|
Anyone know someone who's either flying or still building a WAR Aircraft Replica plane? http://warbuddies.homestead.com/ (site looks and navigates like it's from 1996, but they are a legit company) They're all-wood ~1/2 scale "replicas" of popular warplanes from WWII, and they're all pretty much the same box-wood fuselage and wings with a foam and fiber cover to give them the unique shape of the aircraft they are supposed to represent.     The site mentiones the following specs (dependant on pilot weight, engine type, and how close to the original building plans and procedures you stuck to, which range in price from $275-$355) Wingspan.......................................20'0" Length...........................................16'0" Footprint.......................................7'0" Empty Weight...............................600-620 lbs Max Gross Weight........................900-920 lbs Wing Loading...............................12lbs/sq ft Cruise condition............................135 MPH @3.2 GPH Wide Open speed...........................165 MPH Stall Speed.....................................55 MPH 2 degree twist stalls wing smoothly with no obvious tendency to fall off on either wing. Approach & Pattern Speed.............70-75 MPH Take off Run...................................800-1000 ft Rate of Climb.................................700 ft/min. Endurance.....................................3-4 Hrs: 400 miles Maneuvering/ Structural capability......................................Aerobatic ( +/- 6 g's)
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2012 17:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 11:20 |
|
|
Honestly, if you could find free plans online to make a wooden box fuselage, and find a source that shows how to make the controlled surfaces work, you can pretty much just make a generic frame and then do the rest (make it look like the warplane you want) with shaped foam. A spit's wings would be a little tricky to get just right, but I think the canopy would be the real bitch to make/get. I'm really interested in a Mazda powered 109, but would have to scale it up a bit from 1/2 to make the fuselage wide enough (lol fat goons). Considering that the real deal was barely wide enough for wartime pilots getting lots of exercise and having to deal with rationing, I imagine a 1/2 scale version would look to have a very fat fuselage and ruin the lines. This guy is actually making a 1:1 BF-109G, that he will be powering with a 450hp turbo wenkel engine. He's guessing the final weight (take off) will be ~850 kg (as opposed to 3,100 kg) so it will perform close to or possibly better than the real deal. He hasn't updated the site for a while, but I'm excited to see what happens.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2012 00:26
|
|
|
Colonel K posted:Do you worry about timber frame hangars during the bad weather? When we had some heavy snow a few years ago there were one or two steel framed hangars that collapsed, it wasn't a pretty sight. A properly built timber framed building will kick the crap out of a prefab steel building 9 time out of 10. helno posted:Did some work with Sandy and Addie on Sandy's Challenger. So why the reduction gear? Is it using a Mazda rotary engine? I know part of it is clearance for the pusher prop above the fuselage, but I figured it would still be 1:1.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2013 13:40
|
|
|
People are always talking about Mazda rotary engines (light, compact, high HP), but I never seem to see anyone who actually goes through with it. It it because they are not as great HP/Mass as people think or it is something to do with the High RPMs and gearboxes?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2014 05:46
|
|
|
This guy is building a 1:1 scale BF-109 and says the engine is going to be a Mazda.BF109 guy posted:The engine we have choesen is a Mazda/Wankel engine, with turbo and either two or three row`s with around 450HP I honestly don't know where he's getting that HP figure since Mazda's most powerful commercially available engine was the 13B-REW in the RX-7 wich generated 280 HP, and was already twin-turbocharged. The only engines over that HP were experimental and for concept cars that never materialized and their LeMans offering which was a 4-Rotor 700HP monster. On paper they look nice due to their injection, HP, weight, and size, but I think you're probably correct about the added complexity and weight of the gearbox. Otherwise you'd see everyone zipping around in comparatively cheap Mazda engines instead of Rotax and others.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2014 16:44
|
|
|
He was saying that the frame looks warped due to the camera lens and everything is in fact straight. Also like you mentioned it's the sandwich that he was thinking about. The strength from this kind of design comes from the layer of composite on the insides and outside, and the wood and foam is just a base for it. I've seen aircraft built in this manner, but they usually have the money to do a giant mold for the fuselage instead of having to seal the mold on the inside. So essentially, if he had the tech to do it without the wood, he would go in that direction. I really hope that this thing actually does happen, and fly well, but it looks like it might be vapourware as there have been no updates in a long time. Then again it was posted at the homebuilt forums, and that's usually reason enough to assume it will never be built as I've yet to see anything custom happen (aside from slight mods to kits).
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
Nerobro posted:I read this as if you were talking about someone who builds flying model planes. Instead of scale models that sit in dioramas. The first interpretation borders on insulting. :-) Plot of "Last flight of the Phoenix" right here. Anyway, regarding the BF-109 vapourware guy, apparently the old guy (his dad) that you occasionally see in pictures actually designed, built and fly a few planes, and has worked with a kitbuilder/designer who was pretty famous in the homebuilt community. Can't seem to find the thread all of this was posted in before, but it is worth reading as this guy gets seriously butthurt and storms off.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2014 19:16
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 11:20 |
|
|
I think the point he was trying to make (but everyone in the homebuilt forums kept missing) was that the wood was in no way meant to be the source of the structural integrity of the aircraft, but rather to be a mold for the composite sandwich. The quality of the wood shouldn't really matter as long as it made the appropriate shape for the composite layers. Although he did also mention that the wood was in fact structurally sound. Also, there was no way in hell he was walking away with a fuselage weighing what he said it would. Maybe if he did the sandwich without the majority of the wood or with a true fuselage mold it could happen, but taking a wooden and foam model at scale and increasing it by a few orders of magnitude doesn't work the same as scaling up an entirely metal or composite model.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2014 21:17
|
|