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Macchi-ized Fancherized Twister Build

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Jake Moon:
Just what we all need, another Twister thread!

I have a single plane that I fly regularly. It's a Brodak Vector 40 ARF with an LA 46—excellent stuff. I'm not working for the time being and have the control line bug, so I've recently learned the pattern and put in 8-12 flights a week. Knowing that any day could be that Vector's last, I figured having a backup plane wouldn't be the worst idea. Here's the Vector and our flying setup in a park by the water:




Though my Twister is under construction, it's already flown a lot. I bought a couple SIG Twister kits from a hobby shop in Japan and had them sent to my mother in Tokyo. On a recent trip to visit her, I took the kits back with me to Singapore in my checked luggage. We live in a small (by American standards) apartment, so I've been building this plane on our desk, the floor, and our balcony. In order to build a straight wing but also not destroy our desk, I went to our local hobby shop and bought a few pieces of heavy, 6.5x100x1000mm C-grain balsa to use as my jig. I cut about 40 tabs and glued them to the wood slabs and the trailing edge and spar. Here's the setup mid-build:




I cut the half-ribs from extremely light 1.5mm wood. Good, light balsa is easy to find in Singapore and surprisingly cheap. It might be the only cheap thing here! This is fortunate, as the kit wood is very heavy.

When I build scale models, I make things more complicated than they need to be in the quest to do something different or just to see if it'd work. Turns out that is also the case in aeromodelling. I wanted to go for a warbird that wouldn't look absolutely ridiculous with a long nose and a straight, mid-mounted wing. And I wanted to be different than the usual P-51s, Zeros, P-40s etc. I landed on the Macchi C.205 Veltro. The moments are roughly similar, the fuselage is shallow, so the mid-mount won't be as weird, and the wing doesn't have a huge taper. And I'll get to do a fun livery.




Here are some of the Fancher modifications (before filling). I replaced most of the aft fuselage in an effort to reduce weight (the kit fuselage wood was around 15 lbs/ft).






After each building session everything goes back into my closet. Some details in this photo show that I made the fuselage narrower to make it more scalelike and the 3-inch bellcrank instead of the 4-inch one that the plans call for but I can't get a hold of here.




Covering options are also limited here. I have some polyspan-like covering made by KM Co. in Japan. I've never used this stuff before so I made a little mockup to see if it'd shrink and soak up dope. It came out pretty good! Shrinks drum tight and strong. Like polyspan it doesn't sand well. And unfortunately it's very heavy. For 1 wing the covering alone weighs 1.2 ounces! So I only covered the wings, rudder, and elevators.




My wife took a picture of a late-night doping session on the balcony. Waterbased EZ Dope is the only dope available here. So far I like using it.




Wing covered. Eagle-eyed viewers may note that the bays are off by a half. I cut the leadouts too short and ended up with an outboard wing 1.5 inches longer than the inboard. So I sawed off half a bay from the outboard. Whoops.




Assembly time. We don't have a table or desk large enough for this, so I'm building it on the floor and using the joints in the hardwood as the centerline. It's working though my knees are getting sore! I enlarged the stab per the plans, though cutting away some for the rounded look probably reduced the area back to the kit size. I made a built up stab that warped, so I made a replacement out of 6.4-pound, C-grain, 6.5mm wood.




And then today I glued in the wing! This is my favorite part of the build and it took all of my self-control not to pick it up and look at the assembled airframe while the epoxy still dried. I have realized that something is slightly off—I could only get the measurements within 2mm of each other on each side. The wing is at least straight to the fuse and level to the floor. I'm hoping that'll be close enough.






More updates will follow soon. As it sits, the airframe consisting of the covered wing, doped fuse, stab, and rudder is 19.2 ounces. Power depends on a few things. If I crash the Vector and need to get the Maccherized Twister flying well ASAP, I'll use the LA 46 from the Vector. If it comes out too heavy, I'll go for the LA 46 as well. If I don't plant the Vector and can take my time, and the Twister is light enough, I have a new K&B .28 Sportster that looks cool.

Thanks for taking a look.
Jake

Crist Rigotti:
Thanks for the report!

Ken Culbertson:

--- Quote from: Crist Rigotti on March 26, 2024, 01:58:16 PM ---Thanks for the report!

--- End quote ---
Looking good.  I love the plane you are patterning it after.  I designed a PA ship around it back in the 70's.  Never built it.

Ken

Dave Hull:
Nice!

The best thing about storing the plane parts in the closet between sessions is that your clothes smell like balsa wood all day.... Waaay better than a dryer sheet!

Richard Fleming:
Keep up the great work and stay with it! You are getting there.

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