Monday, October 29, 2007

14. Jet models

One of the more interesting RC plane model category is certainly the Jet powered model category. Just imagine huge loud models roaring over your heads, leaving black smoke from their exhaust and that incredible jet engine sound! It hardly gets better than that! Well let's get back to jet engines. A short explanation of how it works is a good beginning. To keep it simple imagine jet engines as tubes which compress air, ignite it with fuel and then expel it faster than it (the air) came in. In order to do so, jet engine has some basic components. First is the intake, basically the front part, where the air comes in. Second part is the compressor. It comes as centrifugal and axial (most common today is axial) We'll stick with the axial for now. The compressor has blades which are set more dense as you get "deeper" into the compressor. That gives the effect of compressing the air. Than the air moves to the next component, the combustion chamber, where fuel is added and powerful reaction is unleashed. The hot gases then move through the turbine, which is basically a "wind mill" or in this case a gas mill. The turbine rotates and transfers momentum and power back to the compressor.

Monday, December 11, 2006

12. Coating and painting


Wings and fuselage can be coated with paper, plastic foil (Monocot) or silk. The most common is paper. The best glue would be some diluted cold glue or colorless nitro-polish.
Firstly one would cut the paper using scissors to be a bit bigger the the part to be coasted. If one is coating wings or stabilizers, ribs have to be glued before the paper is being coated over the ribs. The paper has to stay straight, it must not get wrinkled and it has to be tight. The leftovers are cut with a razors or something similar.
After the glue is dry, the paper has to be tightened more, which is done by moisturizing the paper. It will tighten itself while drying. This can flex the wing, so we should always be careful with the wing and how we secure the wing.
After it's completely dry, the wing has to be protected form moisture with some polish two or three times. It is usually done by some colored polish for better visibility. Note that indoor models don't have to be polished.