JCaste

Vesp, sorry but I'm not an elec'flite enthusiaste! I enjoy the noise, the oil-soaked planes, the brute power and easy refill of "wet" power. Anyway, I have no doubt in a few years electrics probably outperform glows in weight, power and flight time. If I plan to use electrics for this bird is because of it size (glow engines this size are not available in my area) of where I intend to fly it (you can't fly glow in a city). Not sure is America is full of anime, but sure is full of RC stuff! That's why I enjoy visiting rcgroups.com , it's like a being under storm, which rains ideas. I probably wouldn't have thought of depron as building material if it wasn't for them, and so cd-roms, to give an example. A good folk at rcg has been kind enough to get the 3views I desperately needed, so most of the problem is solved. The YF-19 must be drawn as a canard, or it will be very difficult to balance. With his drawings, I've seen the YF-19 is quite flat in its middle section, with only the engine pods protruding. Very smooth, straight lines. This is good news! I don't want to be overly optimistic, but it's looking easier than I thought first. Regarding speeds, those park jets fly at the same combat speeds of their full scale model. Yes, I know after a while electrics are well worth the investment, but... I'd have to work first to pay for them! My big investement (or this half of year at leasty) has been a 190$ simulator, so I'm out of money. When I buy electric stuff, I?ll go right to brushless motor, lipo batts, and universal charger. Otherwise may seen cheaper at first, but it's not worth. Less power, les flying time, more weight, and you finally switch to brushless. Servos are a different thing and older models can be used without problems. When you talk about the stresses that depron takes, what size of bird are you talking about? Up to 300in^2 of wing area, aprox, you can use depron and put a carbon fiber rod in the wing. If you go faster (60mph+), or use high aspect ratio wings, then you must reinforce things to avoid flutters and bendings. I'm currently building this bird: I have 2 carbon rods in the wings, and each fuselage corner has a balsa triangle stick glued. If it comes out light enough, I may even glass it. This way you can get more speed, but park flying behaviour is reduced. So, will depron take the pain? for the YF-19, and for mine, I bet so; if you build it larger with depron, you may use the sheet of foam to get the shape and then glass it, and make a sturdy former to fix the engine to. If it was to be built bigger, I'd make foam wings, covered in wood and glassed, and fiberglass fuselage with some ply formers - that is, if you like hot models. That technique of yours looks quite good, and I'll try it for a combat model I should have had ready a lot ot time ago, a 48" wingspan BF-109. I hope it cuts through the wings of my enemies! Yep, the first protoype will be carton. I already planned this for the plane above, but my patience extinguished and I started cutting depron. This will be helpful to get the shape of the round sections of the bird also. So, when I'm finishing the drawings, I'll search for a refrigerator box, to have "prototype supplies" for a while. I'll try to use depron for everything (this helps use those tiny bits that fall to the floor while building). However, things like engine thrust nozzles may be shaped with foam, or cutting a bottle, well, somehow. The weather is just great. I live in Barcelona, region of Catalunya, northeast of Spain. You can spend most of the year in a T-shirt, the colder days you put on a sweater, and when it starts to llok like it's winter a good jacket is all you need. The real cold days last a week or two. After windy and colder weeks, now it starts to feel like spring: no wind, 17-23º C, birds sing, it's sunny... It's the best time of year! You have light all day, and the temp is ideal to wear either long or short without sweating or shivering with cold. I hope you all enjoys you stays here and, if you permit me the advice, I'm sure you'll enjoy it more if you take a random route and run away from the "touristical places". Hellohikaru, turbines are simply amazing, very realistic an powerful, but they cost like 1500-2500$ each, and this bird needs two. Even if I had them, I'd first build the depron model. Nevertheless, a high speed, low alt pass of the YF-19 with 2 turbines screaming must be an impressing sight. But, if you walk a couple meters away, a good built depron model will be a similar sight! Have fun! Juan

