Spitfire+(upscale+Funfighter)

This aircraft was upscaled from the Funfighter Spitfire. The original funfighter I had was powered by an OS 35 FP and went like a bat out of hell but it was difficult to launch and required to be hand launched quit hard just to get airborne. A number of times it did not make it during launch and suffered damage as a result. Being small and camouflaged it was not easy to see which way was up during poor lighting and I got disorientated a number of times. I decided to upscale it by 1.5 times original to a 65inch span. I had the wing cores made to the same profile and with the same washout from a firm in RCM&E. The rest of the airframe was built up the same except that I designed in retracts.

The designing in of the retracts had to be carefully thought out as the thickness of the wing limited the space available for the wheels. The Veneer on the underside was cut away to accept the wheel will some slack and then the foam was nibbled away until the top veneer was visible. The recess was lined with thin plastic sheet to finish and the guide holes for the retract pushrods cut. The retract servo is a standard servo. I was trying to keep costs to a minimum so used light foam wheels instead of scale wheels. This allowed the standard servo to be used. Any heavier wheels and it would not cope.

The cowl was all home made out of fibreglass. A mould was first made to the correct shape using scrap balsa block. This was then covered in tin foil and smoothed. The outside was covered in a number of layers of fine glass and resin. This was then smoothed to remove any major lumps and bumps. Car body filler (elastic) was then smeared all over the outside and smoothed. Quite a lot of work but you can make what you want.

The ailerons are full width, not scale. This gives good control at lower speeds as you get prop wash over the inner section near the body.

When complete the airframe was fine sanded and sealed with PVA then sprayed with TAMIYA paints to near scale effect and colours.

Engine is a MDS60 with a 13x8 Master airscrew prop. The engine is not that reliable and I will be looking to replace it soon. The engine is mounted at 45 degrees with the exhaust slung under the underside and partially hidden within the airframe. The cylinder head pokes out (and slightly down) of the cowl giving easy access to the plug. Simulated exhaust ports are fixed to the side of the aircraft. These are short lengths of thin wall plastic pipe cut to around 45 degrees mounted on a flat plate and sprayed black.

[|Spitfire_takeoff_2.wmv] [|Spitfire_flypast_2.wmv] [|Spitfire_flypast_secondflight.wmv]
 * Video of the first flight (1995):-**