Balsa Plans to Foam Board Airplane EP02

The bottom wings of this biplane are DONE and the Fuselage has made big progress. Let's see how we can prepare for some more advanced techniques.
Forum build thread link:
forum.flitetes...
Build Challenge:
forum.flitetes...
Joshua Orchard RC Merch:
joshuaorchardr...

[@GunganWorks]

This is almost exactly how I have been building foam models for years! I use dental floss for lightweight pull-pull cables, and Tyvek from admission bracelets for hinges.

[@randall4411]

Well done 👏 Valuable information .

[@larsheydecke887]

Vant wait to se the rest of this series 😀

[@youknoweverything7643]

I actually built a foam board cadet senior from SIG and used all foam board except for fire wall and it turned out light weight and flies amazing you don't gotta cut out every piece like ribs and stuff you just get the shapes of everything then glue together with hou glue and it worked out perfect once you get going you will see what I mean when using plans for templates toake a foam board plane from balsa plans and also you can use foam board to make templates for a balsa kit so if you wanna rebuild it out of balsa or make new parts you just pullt put the bin of foam board templates trace and cut your balsa pieces I have a bin of foam board templates for every balsa plane I have built and that's 30 so far but so worth it. You would think my foam board planes I haveade from balsa planes are balsa planes cuse I use mono kote and all for covering and they look super scale. But flight tests way isich easier of building foam board planes especially their balsa kit laser kit of the simple Cub is amazing three channel 45 inch or so wing span 3 channel trainer and the balsa version looks just like the foam board version low part Clint and took me 5 hours from a bag of balsa parts to a fully covered and ready to fly 3 channel balsa cub trainer out in the field flying same day so simple no need to pin the plans or nothing cuz it all jig fits really tight

[@ross5307]

Do you have plans for the motor box?

[@JoshuaOrchard]

Motor box was built per the plans.

[@johnmoss4140]

I'm building my first foamboard plane, actually it's a Kite, a Sopwith Camel, I built a balsa version about 30 years ago and the kids loved it (I did too). When I stumbled across Flite Test, 6-7 weeks ago I thought I could recreate it in foamboard. I found a 3 view (more like 5 view because it has view of the top and bottom wing) scaled the body to fit on a foam sheet and dimensioned the rest of the plane from there. It looks great but, boy is it tail heavy! the finished plane weighs 1.5lb and 8oz is lead in the nose to balance the tail. Finding the CG for a stagger wing biplane stumped me for a while but a post on the FT forum got me an article on "how too". I've done some chuck tests in the backyard and initially it seemed very nose heavy, so I removed some weight and moved the CG back a little. Also the horizontal stabilizer was glued to the top of the fuselage so it had a slight upward tilt and I thought that might be driving the nose down so I adjusted it to be parallel with the wings. It seems to fly better now. I think I may have to actually adjust it down a little more to help lift the nose. With a 42" wing span (and 2 wings) I think it has enough lift for the weight . All in all this has been journey but when I actually build my first FT RC plane it should be a walk in the park!. Thanks for sharing your building experience I learn something new (more like several things) every time I watch you.

[@dafbfd58]

Ha ha Swedes do things differently...... We know a certain one that is the perfect example!

[@BobAlexander]

Did he land it? ;)

[@spiroskatsikas]

Good job but to make a fuselage out of Foam u make 3 farmers to cut out a move 3 detention plane ,the glue the 3 pieces out of polystyrene Foam then join together with hot glue ,for covering use paper and pva glue

[@AEROERGO]

I love the way give explanations about things i see on my workshop too when i work on my DIY models. I feel so identified with being the target of those kinds of comments, many times from people who don't even build their own models. ... good work, and thanks for share your build techniques. :)

[@DanielSponholz]

This is a great series so far Joshua. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of the hobby and building with us. Can not wait to see the rest of this series. Great choice on those printed control horns too. XD

[@t57f100]

Hello great support here I'm thinking of using the dumas plans to make a dragon rapide electric plane any info would help

[@JoshuaOrchard]

This entire series should help you at the very least come to a prototype stage fairly easily.

[@steveniezgoda4941]

I like the “I don’t care attitude” just to get the project done.

[@typxxilps]

I like sticking to an idea and vision to get things done and no purchased for cheap. If it works great - if not anyone can buy them locally or find another solution even though those are quite different to find in case you want a dampening effect.

[@iparho75]

Love your instructional common sense videos, I learned a lot, God bless you

[@grahambate3384]

great video, old x-rays make fantastic hinges

[@tench745]

Watching this series again as I start in on my S4C “Tommy” build. Just thinking that “shear web” is probably a more accurate description for our foamboard spars as far as the loads they see.

[@JoshuaOrchard]

I mean... sort of? Since they are just strips of foam and not really loaded with shear stresses not really, but in terms of familiar terminology I agree. A structural engineer would settle that for sure. Since they are loaded with the main force of the wing and not simply the shear force I kind of think perhaps it's a dual role? Interesting proposition!

[@larsheydecke887]

That was meant to be cant 😀

[@shelbyseelbach9568]

Did you know you can simply edit your original comment instead of leaving a second comment to correct the first comment?

[@larsheydecke887]

@@shelbyseelbach9568 now that you say it did remeber that