The Anvil

by kactiguy- | September 18, 2013 | (12) Posted in Just Fun

After a good ten year break I'm just getting back into the hobby and it's extra fun now that my boys are old enought to play too. We have built the Baby Blender, the Spitfire and the Versa wing and had a blast flying them. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had an idea brewing to to build a double decker warplane. I drew a few sketches and came up with something like this.

The idea persisted so we started to build.

It's basically a modified spitfire. Stubby wings and a weird fuselage.

At some point during the build I realized where this idea came from. A fantastic illustrator named Christian Pearce (http://christianpearce.blogspot.com) did some really great paintings of these crazy warbirds. Something about them stuck in my noggin I guess.

As for flying? I don't know. It was very tail heavy and it needed a lot of extra weight but we did get it up as you can see in the video. It flew terrible the first time. Very pitchy and unstable. I removed the weight and instead moved the powerpod forward. I repositioned the battery just inside the front piece of foam just below the prop. It balanced about the same without all of the weight. It flys much better now (just slightly less terrible) but it still feels like it will fall out of the sky if I take my finger of the stick for a second. Looks pretty smooth in the video but it is so wonky. I will say that it rolls great. Very smooth but a loop was out of the question. I'm going to try a few more things with weight and cg to get it to fly better but mostly it was an experiment and fun. Hope you all enjoy.

 

Update:

I cut some weight. Actually I just cut it in half. I think I could have kept tweaking and got it to fly pretty good but I decided to do this instead. In addition to cutting it in half I extended the nose an 1 1/5 inches to get more weight out there without adding weight. I also built the landing gear out of some aluminum I had sitting around. It puts the weight of the wheels forward and helps in cg too. Still needs a canopy though. I'll try it out as soon as the weather cooperates.  I'l let you know how it goes.

Keep flyin'

COMMENTS

LordVader on September 19, 2013
Now that is what I call Awesome!!! So cool, I can see why the ideas would stick in your head. Those are some very cool illustrations. I love the P-38, it's to die for. I may try my hand at that one.
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adergotardo on September 19, 2013
Genial!
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CStence on September 19, 2013
I absolutely love your sketch of the plane. Makes me jealous...I've never been great at drawing like that. Great job!
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alibopo on September 19, 2013
Brilliant - my son would love this. He's into warhammer, though I think this is a slightly different field? Kind of Manga/steampunk?
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filken on September 19, 2013
That's epic, great job! You could try staggering the wings and moving one of them back a bit. It would make sense that your center of gravity would move back (giving you more nose weight) if you moved one of the wings back. Lots of biplanes have staggered wings. But why stop at 2 wings? :)
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WarbirdFan66 on September 19, 2013
If that isint a cool plane i dont know what is, great work, were are the plans for that monster :P...it just needs a little bit more paint and details, like you showed in your sketch...awesome work guys
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the nerdling on September 20, 2013
you should try and make a fly-able battle sandwich that would be awesome :)
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78ati on September 20, 2013
Hello! Nice plane! Can you tell us the motor/prop/and battery setup?
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kactiguy- on September 20, 2013
Thanks for the comments everybody. WarbirdFan66- yes I have the plans but I need to go back and modify them a bit. I wasn't going to but if people want them I certainly could. 78ati- I just have the "beef" setup. The same that was suggested for the spitfire. It flew best at about half to 3/4 throttle.
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WarbirdFan66 on September 25, 2013
oh i totaly understand that you wanna perfect them, take your time but i guess a lot of guys would love to get their hands on your plans. Im sure there is lots of foam waiting to be cut ;) - i would certainly try and build one of these birds, not as a swap, as a normal bird, if you wanna call such a crazy thing normal. Im sure it will be a lot of fun, this thing simply looks to damn cool...so if you find the time, please post you plans - thanks for sharin, cheers
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CJGFX on September 20, 2013
A brilliant design, even if your struggling to get it to fly smoothly. I really like your drawing to, I've got drawing envey..... In hope you persist and get it flying better, please keep us all up to date with your progress
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RoyBro on September 20, 2013
Great plane. Thanks for showing the initial flight failures , It gives us all the assurance that it sometimes takes a bit of tweaking to get a plane to fly.
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BuckE67 on September 25, 2013
Awesome job! Thanks for showing the failed flights as well as the successful ones.
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FlyinBiker on September 25, 2013
Fantastic plane. Best thing about it, it's your own design.
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rcmaster17 on February 1, 2014
you were make plans for plane
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