History of this project.
Early Development of the Final Scale build.
June 2023 – August 2023
Development of the Model Scale.
August 2022 – December 2022
FS: Final Scale - 75% Replica Corsair - Photo Log
Design Day (Evening)
Vertical Tail is started!
I ran out of time for this weekend! Hope to find time this week.
Design Day (Early Morning)
It took a 2 hour brutal battle with SolidWorks, but I was able to insert the missing guide curves on the sides and it rebuilt the cheeks without throwing an error.
Time to start working on the tail fin!
Design Day (Late Night)
After roughly 10 hours since last post, this is what I came up with. The fillets and soffits are wrong because I could not figure out how to get Solidworks to give me what I wanted. But that is not actually a problem as I can freehand those changes in the foam model before I make the molds.
However you can see the bottom of the nose bowl because I forgot to add in some guide curves. Fix tomorrow…
Design Day (Morning)
Switching gears for a moment, I moved to the Cowling. I figured this is going to be a major battle and I got it done in less than four hours. I shouldn’t call it done as I still have to add the cooling-cheeks. Anyone familiar with the F4U-5 is going to tell me the bottom shape needs to be flatter to be accurate to scale. Unfortunately, I have to scale and shape around the Scarlett-9s before considering scale — **** it! :). If I scaled-up, I could get it, but that is no longer an option at this point. Anyway, I’m not cutting it right away, so I have some tricks I will play to see if I can capture the true shape a little better.
Design Day
Here you see the H-Stab in model form. You can’t see it from this image, but the Horizontal Stabilizer is made in three pieces and the center will go into the FUSE. I’m going to digitally remove that area and go straight-to-mold. That way I can foam and finish the Tail Section quicker than the older method. If this works as well as I suspect, I will repeat the process for the tail-fin as well. The amount of time saved should be about three months based on my current rate, which has slowed a bit due to increased hours at work.
Second Image
Here is the center section cut out and ready to make into a master-part OR I can use the digital model and tell SolidWorks to make the mold from it. I’ve played with that feature but never really learned how to use it.
How about an 80% scale P-40 B or C. I would like to use the Chevy LS3 V8.
Hi Ken! Yes, you are not the first to request that one. We discussed it to great length at the RFA camp site this last year at AirVenture. I have never been all that excited about the P-40 but see that airplane in a whole new light and appreciation.
So when I got home, I called one of the top experts on the LS3 and told him that the only way I would do that project is if he built me one of his complete LS3 conversions. He refused and no amount of money would bring him out of retirement.
There is only one person left I trust with the LS3 Conversion. I will call him when the time comes.
For now, I’ve pulled the information to get started and started my pile of research.
I’ve come to the conclusion this aircraft is going to be not nearly as difficult as I thought. So the design begins with the cowling. If I can not get the cowling 100% accurate to the full scale, I will not continue. It has to hold the LS3 without modification and it has to be accurate.
My focus at the moment is the new Corsair Design so I’m only working on the P-40 when I need a break for the Corsair.
Joseph