Modified RC Powers Mig-29 V1 - initial thoughts

Hi everyone -

I guess I must be in a bit of nostalgic mood these days since finishing up my modified RCP F18 V3 as I decided to build another favourite of mine, the RCP Mig-29 V1 after finding a set of plans collecting dust in my closet.

The RCP Mig-29 V1 has been around quite awhile (over 6 yrs now according to the date of the thread on the RCP site and is definitely my favourite profile park jet of all time.

Here are some pictures of three previous builds in chronological order.  I wasn't keep track of my flights in those days like I do now, but if I had to estimate, I would have about 500 flights on these three planes combined :)

Since first flying this plane almost 3 yrs ago, I have often thought about playing around with some different mods I would like to try both for form (looks) and function (performance).  I've only ever flown this plane elevons only, no KF airfoils, nothing fancy.  I'm not going to mess around with motor location or worried about proving concepts like I did with the modified F18 V3M build, I just want to "jazz it up a bit" and have some fun.  

I think it will be a great plane to thrash around over the winter, here is proof of how tough it is, after this "mishap", I just pulled it out of the dirt, cleaned it off and kept on flying!

So here is what I am thinking thus far for build modifications

• scale down the size of the elevons to make them more scale proportions, from initial measurements and calculations, this will only need to be about an 8% reduction;
• use the horizontal stabilizer/elevon combo rather than the full floating/flying elevon that it has stock;
• reduce the height of the vertical stab to a more scale height and add rudders;
• in addition to reducing the height of the vert stabs, I am going to widen their stance ever so slightly and angle them out about 3 degrees from front to back, giving that "wedge" almost that has been proven to help with stability ever since the RCP Mig-29 V3;
• I will add ailerons, using the NAMC Mig-35 elevons as reference and just scale them down accordingly, the motor on the Mig-29 V1 is actually further ahead on the plane in relation to where the motor is on the Mig-35, so it might be fun during the calmer winter months to play around with some high alpha with it, so having ailerons will allow me to play around with spoilers/flaps;  and
• I will add KF4 airfoils to help with speed and stability, I have never tried them on a profile plane, but I'm thinking they can only help performance.

I am going to experiment with using Fli-Value XPS foam for the entire build (other than paperless dollar store foam for the KFs) as I think with the Mig-29 V1's small size and where some key glue joints are when forming the wing plate, it will be a good choice to use this inexpensive foam that is not quite as stiff as Depron.

I think this plane will be a great platform for the Gear Best 2212/5T 2700 Kv motor  and 6x4 APC prop combo that I have had good success with lately, I have a second one just screaming to get into a plane!  You can read more about my testing experience with this very inexpensive motor in this blog thread on our main NAMC website.

To try and keep it a bit lighter and since the rudders and ailerons aren't that big, I'm going to use some RC Timer 5 gram servos I have around waiting for a home :)  For the elevons, I will use RC Timer 9 gram servos that I use on almost all my builds.

So time to get out the pencil, ruler and dollar store calculator and work out what I need to do to make all the above build mods possible, more to follow very shortly.

Cheers,

Scott