I finished a plane I had sitting around in my apartment and I'm blown away with its performance. I had always wanted to design a plane of my own, and a foamie fit the bill. I figured if I built a Warbird it would have some class to it too.

This one was all laser cut and desiged using CAD. It takes just under three hours to get to completion with this plane. It'd be less if the motor is pre-soldered.

Its a 36"-ish wing span with built up balsa sides. I saw a 3D plane like this with black foam and figured why not try to build my own. The plane is so rigid that after losing the prop inflight three times and cartwheeling it from 30ft, it hasn't required any major repairs. The ailerons are too small for 3D flying, but that's easily fixed when building with foam.

I have a 3 cell 900mAh pack powering an Hobby Lobby Esskay 400XT. For $19 you can't go wrong. The ESC is a Balsa Products BP10. Flight times are 12-20 minutes.

Other Equipment
- Blue Arrow Micro Rx
- Blue Arrow Servos 4.3g
- 10x4.7 longer flights or 10x8 for really really peppy flights.

I have combat flown this against a Shockflyer Yak and won 6/7 battles. The plane is super smooth when rudder is coupled and its a vertical rocket ship when you want it to be. I'm looking forward to building another type of Warbird but haven't decided which one I should go with.

If anyone is interested, I'll throw the plans up as soon as I figure out how to get them to print correctly in CAD.

Thanks for looking.

-Mike

Mike,
Nice looking plane!!! Nice job!
I was wondering what size was the balsa you used? (hard to tell in the pic)
And any idea what your AUW is?
Looks to be a stout design!
windy city

Thanks.

I used 3/32 for the first plane and 1/16 for the second plane.

I don't know exactly what its AUW is, but I'm pretty sure its around 10-12 oz. (I need to pick up a scale).

Other info about the plane:
The wing is built in halves, and it's reinforced with a carbon fiber rod. For this plane, the prototype, I used gorilla glue and large triangle stock to hold the wing to the fuse. It's actually over kill. The second plane was built without the triangle stock and I used lowtemp hot glue to secure the wing. It works just as well, but its lighter.

The battery fits underneath the fuselage at the very front of the wing. It works well there because it's protected by the large size of the front of the fuselage.

Plans please.

Here is the rough set of plans for the P40 Foamie.
They are in DXF format.

The other one is a non tiled PDF

I built a FFF P-47 a few years back. Great little plane. I used a set of 3 views downloaded from the web as a guide. I always wanted to do a P-40. I may still do that. Yours looks great.

Thanks but yours looks much more realistic than mine. That paint job is sweet. I'm wondering if I should make a combo between your paint job and my balsa. That'd be nice looking too.

Is yours all bluecor?

I started with a 3 View to get the proportions correct. Everything but the control surface sizes is proportionate to the real thing. Well, the fact that the plane can climb unlimited vertically from a stand still is not realistic but you get the point.

Fine planes mikey and hawk and it flyes well to

Mikey,

Yes it is FFF. I bought a bundle after reading a thread in RC groups a few years back. The rudder and elevator are scale per the 3 view. The ailerons however were enlarged similar to what you would see on a 3D plane.

Like I said, I always wanted to do a P-40. I am building a Guillows P-40 now and may use the plans to build a FFF 3D version like yours. If you build another, I would be interested in seeing pictures.

I just realized what FFF stands for... sorry about that.

I started plans for a XFD-1 by McDonnell Douglas in June. I think its better known as the FH-1 Phantom. The jet was ahead of its time. see picture of FH-1. I don't know if it'll work. I'd like to make a whole series of planes from a certain era. I'll toss up those plans as soon as I edit them.

Great looking plane! Started to build one myself, took plans to Kinkos and had blown up to scale. Turned out larger than scale. Looks like 50% larger. I'm using 1/2" Blue foam. Hope to use the 400XT on it, as well as giving it a nice paint job. Thanks for the plans Mikey. How is the FH-1 going?

I'm not sure what happened with the scaling on the P-40, but it should be a great size none the less. I hope the 400XT has enough umph for it. If you jack up the prop, and put a larger 3 cell and ESC, you should be fine.

The XFD-1 plans are finished as they'll ever be. I haven't had time to build one yet. I'm hoping to dodge house work and my honey-do list for a couple days to get one completed. I have the DXF files and DWG files if anyone is interested; just PM me for those.

Anyway... have fun and I'll post pics and video as soon as I get one finished.

-Mikey the V

Well had everything cut out for this and put it up on the shelf and kinda forgot about it. Took a break from my other projects and decided to go ahead and finish'er up. Comes in at:
WS: 54"
Lenght: 41"
Not sure of the weight as I dont have a decent scale to use. But if I had to guess I would say 25 - 30 oz.? Gonna try a BP-21 that I took from my stryker and hope it has enough to pull it, if not may goto the Eflite 480 outrunner I have laying around.
Trouble I have at this point is the CG. It should be around 3.4" - 4.0" from LE. With the battery all the way up front it still is a good 1" - 1.5" off. I dont want to add any lead, to save on weight.
While I was building it, noticed that even with a 24" CF rod in the wing, it was still very flimbsy. I thought I would try something new to me, using tape to renforce it. Just used regular masking tape. Much to my surprise it worked very well. Even had to use it on the fuse as well. Dont think I will be able to paint it like I wanted but at least it is almost done and still lokks good.IMHO
Will keep working on the CG and hope to maiden tommorrow.
Thanks again Mike for the plans.

I think this thread should be moved over to the Scratchbuilt forum. How does one go about that?

WB I really like your model and plan on stealing some of your design elements! Great job!

Hawk, how did the 47 fly? What was the wingspan? I had been warned to significantly increase the size of the rudder and stab by some very learned folks here... Still want to make a nice Jug but the idea of a cartoonish rudder turned me off.

Thread here.

I prefer the bubble canopy version to the razorback but I have to say you made a damn nice looking model!