"Money will buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail." -Richard Friedman

Larry,

That's, uh, interesting. I like the planview.

Hmmmm, Larry...

That stealth stunter looks daaarn good!!!!!

Is it "buildable"?

>Hmmmm, Larry...
>
>That stealth stunter looks daaarn good!!!!!
>
>Is it "buildable"?
>
>Ion

There ya go, Ion! Trying to make trouble!!

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"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Doug,
AutoCad is very versatile and can even be use to layout the paint scheme, plan, laser cut files and 3D work. Attached is a picture showing the paint scheme of my new stunter. 675 square inches, 60" span, 52 to 55 ounces, molded balsa shells for leading edges, turtle deck, and fuselage bottom. Painted entirely with Sig dope and powered by the PA .65 & tuned pipe. Now this one has that "Classic Style" don't ya think??.

Mikey

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>Doug,
>AutoCad is very versatile and can even be use to layout the
>paint scheme, plan, laser cut files and 3D work.

Yes it can.

A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.

Wonder if Sununu's fired now?

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"Be good and you will be lonesome." -Mark Twain

Hi Doug,

Hey, it is looking pretty cool! Let us know when you start to cut wood.