This page is intended to show the work other builders have done. (doesn't even have to be a Spitfire). If you have some photo's and a few comments, mail them to me at bbryenton@solstorm.com and I will add them to this page (at least till I run out of web space).
If your project is a PICA project, I will also add to the PICA builders page.
Must be something about spitfires and guys named Bob. Third Bob to build a beautiful kite.
Bob's Spitfire |
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Hello Bob; I just completed my 1972 (the balsa was well aged!) Dave
Platt 1/6 scale Spitfire kit. When Platt sold to Pica it's interesting
that Pica kept the same mistakes...the lack of conduit holes in the W-4 ribs
for example...I based the plane on the one that Wing Leader J.E.(Johnnie)
Johnson flew out of France and Belgium just after D-Day in 1944.
There is a great air-musium in Tillamok, OR, with a MK IX two-seater that
you can really touch...here are some pictures...
Bob Rowley |
These "spitfires" (kinda look a little strange :) to make the list are from Roger
Roger's FW-190 |
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Roger finally got some digitals of my Pica 190. It is several years old, has about 10 or 15 flights and was then retired. It will soon be back in service, upgraded from Webra .60 to Super Tigre |
The latest spitfires to make the list are from Chad Veich
Chad's Spitfire |
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This is a pic of my Dave Platt 1/5 scale MK12 in the Champlin Fighter Museum
in Mesa, Arizona, USA. The full size bird in the background is a fairly rare
(for the US) TMkIX trainer that is owned by the museum. The bird is flyable
but is not flown, as is procedure with all of Champlin's aircraft (including
a stunning long nose Focke Wulf!). My Spit is an excellent flyer weighing 23
pounds and sporting a Supertigre 2500. Could use more power but is
absolutely wonderful to take-off and land as well as being generally easy to
control. This is the second of 3 Spits that I have owned and am already
planning the next one, love 'em.
Also attached are several pics of my current project that you may be interested in, a Hawker Typhoon. This is scratch built from Brian Taylor plans and spans 72 inches, will be powered by an OS 1.08 and water cooled if all goes well. Once I get the water cooling operating reliably I will install the system in a Spit without having to resort to cutting holes in the nose! |
Bob is another builder who built a Pica 1/6 Spitfire. He lives in Austrailia, so I have placed his pictures upside down. Bob's homepage http://www.key.net.au/adder/index.htm. I have had a running dialog with Bob as we started our two projects at approximately the same time. Hmm, he is flying now, and I am, well not. Congratulations Bob. She looks beautiful!
I have added some of Bob's comments from E-Mails that we have traded.
Bob's Spitfire |
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I got my friend who is the club "ace" to do the maiden flight. Flew today perfectly Definitely need a perry pump for reliable engine mixtures. |
These are the comments of another Pica Spitfire Builder, Brad. He has undertaken the Pica project and seams to build a little faster than I do :-)
Brad's Spitfire |
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Hi all. Sorry about not updating this information for so long, but between
waiting for retracts/job hunting/finding new job/starting new job/flying/building Corsair
ARF/Family Time, I haven't done a whole lot with the Spit kit(nice rhyme 8^)). Once I received the retracts(special order from Robart), I deliberated over how to install them for quite a while. With some advice from a fellow club member I eventually installed them as shown in the pictures. Due to the nature of the retracts(fold back at an angle), I had to double the main spar to make room for cutting the slot that the wheels fold into. I also put reinforcement along the leading edge at the same point. I made the retract mounts out of 1/4" plywood. I eyeballed the angle of the slot by holding the retract between the ribs and working it up and down until I was satisfied with the up and down positions. I then marked the plywood and cut the slot(with a little room to spare so I could move the retract a bit if necessary). After that, I placed the retract in the slot and angled the mounting plate this way and that while moving the retract up and down to get the right alignment. When the wheels are in the down position, they should be at or very near the leading edge. I'm not sure what the scale measurement would be, but I wanted to make sure I didn't have problems with the Spit nosing over when landing in grass. This is prevented by making sure the wheels are forward of the CG and at a slight forward angle. The wheels should also have a slight toe-in and the camber(I think this is what it's called) should be slightly in also. This helps the aircraft track better while on the ground. Once I was happy with the alignment, I tack glued the mounting plate. I then epoxied the plate in, drilled mounting holes, and mounted the retracts with 4-40 bolts and blind nuts. Please note that this is not a scale angle. I was just attempting to make it look similar to the full scale aircraft. Now that was the short story. I actually had a problem with the dihedral as mentioned in a previous post. After installing one retract, Eric Sarkissian(a fellow modeler who kindly responded to some of the construction info) convinced me to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the side that needed fixing was the same side as the retract I had just installed. Needless to say, I had to cut out the mounting plate to fix the problem. But I will go into that with the next post when I have pictures of the dihedral repair and completed retract mountings. |
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I finally made it to the point of adding the fuselage
sheeting to the front half of the fuselage. The sheeting pieces are NOT die cut as I would
have expected. Pica gives you a couple sheets of paper with templates on them. So I said,
"Ok...", and bent to the task of tracing and cutting. After cutting all the
pieces by following each step in the directions, I test fit the first piece.
