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SAPAC typhoon building Blog

The Eurofighter Typhoon

The Eurofighter Typhoon is a twin-engine multi-role canard-delta wing strike fighter aircraft. It is being designed and built by a consortium of three separate partner companies: Alenia Aeronautical, BAE Systems, and EADS working through a holding company Eurofighter GmbH which was formed in 1986. The project is managed by NETMA (the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency) which acts as the prime customer. As early as 1979, studies began into what would become the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The series production of the Eurofighter Typhoon is now underway. The aircraft has entered service with the UK Royal Air Force, the German Luftwaffe (Jagdgeschwader 74), Italian Air Force, and Spanish Air Force. Austria has purchased 15 Typhoons and Saudi Arabia has signed a GB4.43 billion contract for 72 aircraft.

SAPAC Typhoon

The box came with the complete kit with all the tools that required to built the plane. The package includes a 65mm fan (without motor), a tube of silicon glue for foam and a screw driver for the fan hatch.  The kit also includes a pair of external fuel tank, 2 LGBs (Laser Guided Bombs) and 2 ASRAAM (advanced short range air-to-air missile). 

An instruction manual was included but it was not very well written.  Some of the important info was missing.  I will highlight the info along the building thread.

This is what you get from the box…Pretty much assembled, basically, just have to fix the wings, the canards, the vertical fin, the ordnance and the landing gear. It takes about 2~3 hour to assembled the whole plane with powerplant and electronics installed.
The first step of the assembly is to assemble the nose steerable fixed gear.  The nose steerable nose gear consists of 5 parts, namely the pushrod, the horn bracket, the steering arm, the nose wheel joint and the nose wheel.

Firstly, attached the horn bracket to the steering arm, followed by attaching the pushrod to the horn bracket, before inserting the pushrod through the fuselage. (a small hole was pre-drilled on the wooden strip). The steering arm will protrude out slightly below the intake. Attach the nose wheel joint to the steering arm and tighten with a grab screw. (Note the marking on the steering arm and nose wheel for alignment). Repeat the same for attachment for the nose wheel.  After assemble, check for full and free movement of the steering pushrod.

 Next stage of the assembly will be the wing.  The curvic joint arrangement is stronger than the conventional butt joint, which was design to take more stress at the joint. 

Prior to mounting the wing, attach the elevon servos into the servo housing using double-sided tape.  The main landing gear was also installed at this stage. The landing gear installation is straight forward, just insert the landing gear into the housing as illustrated. Take care when attaching  wings to fuselage, a strong joint is necessary. To achieve a strong joint using the silicon, please use the recommended method.

Make sure both the attaching surfaces are free from dust and grease.

Apply the glue thinly on both surfaces.

Wait till the glue is touch-dry (about 5~10 minutes)

Put the 2 parts together and hold for 1 minute for the glue to set.

Once it is done, leave it for 20 minutes to set further. Meanwhile, while waiting for the glue to set, work can continue on the powerplant.

 The powerplant.

The powerplant consist of the following,

65mm fan, (included)

4400kv in-runner motor

Dualsky 40Amp ESC

After assembly, the ESC was secured behind the motor due space constraint and ESC cooling.

Part of the splitter fairing foam was trimmed off to accommodate the ESC.  The fan sat nicely into the fuselage.  A ground static test on the powerplant shows that the static amp draw for the system at full power is about 28~30amp. 

While the hatch is still open, run the 2 servo leads into the fuselage and connect up with the pre-laid servo lead extension.  At this stage, the hatch can be closed.

This pretty much completes the assembly of the plane.

 The ordnance

The ordnance includes a pair of external fuel tank, 2 LGBs (Laser Guided Bombs) and 2 ASRAAM (advanced short range air-to-air missile).  They were all painted the same colour as the airplane.  I re-painted the LGBs and the ASRAAM to their actual colours. The fins for the bombs, missile and the external fuel tank were also provided.  Be careful when attaching the fins to the ordnance as they are very fragile.

The plane was painted for visibility in air and I chose to paint it in Tiger meet Colours.

The CG of the plane was not mentioned in the instruction booklet, but after a search through RCgroups, I found out that the CG is about 170mm from the leading edge root of the wing, and the deflections of the elevon are 25mm up, 19mm down. The elevon is set with a 4mm reflex (up)
The test flight result:

A very docile ducted fan jet without any bad flying characteristic, and can manage both high speed and low speed regime well. Good glide characteristic without tip stalling at low speed, it can maintain high Alpha flight easily without losing height or speed..  Thrust-to-weight is about 0.8 to 1.

Conclusion. 

The SAPAC typhoon is an entry level ducted fan jet with a lot of potential.  The design and the construction of the kit made it a plane for both intermediate and expert.  I would strongly recommend this plane to all EDF flyer. 'Looks a million dollars in the air', A must have plane in your collection.

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