Mig-35 Update. This one is the real deal!!

I wanted to update you on the latest skunkworks prototype from RTMS.  Scott and I have been working really hard and building like crazy to finalize this plane.  I took Scott's latest mods, drawings (see his prior posts for details) and plugged them into my drawing program and put some Roll Tide mojo on his mods.  Our plane has slowly morphed from a Mig-29 to the Mig-35.  So I took some designer liberties with Scott's mods and further morphed our hybrid Mig-29 the final step.  I also tweaked the RCP Mig-29v4 here there as I saw needed for fit.

This latest iteration clearly deserves to christened the Mig-35 NAMC.  I have used this naming on previous planes but this plane is truly worthy.   It is the culmination of 7 months of thinking, designing, testing and validating between Scott and I.  The key has been are ability to reproduce flight results on various mods, good or bad.  No fluff here, just hundreds of test flights with quantitative flight data.  Hence our creed:

Puto, Consilium, Test et Convalidandum

Here is the real deal and inspiration of our latest design:

Here is the Mig-29M2 (renamed Mig-35) plans I used as a template in adding the final scale mods:

I'll go over some of the design major changes.  The tail section is where you can see the biggest differences.  The vert stabs now extend all the way to the KFs for a scale appearance.  I also angled the back bottom of the back of the side plate to give a more streamlined scale look.  There still should be plenty of clearance for the elevons at landing.  I am not expecting a change in high alpha flight with loss of surface area of the side plates which act as bottom side vert stabs.  This will be tested of course by Scott and I both.  I had hoped to have this plane finished today, but I ran out of FoamTac, carbon, motors....  Here is a picture of it dry fitted for build verification:

When fitting the canopy, I found that the bottom were it meets the fuselage had a tendency to get moved in creating a coke bottle look--I don't like that look.  Scott and I have also shortened and given the nose a less pointy appearance.   When forming the nose, I start by taping the top to the sides front back to front and tack weld in-between the tape.  I then fill the gaps with strips for strength.  Here is the new nose and the piece I designed to fit insure the canopy doesn't get narrowed:

Here is a picture of the new NAMCv4 nose vs the RCP Mig-29v4:

Here is a picture of the new NAMCv4 nose vs the NAMCv3:

Here are some views, of the tail where I deKardashianed it even further from our last design:

For those of you that have read of my quest for straight line knife edge flight, you may noticed I went with simple full length rudders on this latest build.  Lately, I been having more fun with stall maneuvers which are much easier since my polar moment epiphany (Scott inspired this with his moving the motor forward) and tightening up the center of mass.

I  changed to bottom mounted motor mount reinforcements.  I glue the wing plate to the fuselage.  Then I glue the motor mount to the wing plate only.  I then lift the bottom fuselage piece and glue in the motor reinforcements.  Note: the top photo is a dry fit demonstration of how they fit.  Additionally, these reinforcements make it easier to give the tapered appearance that I like:

The last major change I made was to extend the bottom side LERX along the engine nacelle. This really is an appearance mod and OCD me going crazy with the drawing software.  Here is picture of the extended KF:

Obviously you can tell the weather hasn't been good for me to log in a lot flights.  I've blogged, been drawing and designing modifications, and building.  So no recent crashes and I now have a Mig squadron.  I am running out of parts, that slow boat from China needs to hurry up!  From left to right, Mig-29v4, Mig-35v2 (built for speed with smaller LERX and wing), Mig-35 NAMCv3, and the latest Mig-35 NAMCv4:

Many thanks to my Canuck buddy and fellow aviator veteran Scott for being such a great partner!   I also want to thank Dave Powers and Scott Lott from for allowing us to work on the Mig-29, truly what I believe is the ultimate foamie park jet ever designed.  If you haven't already, visit http://www.rcpowers.com/community/pages/home/ and buy the v4 package.  Stay tuned for more about the RCP Mig-35 NAMC.

Stephan