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December 2022
Click Any Photo to Enlarge
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The members
started to gather at 6:30 pm and the meeting
room was fully engaged when President Cal
Branton started the meeting.
Twenty-five (25)
members and two (2) guests were
present for presentations, discussions, and
wonderful SFM camaraderie.
Guests:
Victor Voleika
has recently moved to the Cities from Sioux
Falls, SD where he had been keeping up with the
events of the Scale Flyers of Minnesota via our
website. We look forward to seeing Victor
at more meetings and flying events! |
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Karl Hansen has been recovering from
orthopedic surgery from his job with a railroad.
He’s been active in redesigning classic
Top Flite red-box kits for modern
laser-cut tab-in-slot construction, servo usage,
and power-plant flexibility. We hope to
see more of Karl this year! |
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Karl
Hansen's Laser-Cutting & Printing |
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Karl
(Planes Gone By,
LLC) displayed the construction
of his latest Top Flite red-box kit
re-design, the Grumman F7F Bearcat.
The fuselage is self-aligning and can be
assembled without glue, as true for the
wings, horizontal stabs, and vertical
fin. The structure was redesigned to
accept glow, gas, or electric power.
His prototype is
looking at a 17cc to 20cc 2-stroke
gasoline engine. |
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Karl is also
designing scale retractable landing gear
for the model that can use some Robart
strut components.
He has reproduced most of the Top Flite
red-box series of kits as well as the TF-Gold
Edition Kits and the Top Flite Giant
Scale F4U Corsair, P-51B & P-51D Kits.
He is also available for custom work if
you have a special project.
He’s also offering
laser cutting services as well as large
format plan printing on 36”, 42”, or 46”
wide paper. |
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John
Baligrodzki's Ki-76 Scout, by
Andersen Designs |
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John has been working with Dave Andersen
on a new design for a unique and rare
Japanese scout aircraft.
The Ki-76 is like the German Storch, the
British Lysander, and other designs.
It is a high-wing design with a radial
engine and stout landing gear. Over 900
Ki-76s were built but very few survive
WWII for scale detail. |
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This model is ¼
scale and will have a wingspan of
approx. 148” and is expected to weigh
somewhere near 45#. The powerplant
is still being determined.
John and Dave are
experimenting with a Balsa-Free designed
model. T he
construction is lite-ply, spruce, and
shaped foam. John brought in a sample of
the horizontal stab that he had built
the day before. It was glassed and had a
coat of primer sanded already.
Looking at sheeting,
John’s experiments in glassing and
painting balsa sheets were not better in
weight or cost than simply painting
1/64th plywood. So using 1/64th
play will make construction faster and
stronger. John also experimented with
finishing the pink foam used in
construction. He used two
different covering materials,
fiberglass, and SIG Cover-All.
Then he used different finishing on the
fiberglass, polyurethane, and epoxy
resins. His observation was that
the Cover-All was more difficult to
apply and finish.
John used an
inexpensive hand foam cutter from Amazon
that cost something like $25 for making
ribs and structure.
Since the
construction of the Ki-76 is so simple,
John figures he might have it ready by
2025. We hope it can be earlier! |
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We look forward to seeing you in
January!
Our next meeting will be on Friday
1/27/23, at 7pm. |
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David P.
Andersen's New FW-189A-1 design project |
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Dave introduced his newest design of a
1/6th scale Focke-Wulf FW-189 Warbird.
The wingspan will be 120” and the
aircraft is expected to weigh in near
39#. Dave displayed a partial
drawing of the aft tail-booms and the
horizontal stabilizer with the sideways
retracting tail wheel imbedded in the
center of the stab. |
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The new design
specifications and contributors;
Focke Wulf FW189A-1 in 1/6th
scale, Span 120 inches, Weight 39
lbs (est), length 73 inches, two
4400 watt (BadAzz) motors
(prototype)
Contributors:
David P Andersen, Chris Spangenberg,
and David Spinnetti with
assistance from Roy Maynard. |
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TEAM
COMPOSITE’s 45% Me-163 Project
Update! |
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Jan Larsen,
Ahmed Bassal and Scott Russel
carried in the nearly complete
Fuselage plug for their 45% Me-163
Komet Project. The 96” long
plug was drawn in CAD and then
sectioned. Each section was
broken into quarters so the parts
could be printed on the team’s five
3D printers.
It took over 240
individual pieces, each taking 8 to
12 hours to print, and over 40 rolls
of material, to make up the plug. |
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The plug fits
over a pipe to allow Ahmed to rotate
it as he sands, primes, and details
every hatch and rivet
for creating the mold. As of this
meeting, he had finished the tail section,
just aft of the cockpit. This is the
first time the entire plug has been
assembled.
By the time you
read this, the plug may have already
been used to create molds for the
fuselage. Jan also shared the
metal cutting templates that will be
used to cut the four sections of the
164” span wing plug. Jan has built
a custom foam cutter to ensure
accuracy. The wing templates
were water cut and have a perfectly
smooth edge so as not to snag the
hot-wire during cutting.
Ahmed
demonstrated how the vertical fin
plugs into the fuselage. We will not
see the Komet again, until the March
Meeting when the finished prototype
will be displayed. |
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