"Arrgghhh!!!!" They were too short. So I measured between the formers on the
plane and on the plans and found I missed a bit. But I also noticed that the plan
measurements for a couple of the formers were off a bit too. So before blindly following
the directions, take measurements between the formers and modify the templates before
cutting. As you can see from the picture of the rear of the fuselage, the rear sheeting ended up being a bit long, but that won't be as difficult to fix. |
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After pondering the fact that the main spars were made of
balsa, I decided to add webbing to the wing. You can see the webbing added between the top
and bottom main spars. This will add strength to the wing while adding little weight. This
should prevent the wing from folding from high G's. Note(from the picture) that the grain
on the webbing is vertical. This is very important. After much contemplation over some of Bob's ideas I chose to forego adding flaps or using alternate ways to set up the aileron's and follow the plans/directions for aileron installation. You can see where I cut the conduit through the W5 ribs for the aileron control rods that I discussed earlier. I will probably set it up for flaperons since this should be an easy modification. |
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Ok, now Bob has already mentioned the out of order
directions where your told to build the center wing, right wing, wing sheets, and left
wings. That's not so bad I suppose. What I found really frustrating was the explanation of
how to create the wing sheeting. The directions have a diagram showing where to cut and
join. Well.. the plans also have a diagram, but it's different. The diagram on the plans
are wrong. Use the diagrams in the directions. Even the measurements on the plan are
wrong. All 4 sheets are 3 inches wide. You only get a 4 inch wide sheet after you've cut
the 1 inch piece off the front of the sheet and added it to the back. I just glued the 4 sheets together and laid the wing on top of the sheet to decide which diagram was the correct one. |
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I found another problem with the die cut ribs. When you get
to the step where the aileron control rod is to be inserted into the die cut conduits in
the ribs, you'll notice that the W-5 ribs have no conduit holes. I will make my own, but
you would think that Pica would have made them for you since all the others are pre-cut.
It might be easier to make the holes line up if the holes were cut before wing assembly. Just use one of the other precut ribs as a guide. |
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This picture shows(kind of, it's a bit difficult to see unless you look hard) where I made a slight error with the left wing dihedral. This makes a good case for making sure your building surface is level. The pine board I was using warped after I layed the plans over it. I think the plane will still fly though. We'll see. |
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I've decided to put retracts into my Spitfire. But I don't
currently have any and won't for a few weeks. So I decided to start on the fuselage until
I can fit the retracts into the wing before sheeting, etc. I haven't made it very far, but what I first came across was kind of strange. They have you glue the fuselage side re-inforcers onto the fuselage BEFORE cutting the re-inforcers for placement of the wing mount block(s). My suggestion is to cut the re-inforcers before gluing to the fuselage. Not a big deal, but I think it would require less time than trying to be careful and not cut into the fuselage side. The kit allows for two kinds of canopy set-ups. Normal and bubble hood turtle deck. When I first saw this I thought, "What the heck is a Bubble Hood Turtle Deck?". So I jumped on the web and found that the earlier Marks had a flat top canopy. Since many of the pilots who were being moved to the Spitfire were used to open cockpit planes they thought it was very cramped inside that hood. Many of them even flew with the hood pushed back. The later Marks incorporated a teardrop shaped canopy that made it roomier and improved the pilots visuals. I don't remember exactly which Marks had which, but that's the history in a nutshell. I've decided to build the original canopy and thus have to make no modifications. If you do decide to build the bubble hood turtle deck, the plans have patterns for how to modify the formers to be able to build it. |
