How to Design an RC Model Airplane
Further tips on designing your first flying model airplane
Yard Ace electric RC model airplane fuselage, drawn with TurboCAD
Yankee Mike 3 channel RC plane from hand drawn RC Modeler magazine plans
Drawing your first plans
Drafting skills needed for drawing your initial RC airplane plans can be gleaned by studying various model airplane plans you have studied to date. Basic features of any RC airplane plans include a side view of the fuselage and vertical tail; a top view of the wing and horizontal tail; full size views of the formers and ribs; and landing gear wire diagrams. Put yourself in the place of a builder using your set of RC airplane plans. Anything needed to understand a construction method or how to shape a part should be on the plan.
RC Modeler magazine Yankee Mike hand drafted RC model airplane plans from 1994
Hand drawn or CAD
You have two choices on methods for actually drafting the RC airplane plans. You can either draw the plans full size on paper with a pencil, ruler and set of French curves, or you can use one of the computer aided design (CAD) programs. I drew my first set of RC airplane plans for the Yankee Mike gas powered RC model airplane with paper and pencil, as practical CAD programs simply did not exist in 1994.
CAD recommended for plans today
Today, however, I strongly recommend that you take the time to learn one of the numerous CAD programs available for the home RC airplane plans designer. My choice for a computer program for drafting plans is Turbo CAD. It takes a bit of practice to study the manual and learn how a CAD program “thinks.” But once you understand a few basics, the CAD programs are intuitive, and incredibly easy and powerful to use. You will find yourself drawing sets of RC airplane plans in literally a fraction of the time required for hand drawn paper plans. Plus, the CAD plans look just fantastic when printed out full size.
Chickadee outline plan - lots of straight lines
For an initial model airplane design, consider using a lot of straight lines. In other words, avoid curves in the layout of the model. A constant chord wing with straight leading and trailing edges, combined with a similar approach to the fuselage and tail surfaces can produce a very pleasing RC airplane plans design. This is precisely the approach I used with the Yard Ace. The use of straight lines produces an airplane that is easy to draw up on your CAD program, as well simple to build. In terms of flying qualities in a typical indoor radio control plane, whether the shape of an airplane’s wing and tail surfaces are straight or curved makes essentially no difference in the airplane’s flying qualities.
Chickadee fuselage under construction
Once you have completed your initial set of RC airplane plans, it is now time to build a prototype from the plans. As you construct your test model over the full size paper plans, you will note minor drawing errors in such areas as measurement, area, and equipment placement. As always with sport indoor RC model airplanes, you can make slight adjustments as you build to account for mistakes in the plans. Take a note of these errors, and make corrections in the master plan set. This is where the beauty of a CAD program enters. It is a simple matter to make these updates and adjustments to the original RC airplane plans layout in the CAD program via your computer.
Chickadee getting closer to completion
Once your prototype test model is complete, it is time to take it airborne. As with any first flight of a model airplane, ensure all the controls are connected and operating in the correct direction; the airplane balances at the center of gravity; and that the motor’s electronic controls are all properly connected. Try a few straight ahead test hops to work out any unforeseen structural weaknesses in your design. When ready for your first flight, be certain to have a large enough flight area if indoors, and calm winds if flying outdoors.
Chickadee in flight
When your initial RC airplane plans design is flying satisfactorily, use the general aircraft layout and dimensions for further variations of your basic RC airplane plans approach on future models. For example, you can easily move a high wing RC airplane plans design to a shoulder or low wing mounting scheme, with minimum impact on aircraft handling qualities. Tail shapes can be changed to produce a wide variety of different looks. Just ensure you have the same tail surface area with the new outline. A rectangular fuselage can be changed into a triangular one, or a wing can be extended in span. You can easily see the wide variety of differing airframe shapes and concepts you can incorporate with additional sets of RC airplane plans, once you get your first design up and flying.
RC Modeler magazine's 1998 "Yankee Mike" was my first published RC model airplane design
A final note on preparing your own set of RC airplane plans. Model airplane magazine publishers are always on the lookout for new sets of RC airplane plans to include with their magazines. Try what I did. Simply contact the model airplane magazine editor via e-mail, including a short description of your new aircraft design and a few pictures of your RC airplane plans design. You will be favorably surprised at the positive response you will receive towards publishing your brand new set of RC airplane plans.
Remember, a job begun is half done! Try designing and flying a simple radio control plane from a set of RC airplane plans that you drew up. You will be pleasantly surprised at how well you will do.
RC airplane plans page 1
RC Airplane Plans