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Macchi-ized Fancherized Twister Build

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big ron:
Very nice work Jake

Jake Moon:
Thanks for the kind comments. A big update - we have paint! I went for the standard sand with green squiggles that the Italians employed on most C.202s and C.205s. I used some Nippon Paint rattlecans from a hardware store as that is all I can manage with my setup at the moment. The green is just acrylic art paint applied with a brush. In the future I'll certainly need to figure out some sort of airbrush system as this isn't great paint and is quite heavy. Since the color covers well, I did not prime the airframe. Even still, all the color added 3.5 ounces. Ouch!








The airframe is now 23 ounces. My new target number for the completed plane is 44 ounces. I recently bought a Brodak .40 that I'll use instead of the K&B .28 I had planned to used, so that should give me a whole lot more power for minimal weight gain.

My next step will be to design some vinyl applications for the roundels and squadron markings. We live near an art school so there are about a dozen print shops who can cut vinyl within a 10-minute walk.

Thanks for looking,
Jake

James Mills:
Looks nice Jake.

James

Richard Fleming:
The Italian camo  looks good Jake.

Jake Moon:
I never finished this thread, but I did finish the plane.

I designed some basic markings on Inkscape and had a print shop cut them from vinyl for me. One of the benefits of living near an arts school. On the fuselage is a "Merlion," a Mermaid/Lion hybrid that is a symbol of Singapore. It came out pretty light—41 ounces. Here are some photos just a few minutes before my its first flight. I'm glad I took these.










And here's why I'm glad I took those photos:




On the third flight I did a couple basic maneuvers and all was going well. Then I tried a horizontal 8 and the motor quit right at the outside-to-inside intersection. I did what I could but couldn't get it turned back over in time.




The damage was pretty significant. The fuselage was split in half horizontally and cracked all the way around the wing root. The flaps broke as well. But the wing survived. So I put it all back together with epoxy and fiberglass cloth. I glassed pretty much the entire fuselage and brushed an extra coat of epoxy over the nose in case there was some damage further inside that I couldn't see. Dunno if that would do anything though. But the plane is still straight, and after removing the 2.5-inch spinner, only half an ounce heavier. I don't have any close up photos since the repair (it's pretty ugly), but it flies again. It still isn't completely trimmed, but it should do the job of letting me get more patterns in. I never figured out why the motor quit, but after replacing all the fuel tubing, cleaning out the spraybar, and replacing the glow plug, the motor runs great.

Here's the repaired plane with the regular flying group.




And here's how I get home from the field—taking the plane on the subway!




Thanks for looking.

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