Radio Control: Giant Scale
John A. de Vries Colonel, USAF, Ret. 4610 Moffat Ln Colorado Springs, CO 80915
NOISE TRAPS
Herb Heaton is my R/C club vice president and the designated transmitter certifier — he's in charge of passing out the silver and gold stickers required for members' "black boxes." He recently entered the legions of Giant builders with a scratch-built T-170 from RCM drawings. With a wingspan of 100 in., the MonoKoted model certainly qualifies as big. The red, white and blue beauty uses individual servos for the ailerons; the installation required a Y‑servo lead and inline noise traps to avoid receiver interference.
Unbeknownst to Herb, he overheated the diodes when soldering the noise traps into place. The net result was a straight connection between receiver and servos. Although the first flight was successful, woe befell the second: the model rose, flipped and broke a fiberglass wing spar. During the postmortem Herb discovered interaction between the servos. The consensus among local experts was that the crash could have been prevented by running a series of careful ground radio-range checks; those checks would have revealed the potential flaws in the noise-trap system.
Herb did a range check, but when his servos got the jitters his cure was merely to extend his transmitter antenna a smidgen. After rebuilding the T-170, Herb rechecked the entire installation and it worked as advertised.
Moral: if you're using noise traps (filters) in servo leads, make sure the system is functioning reliably before trusting your Giant to the vagaries of flight.
Superscale Landing Gear (H. G. "Bud" Carrow, Jr.)
The Big Bird hobby boasts a lot of truly dedicated people. One of them is H. G. "Bud" Carrow, Jr., of Northville, MI. Bud's specialty is superscale landing-gear installations. His research includes detailed examinations of prototype gears, digging through yellowing tech orders and reducing the data to clear, concise black-line drawings.
Recently he sent me a set of Curtiss P-40 prints that are truly outstanding — they show every nut, bolt and cotter pin and include detail of the massive gears that rotated the landing-gear legs. The package also included close-up photographs of the prototype installation. Calling the package impressive understates the case.
Bud offers his P-40 drawings to modelers:
- $45 — lower 48
- $50 — Hawaii & Alaska
- $60 — Canada and elsewhere
Address: 42244 Ludlow Ct., Northville, MI 48167
I'm looking forward to his output on the Spitfire Mk IX, T-34, Fairey Firefly and the P-51D Mustang.
Canopy Framing (Tom Moore's AT-6 / Methods)
Tom Moore of Green Bay, WI is building an AT-6 Texan and, like many of us, was concerned about painting canopy framework to look scale. We suggested several ways to accomplish neat, scale-looking framework.
Methods
- Tape over molded framework
- Apply tape of the proper color and width to canopies that have raised framework ridges.
- Goldberg tape adheres well to plastic canopies; odd colors and widths are available from graphic-supply stores.
- Cautions: minimize handling to avoid lifting edges, and seal the tape edges to prevent fuel residue getting under the clear overcoat. Use a clear overcoat compatible with both the tape and the canopy. For black framing consider using trimmed vinyl electrical tape.
- Mask and paint (brush)
- Mask the framework with Scotch tape (or similar) and paint with a brush. This is tricky and requires close attention to avoid paint creeping under the mask.
- Hobby shops often carry Liquid Mask or Liquid Masker: brush it over the entire canopy, let it set, trim away the framework mask, then paint.
- Caution: trimming liquid mask requires a very gentle touch with an X-Acto knife to avoid scoring the canopy plastic.
- Vacuum-formed framework (ultimate, more complex method)
- Using the kit canopy as a mold, fill the interior with casting plastic. After it sets, remove and polish the plug. If the kit canopy had cast-in framework lines, sand them off before polishing.
- Use the plug as a vacuum-form master and mold a first canopy over it. Pull a second, thinner canopy over the same master but do not remove the first. Remove the second canopy and cut out the clear portions, leaving just the framework. Paint the framework separately and glue it in place over the first canopy.
- Result: a perfect canopy with scale-thickness clear areas and accurately scaled framework. Technique first demonstrated to me by George Fisher; other modelers have used it as well.
Products: Aero Graphics
Aero Graphics offers custom lettering suitable for Giant models and others. They produce computer-generated letters in nine styles and 20 colors, with heights ranging from 1/4 in. to 2 in. Cut from 2‑mil vinyl, letters are prealigned on a special carrier strip.
Contact: Aero Graphics, 511 W. Franklin Blvd., Gastonia, NC 28052. Send a large SASE for a copy of their illustrated brochure and order form.
Scale Aircraft Quarterly / Albatross D.Va Drawings
In the July '89 column I recommended the British magazine Scale Aircraft Quarterly for its coverage of the Albatross D.Va and noted the availability of full-scale drawings for the WW I German fighter. A couple of notes:
- Argus Specialist Publications (the magazine's publisher) has moved. New address: Argus House, Boundary Way, Hemel Hempstead, England HP2 7ST.
- My friend Bob Holman has the British drawings for the Albatross. If you're interested in building a big version, contact Bob: P.O. Box 741, San Bernardino, CA 92402. Drawings are $35 plus $2.40 postage and handling. Bob reports he's bought out the Don DeLine line of kits and will be advertising them soon.
Home Projects
I've begun construction on Bert Thompson's quarter-scale Howard "Ike." Bert's plans lived up to the advanced publicity. I've completed the unique tandem-wheel mechanism: the Ike had four main wheels (two in tandem in each wheel pant), and the pants had to be equalized so they were streamlined in flight but could also lift on the ground. Bert solved the problem by soldering part of a safety pin to the landing-gear struts to act as an equalizing spring — fascinating, but not for the faint-hearted.
The Ryan hasn't been neglected either. The most recent sticking point was acquiring oxygen cylinders for my butane torch; I want to silver-solder the strut end fittings and the small torch is the only way to go. I found that Radio Shack carries not only the torch but the proper oxygen cylinders — so I'm back in business.
Coming Up
If the usual schedule holds, next month my space will be taken over by Nats reports. Back here in the December issue, I'll probably have news of the big IMAA get-together at Odessa, TX.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
