Hi guys:
I have started my next winter's project. It is going to be a WW II Cessna T 50 Bobcat. You know, the old "Bamboo Bomber". It actually is so ugly that it is cute. The "Bobcat 19" picture below shows the airplane that I want to replicate. There are plenty of pictures of it available for detail and it is all yellow instead of the usual olive drabs and silvers. I have come to the conclusion that my recent attempts for a few years in the past have been at too small of a scale to be effectively flyable. This was verified by my more recent Rearwin Speedster that, at 64", flys like a dream. So, I am making this model at 1-1/2" to the foot, resulting in a 63" wingspan. I drew my own plans (I wish I had learned to do CAD). That took me about five weeks. It will have throttles (of course), retracts and flaps. The building of this model is actually a precursor to the building of the model that I really want to build, the North American AJ-1 Savage. The two planes are of similar configuration and I am hoping to work out the kinks with this one before I start the Savage.
The "Bobcat 001" picture is the obligatory picture of the very start of the build of the model. A clean table, all of the ribs and spars laid out, etc. I originally was going to build the wing with scale rib spacing and cover the model with open bay construction. I even fabricated all of the ribs for that (43 each). But then I shifted gears and decided to cover the wings with 1/16" planking, so I threw away every other rib. I will do all of the rib simulation, etc., with an airbrush. I thought I would go with planked construction for the purposes of a better finish.
The "Bobcat 004" picture is about ten days hence. The wings are framed up with the motors and retracts mounted. They are only mounted temporarily to get the anchor bolts in place before planking the wings. I think I will plank the bottoms first. Then I will work out the flaps, the internal wiring, etc., etc., before I plank the top. I was going to mount the bellcrank in the wing, but I later decided to move it up into the body. The geometry works better because of the extreme dihedral of the wing. The plane was a WW II training plane, and because of a search for stability, it has a 6 degree dihedral on the top of each wing. It looks goofy.
The model will be powered by two Himax .30 sized motors with Castle Creations Thunderbird 54 ESC's. The system will be controlled by one of Clancy Arnold's U-Tronics four channel electronic controls. At this scale, the fuselage will be quite large. You may be able to see a drawing of it in picture "004". It will be slightly larger that my Rearwin Speedster, so I am hoping for about 7 pounds. Wow, I need to learn how to not be so long winded, my finger tips hurt.
Jim Fruit