Thanks for all the input so far! Vespaeda: it's very possible I go electric. For such small models, it's easier to use electric power (and makes the balancing process easier, too). But I only have glow sutff, so I first need to get the money to buy all that electric gear (motor, batteries, charger, ESC, etc. Too much!). I usually surf through th e-zone; lots of nice and helpful people there. I'm the same "JCaste" of that forum, too, and I have visited like 3 or 4 "fantasy planes" threads and if I'm not wrong many people wants an YF-19 but nobody has made one yet (Millenium falcons, tie fighters and others are on the way! ). Yes, Nausicaa and Porco Rosso are also great sources for models - I'd particularly love a Fio's version of Porco's Savoia S-21. The best references I've found of that bird where in a jap. page, I'll try to contact that man one day or other. I'm on final exams so my time is very scarce, too. Maybe I can make the design on my free time, but building it will take longer. My idea for the YF-19 was the following: make a cheap build, easy construction plane made out of Depron (a flat sheet of extruded polyestirene). I'm practicing that philosophy with an easier jet. Steve has made several great designs based on this technique: JAS 39 Gripen T-38 Talon F/A 18 Hornet They're basicly a box fuselage, with rounded corners, and a flat wing. Though, they perform and look awesome! I bet you couldn't tell if from the real one from a few meters apart (if it wasn't by the motor's buzzing...). I didn't know about that Hammerhead model, but it sure is a nice one! Another "odd-looking" aircraft I'd like to make is the Transavia PL-12 airtruck (featured in the movie Mad max 3). I'll try to find a plastic model (at least for the 3 views), but I live in Spain and here anime and plastic models are not that popular. With the 3 views I can make some basic lines, it's like drawing the skeleton, and with many of the pics available in the internet you can shape the thing, give a more true look to it. Most anime and sci-fi aircraft are just drawn using imagination as the only rule (which is the good thing about them). So is the YF-19. If it existed, it would probably be very tail heavy. Wings are very small, and they need to be bigger to fly at park flyer speeds. Tail fins are cute, but very small too, and the same applies for the canard (if it's used as a control surface). However, I belive it can be made to fly. The aft body can help a lot with sustentation (look the aft body on the F-18 and the size of its wings), and the long nose will be helpful to balance the plane (by installing the batts at the very beginning). If engine ducts are clear they can also give a small contribution to lift. Sorry, but I can't help you with swept wings. If I recall correctly, they gave a better maneuverability and delayed the separation of the boundary layer of air (=less likely to stall at high speeds). So it seems that for RC speeds, they're not exactly useful, and so are rare, but exist and do fly well. If I get to build it, this would probably be both my first canard and fwd-swept wing plane, which including the difficulty of making a dream jet fly is part of the fun of the challenge. I've not yet seen how the control surfaces work on the YF-19, but it's very likely that, if using them, they have to be enlarged. The bird looks like a canard plane (such as the Gripen; with the stabilizer before the wing) and, if made to fly like such, it would make things easier. Coupling that with elevons, this plane could loop and catch it's own tail, almost. With that shape it's quite sure it would fly pretty jet-like (good maneuverability, and fast! flight), and doesn't have to be particularly unstable (in the sense that's very touchy to fly and tends to adopt nastyattitudes while flying). Aerobatic plane's are not exactly "unstable", but I'd rather say they are a example of "indiferent equilibrium" (I'm not sure if that's the right word ), I mean they "don't care" that much if they fly right, inverted, or sideways (mid-wing, symmetrical wings, almost simmetrical fuse...); the same goes for this one; yet, the fact of using a flat wing would give it considerable drag and help during flared landings. So basicly the design process is "simplified" to drawing the model, and then start to change things to make it more flyable (wing area, control surfaces area, shape and location, etc.), while keeping an eye at weight and balance. Even such a "simple" thing as the process which describes the dampening of a car's shock involves quite nasty maths, now imagine that for the YF-19! I wouldn't look for pics, but for plans with numbers on them! If you do like and have a proficient level of calculus and mechanics, then you could give it a try, but in my case that would mean losing lots of time to sort things out. For 5$ a square meter of depron, there's no choice. You draw it, you build it in the weekend; if it doesn't fly, you either tweak the design till it works or you go for an easier challenge. If I were to build a large, $$$$ plane, then you can be sure I'd do some serious maths before starting making balsa dust. Regards, Juan PS. sorry, I'm unable to make posts shorter if I try to explain things.

Hi all! I've been looking for pictures or blueprints of Macross Plus aircraft, but my search didn't get too many results. I just found the dxf file in this site (which was a great help) and 2-view drawings. My plan is using the pics to create a radio controlled version of one of them - so far, the YF-19 is the very first option. A 3-view drawing and a few high res pics would be great (any extra info, simply wonderful! ) I don't know when could I start designing/buiding it, but for those who might feel curious, I plan to make it a park flyer model (about 500g of weight, 75cm of span aprox.). Thanks in advance! Juan PS. As I'm new, I'm not sure whether this topic has been covered or not. If so, moderator, just do what's right!