Months ago, before I got into my recent Mig and Su building frenzy, I had started cutting the parts for my second FRC F15 MK2, unfortunately I "dumb thumbed" the first one into the ground awhile back, but was very impressed with how well it flew. This is the first one I built, pretty much stock, painted in Israeli Air Force F15I (the Israeli version of the F15E) colors.
Here are the parts I have cut out thus far on my next one.
Though it was probably the most stable FRC plane I ever built and flew that was pretty much stock, I am thinking of a few NAMC touches to make it a bit more stable and faster... :)
Although I do love the Mig29 and it's offspring, I have always been a huge fan of McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) airplanes, F101 Voodoo, F4 Phantom II (probably my favorite fighter jet of all), F18 Hornet and the F15 Eagle. They took proven airframes and just kept upgrading them, kinda similar to what we like to play around with here at NAMC. When you look at all the variants of the F4, and now the F15 and F18, they didn't reinvent the wheel, rather just kept building on proven success dependent on the mission or requirements.
The FRC F15 MK2 impressed me with it's scale looks and performance, I built it with a heavy power plant, the NTM Prop Drive and it just looked and felt like a no nonsense kick butt war machine.
So I will stay with the IAF F15I paint scheme as I think it looks very cool and is easy to keep track of in the sky.
Modifications planned -
- smaller elevons with fixed horizontal stabilizers like the RCP Mig29 V4. After seeing the improvement in how the Su35 MK2 just carves up the turns, I am excited to see how this affects the F15 which already tracks very solidly;
- vertical stabilizers are downsized a bit and then toed in to promote that wedge shape that has helped make the RCP Mig29 V3 and V4 so stable and has also worked well for me on the Su35 MK2 NAMC V1 and V2;
- smaller ailerons, probably about 60% of the span of the trailing edge of the wing, and probably a bit narrower in chord than the stock elevons, similar in dimensions to those that seem to work so well on the Mig29 V4 NAMC V2;
- I still have to measure and adjust the KF airfoils, looking at them a little closer, they seem wide enough at the wing root (maybe too wide) and not wide enough at the tip. I am going to shoot for 40% of wing chord from root to tip for the KFs top and bottom;
- I will need to play with the location of the ESC somewhat to compensate for the location of the motor. With my first one, I had to cut the canopy off after the fact and turn that into a hatch as the battery had to be under the canopy to balance on CG. So this time, I'll put the ESC up under the canopy, then glue on the canopy and just have the one hatch, hoping I can put the battery closer to the CG that way; and
- although not really a mod, I will really focus on a good sanding job and symmetrical leading and trailing edges on wings, horizontal stabilizer/elevons and vertical stabs/rudders. I had my first plane up to 94 mph on 4S with the old chisel type sanding, so I am hoping to break the 100 mph mark with this plane... :).
At speed, this plane kind of howls, I'm not sure if it is the length and shape of the intakes/nacelles, but it makes kind of a howl like the old F104 Starfighter did. Kind of adds to the "cool factor"... :)
Sadly, lots of rain forecast for the next week, so not much flying...arrrrrgggghhhh, the withdrawals! :) This will give me a good chance to get going with the build and since half the parts are already cut out, it should make the build go a bit quicker.
I will post pictures as I go along mostly to point out the mods that I will be making. Time to get building an Eagle!
Cheers,
Scott
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