Search This Blog

Translate

Saturday, July 19, 2014

V4 or V3 Tail Plate?

In the v4, the tail plate grew in width and length.  Additionally, the shovel angle of the vertical stabilizers was increased.  I firmly believe that the design change that had the most effect on improving the stability of the v4 over the v3 was the addition of a horizontal stabilizer.  I think that the increase in the surface area of the tail plate contributes to undesirable EPPE.  Aesthetically, v4 has too much back for me.
This first picture is a comparison of the wing plates to which I added the side plates.  You can see the 1/2 increase in overall width of the tail plate and the slight increase in the shovel  angle.

Here is a comparison of the v4 and v3 tail plates (note the elevons are M3e3 modifications)
In thinking about my next build, my goal is continue to minimize EPPE and improve the aesthetics.  So I will modify the wing plate back to v3 width and shovel angle.  I will also modify the tail plate to v3 size.  I prefer the look of rear swept leading edge on the tail plate.  Once I start building, I'll document how I did the mods.  Here is the new tail plate (green):




3 comments:

  1. Looks great, Stephan, can't wait to see and test the final product myself once the next evolution has been completed. What program are you using to manipulate those drawings? It is difficult to use?

    Cheers,

    Scott

    ReplyDelete
  2. There are two types of drawing software, pixel or vector based. Pixel is best for photos and vector best for lines. I use a Mac and the software is iDraw $25. I can usually import pdfs and convert them into easy to modify files. Some, not all, of the plans from RCP have imported. When they don't import I have to "trace" a new version. I will print the new tail plate and elevons. For the wing and side plates modifications to accept the new tail plate, I'll draw on the original plans and make a how to tutorial.
    Stephan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Stephan, it's all good, don't worry too much about it, I have an old "steam driven" PC that is on it's last legs. I kind of enjoy just printing off the part of the plane I want to work on from the tiled plans and then playing around with a pencil, ruler and eraser. Gives me a little better "hands on" feel of what things will look like, the cutting the new piece out of scrap dollar store foam helps me compare it easily to the stock plane.

      Right now I'm not worried too much about building anything, although an updated F18 V4 is kind of running through my mind...

      Cheers,

      Scott

      Delete