jofunk

Hi ST,

Feel free to post your photos. Vladimir, the landing gear maker, is very interested in your glider work……. Henson and Stringfellow would agree with you that we all are building real airplanes. Hopefully ours don't fly for 600 meters before encountering an obstruction. But then again this is not 1851. We have radios

Joe

jofunk

ST I thought you would be all over these Flight of the Phoenix references…….. I glued in a pointed dowel to harden and save the point. I also cut out the last two bulkheads for access, and the nose is glued on.

sierratango

That is an amazing picture...your project comes all down to that tip. You have to make sure you put that point in the absolute center.

Pretty cool.

Been a a long time since I saw the original Flight of the Pheonix. My favorite part is when the ask the designer how many planes he has built.

jofunk

I started to cut the lite ply and piece together some of the bulkheads for the rest of the fuse. The rectangular bulkheads will all be made out of four pieces of wood glued together. the fuel tank floor will be 3 1/2" above the bottom of the fuse. The area below the floor will be the wheel wells. Picture #3 sorta looks like it doesn't belong to an american plane.

jofunk

Bulkheads 18 19 and 20 will be cut out solid. I was thinking about standing these three up by themselves because the engine mounting and control surface bearings will need to be engineered into this portion of the fuse. I traced out the side view and placed it over the cockpit area to get an idea of where things are.

jofunk

I cut out bulkhead 18 19 and 20 and started laying out an opening for the engine. The engine rails will extend past 20 but I am not sure how far so i just have extra material sticking out. A lot of things are happening between 19 and 20. the engine gets mounted and all three flying stabs need pivot points built into that area. The engine needs to be as low as possible to make room for the flying vertical stab pivot. Using a single engine in the bomb bay area leaves plenty of room for the flying horizontal stab pivots.

sierratango

I think this is where you are referring to???

sierratango

Maybe this is a better angle. Sorry or the lighting, we actually got some rain in California on that day.

i am interested in how you will make flying horizontal stabs in that area where all one sees is the hollow opening of the jet exhaust.

jofunk

Vladimir is going to machine some nylon bearings. The control surfaces will pivot on a 1" aluminum shaft. i just need to find the best locations to mount the bearings. It seems the full scale Vigilante engineers figured out how to mount the massive flying control surfaces with 2 engines and a bomb bay in the way.

jofunk

I started gluing hard wood triangle stock onto 18 19 and 20. I glued some scraps on them to make them square . That way I could use a clamp without them sliding around. The scraps will get knocked off later. The pieces on 18 are where the fuel tank area floor and walls are going to meet it. The section over the engine opening will be cut out later. Right now it is helping to keep the bulkhead straight. The T stock on 19 and 20 will help support one of the vertical stab bearing plates. I traced the outline of 20 onto 19 so along with the engine cut outs I have a right angle reference to everything that is going to be glued between them.

jofunk

The first two pictures are of some nylon stock that Vladimir brought over. we are not going to use the oil lite bearing and the shaft will be 1" not the 3/4 shown.

jofunk

Here are a few pix of the bearings for the rudder and elevator. Vladimir machined them out of a 2" Delrin rod. The tube will be 1" 6061 T-6. He even made me a drill guide.

jofunk

Here are the four bearing plates that the hoz. stabs will pivot on. Once the bearings are mounted to the plates the tube will be left in and the plates will get glued in place with some extra material to create 2 rigid boxes. That will automatically align the left and right stab shaft.

sierratango

Joe,

Do you know the exact location where the engine will be mounted and where the exhaust will be split into the two engine outlets.
In otherwords, I imagine the engine will be well forward of the HS pivot rods, but the twin exhaust tubs must be going right through these pivot rods

Do you need to build fiberglass exhaust tubes through inlet and outlet areas to keep the air as laminar as possible?

jofunk

Hi ST

The thrust is going to be a single engine in the bomb bay area at the very tail. It will be mounted between bulkhead 19 and 20. It will exhaust straight out. The aluminum tube is not going to carry through. There will be two independent stabs. The plane will be flown with the bomb bay cover off. When the plane dropped it bomb it ejected the cover and then dropped the nuke. I will probably make a cover for the bomb bay area that can be installed when the plane is sitting on the ground. That is if the plane comes back in one piece…….Why do the extra work if you don't have to………... The rudder bearings will be more of a challenge because there is not a bunch of room to spread the bearings above the engine.

sierratango

Got it.

jofunk

I mounted the bearings to the plates With some 6-32 screws and lock nuts. The bearings fit snugly in the 1 3/8' holes I drilled. The outside plate needs to be recessed so the bearing is under the sheeting. The bottom of the plate also needed to be trimmed for the sheeting to clear. There will be a lot going on between 19 and 20. The engine mount is going to be structural as well as mount the engine. I slid the mounting rails in place to help align things.

jofunk

I hope it all works

jofunk

I started boxing out the bearing boxes. once everything was secure I was able to stand it up. I slipped bulkhead 18 onto the engine mount for kicks. Once the rudder bearings are set these three bulkheads will be built as one sub assembly.

sierratango

Looking good, nice progress.

jofunk

bye bye bearings. I put a top plate on the box. Now the elevator bearings are sealed in. That top plate will also support the top rudder bearing after it gets reinforced with an aircraft ply plate. The scab of wood on the Aircraft ply is just a handle to set it in. Or to yank it out while to glue is still wet to check glue contact. I pulled the tube out for kicks and surprisingly it went back in rather easily.

jofunk

I glued in the doubler for the top bearing mount. the wrenches are to hold the plate down so the glue can make good contact. I made a lower bearing plate and glued on a doubler where the bearing will mount. The lower plate was dropped in with a reasonable fit. (not too tight) When in place, I drilled through the top plate until the tip of the bit touched the lower bearing plate. The lower bearing plate came out and I finished drilling the two holes one at a time. When I mounted the bearings and dropped the lower plate back in, the tube slid through the two bearings with no problem. The alignment was worrying me for a while. I disassembled the top bearing and glassed the lite ply top of the box to harden the plywood. The way the bearing will go in, the screw heads will be against the light ply.

jofunk

Due to the standoffs for the lower bearing plate, the plate had to be notched to fit in. It used to slide through the engine rail notches. After gluing in the lower rudder bearing plate the perimeter got some T stock glued in. While gluing in some standoffs to attach 18 I made a "3 playing case thick error". So I had to shim the other side to keep things parallel. The whole thing is tacked to the table. Once 18 is well connected I will pop it off the table and it should be a pretty rigid unit.

jofunk

Along with the vertical standoffs for 18 I installed some horizontal trays. A parts tray and a bondo can worked as a jig until they were glued in place. I hit the whole thing with a hole saw to give me access to the engine etc. I flipped the thing over to take a look. The vertical standoffs ran down to the table they will be cut off at the red line when they are no longer needed.

jofunk

I started putting stringers on the nose section. The cockpit area over the hatch will have to be shaped from the two views I have and some pictures. The area where the glass will be may get backfilled with some foam and then shaped.