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Building
blog of Aerosmith hobby f-14
Information The F-14 Tomcat is a
supersonic, twin-engine, variable sweep wing, two-place fighter
designed to attack and destroy enemy aircraft at night and in all
weather conditions. The F-14 can track up to 24 targets simultaneously
with its advanced weapons control system and attack six with Phoenix
AIM-54A missiles while continuing to scan the airspace. It can also
deliver free-fall or guided bombs. History The F-14 prototype made it
first flight on December 21, 1970.The first of 478 F-14A aircraft
entered US Navy service in October 1972 and saw it's first operational
flight in September 1974. F-14A aircraft were upgraded to the A+. The
upgrade consisted of the replacement of the original Pratt &
Whitney TF30-P-414A engines by the more powerful General Electric
F110-GE-400 turbofans. The F-14A+ (later designated F-14B) entered
service in 1987. A total of 79 F-14A models were exported to Iran. The US Navy and the Imperial Iranian Air Force are the only two operators of the type in the world The kit
The F-14 ARF consist of the
main fuselage, 2 engine pods, 2 wings, 2 fin, the stabilizers and some
plastic and metal parts to complete the plane. The
construction is very straight forward and required minimum building
skill. The instruction booklet is
very clear and comes with color pictures to further explain the
construction sequence.
The basic kit do not comes
with the power plant, but the Value Pack comes with 2 70mm Ducted Fan
and 2 EPF 3900kv motors. The Mega Pack
will come with the above mentioned plus 2 Dualsky 40Aamp ESC and 2
Dualsky 11.1V 2200mah 25C batteries. Effectively
all you need is to drop your receiver into the plane after you have
completed your construction. The power-plant for this kit
is twin 70 mm EPF ducted fans EPF 3900kv motor. Both
the 70mm DF and the motor are specially designed for the F-14. Altogether there are 2 sets of batteries used,
EMAX 11.1V 2200mah 15C and Dualsky 11.1V 2200mah 25C.
For more economical user, I would recommend the EMAX
as they cost less and still able to perform to the mark. In fact, the EMAX was
discharging up to 24Amp, (52amp) in a separate test carried out in
25deg C environment. So I would say the
rating stated in the package is very conservative. The setup will draw up to 33
amp on static mount. The rating for the
EMAX is 33amp and Dualsky 55amp. continuous discharge. The
Construction The construction starts with
sanding all the parts to remove mold release marks and ejection pin
marks. Next, the construction goes
to preparing all the small items, i.e. the pushrods, stabilizer hinges
and the canopy spring loaded latch.
The Wings After preparing the parts,
we move on to the wings. The ailerons were
cut out from the wings and the plastic hinges were installed.
Relatively straight forward, but things to take note, use a shape blade
to cut the ailerons out and shape the bevel on the ailerons after
cutting it out from the wing. The aileron
servo was also installed into the servo well. A
servo foam tape was used to secure the servos and a strip of fibre tape
was used to cover the servo. After this
stage, the wing can be considered done. .
The
Stabilizer The stabilizer is made of 2
components, the stab hinge which we have competed in the first stage of
the construction and the stabilizer itself. The
groove is pre-cut so the work was just to coat the stabilizer hinge
with epoxy (recommended) and pressed it into the groove.
Things to take note here is there is a notch on the
hinge which have to align with the groove. After
placing the hinge rod into the groove, a thin layer of epoxy is lay
into the groove for more strength. Finally,
it was covered with some filling putty and sand to level…The picture
shows the end result, with and without filler. The
one on the left without filler
The Fuselage The fuselage consists of the
main body, battery hatch (canopy), two engine pods and wing mounting.
The battery hatch is secured
by pin and spring latch. The latch was
pre-built in the earlier stage of the construction.
The latch is epoxied to the rear of the canopy
coaming. The pin is first epoxied to the
canopy and the mounting plate is secured with a tape of the pin to make
a impression on the fuselage. After making
the impression, the mounting plate will then epoxied to the fuselage
and the 2 holes will be drilled out. The wing mounting is very
straight forward. The wings and fuselage
joint are seamless. The wing is
strengthened with the insertion of the fibre-glass strip.
The groove the gut according to the instruction
sheet, the groove will extend to the root of the wing.
The knife is set to cut 4mm deep.
After cutting the groove,
the carbon strip is placed in the groove with epoxy.
After the epoxy had set, the groove is fill up by
filler and sand to smooth when cured.
Next, we have to cut a
opening at the rot of the wings to allow the servo lead of the wing
servo to be able to route to the receiver in the battery compartment. This is done using a heated metal ruler. As a safety precaution, an improvised handle
was made using a towel for handling the heated metal ruler. First, mark the slot to be
cut, it should be at the forward edge of the Landing retract mechanism
well.
After it was marked, the
heated ruler is sliced into the marked slot slowly.
When pushing into the slot, the foam should melt as
the ruler move in. If not, it is either
the speed is too fast or the metal ruler is not hot enough.
The ducted fan was installed
in the molded step on the ducting. A small
slot had to be cut out to accommodate the wiring from the motor. The two ducted fan were both secured and make
sure it is not loose. If not, it will
cause vibration during engine run. All the
wires will be routed into the battery compartment.
A second slot had to be cut
at the centre part of the fuselage to allow the wires to be routed into
the battery compartment.
Lastly, the elevator servos
were installed and wired through the ducting to the battery. The lead had to be laid before closing the
engine pod. With the closing of the engine
pod, you had generally finished the construction of the F-14.
These are the pictures of
the finished F-14. The C of G of this F-14
is 1cm aft of the wing root. The elevator
throw is about ¾ inch both ways; the aileron throw is about ½ inch both
ways. The F-14 can be hand launch or ROG.
For ROG, it is recommended to use the EPF-Aerosmith servoless retracts
as the housing for it are already being molded into the fuselage. I decided to paint my F-14
in VF-103 Jolly Roger ‘Last Flight’ scheme. The
completed F-14 is painted with Sanyo Gunze Paint and Tamiya model paint. The top side of the plane is painted with Dark
Ghost Grey and the rest of the plane is painted with light ghost grey. The decal is custom made with reference
from internet and decal from a 1/48 scale static model.
The Flight
Characteristic The plane flies very well
without any bad characteristic. It glides
well and minimum trimming needed for the first flight if the CoG is
correct. Landing speed is very low without
flaps and is able to flare and land without power.
The F-14 is able to make basic aerobatics like loop,
roll, split-S, Cuban-8, barrel roll and the famous Russian ‘Cobra’
maneuver. Final verdict…It is very
forgiving plane with very good aerobatic performance.
I would recommend the F-14 for flyers that are
moving from propeller to EDF.
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All enquires
contact +65 6534
2003/ +65 94314525
or
email aerosmithhobby@gmail.com 150 South Bridge Road Fook Hai Building,
#B1-30 @ Copyright 11 Nov 2006 Aerosmith Hobby Reg No. 53068800W
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