Learn How to Become a Model Plane Designer!
Prepare your own plane designs using the following approach
Finch radio control indoor RC model airplane - FREE plans download here
Flying radio control model airplanes is a rewarding and fun hobby. Over the past few years, there has been an tremendous increase with capable yet inexpensive technology for RC model airplane flight. This has opened up several completely new venues for model flight. The proliferation of high quality ready to fly fully proportional RC equipment for indoor model aircraft (such as the E-flite 4-Site) and inexpensive two and three channel micro foam RC airplanes (such as the Piloto and Aero Ace) are two great examples of this trend.
ParkZone micro receiver, servos, motor and battery
With the advances in technology supporting indoor RC model airplane flight, it has also become a lot easier to develop your skills as an RC plane designer. In the past, with larger and heavier RC equipment dictating the need for hefty, gas powered aircraft, preparing a model plane design was a major project. Full size plans had to be drafted by hand and printed out, and it typically took a long time to construct these larger prototype aircraft.
Micro RC gear available today
Today’s plane designer faces many more helpful options with preparing a new RC airplane plan. The ready availability of inexpensive, high quality micro radio control equipment opens up a new world of smaller, electric powered indoor RTF RC planes for the aspiring plane designer. These smaller prototype aircraft models can be constructed in a much shorter period of time than their gas powered brethren. In addition, practical and powerful computer aided design programs for the home user, such as TurboCAD, allow plans to be prepared in a fraction of the time as compared to doing the same plane designer tasks by hand with paper and pencil.
One really neat advantage of CAD programs for the plane designer is the ability to quickly make smaller (or larger) versions of a given model design. For example, I designed the Chickadee three channel RC indoor flyer for a 44 inch wingspan. This design worked well with the electric motor and NiMH batteries I was using at the time.
44" wing span Chickadee (right) easily resized to 19" wing span Finch (left) with TurboCAD
I later decided to try an RC airplane plan design using the ParkZone micro RC gear used for the LiddleRod kit built airplane. I weighed the LiddleRod to establish an initial baseline for this new plane design, and came up with a total weight of 1.2 ounces for the prototype aircraft, RC equipment and battery. I then took the original CAD plan for the Chickadee, and simply made the TurboCAD plan proportionally smaller to fit within a 14 inch fuselage length. I called this smaller version of the Chickadee model plane design the Finch. I decided to make the Finch’s wing a bit longer in span, and include additional changes to the balsa structure to meet the lower weight requirements of this much smaller sized aircraft.
Front of Finch with electric motor and ParkZone RC equipment
The Finch’s micro plane design readily printed out full size on my home printer, using TurboCAD’s tile printing system for the final full size plan. Again, if the plane designer wanted to make this new, smaller prototype plan without CAD, it would have necessitated drawing a completely new plan from scratch.
Know how to read a model plane plan
As a general rule for someone just starting out with plane design, you must be sure that you can read and follow a normal model airplane construction plan. As described here, make certain that that you are comfortable building a complete RC model airplane from a plan, without the benefit of a kit and associated supplies.
ParkZone RC equipment works well with Spektrum transmitters
There are a variety of ways to determine the necessary parameters and proportions, moments and outlines for a new model plane design. As discussed here, you can start with some standard ratios for wing size, nose moment and tail surface areas. For the tyro model plane designer, I also embrace the idea that if a model looks right it will likely fly right. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. But I would recommend getting a few “normal” RC plane own designs up and flying before tackling the more exotic versions of aircraft seen from time to time at the flying sites.
In summary, the combination of CAD programs with inexpensive micro RC equipment has opened new and exciting areas for the aspiring RC plane designer. The ability to quickly draw very accurate model airplane plans via CAD, such as for a candidate aircraft like the Blackburn, combined with the shorter build times for small, indoor model aircraft allow for a wider variety of new own design model airplanes to be conceived, developed and test flown.