For a while I've been looking for a model airliner but I just couldn't find anything suitable. Until now. Green Air Designs do a model of the Airbus A380 with a 4 ft wingspan. Powered either by 4(!) small EDFs or a single small pusher prop. This page describes the build of that kit.
| It arrives in a single, smaller than expected box with all the bits slightly loose inside. This is what it all adds up to : |  |
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The kit is what Green Air Designs call their 3rd generation. It starts with a single flat piece of depron which forms the spine of the plane. The fuselage is then built up around that with clam shell pieces on either side. There were some quality issues with these, here you can see how much one of the pieces was misaligned; it needed quite a bit of sanding to get it flush with the neighbouring pieces. |
| Initially I was quite concerned about the wing pieces as well. This is what they look like straight out of the box. After glueing the wing panels together some general trimming is required before the ailerons are cut out. During this trimming you get rid of all the unwanted material,leaving you with nice straight edges. It all works out fine if you accept that the kit is a bit rough and ready and some extra work is required to make things fit properly and look right. |
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Here is the left half of the fuselage almost complete. Still have to sand down that piece near the tail on the right to make it flush. |
| Another quality issue. One half of the fuselage is in place and just dry-fitting the first piece of the opposite side. Near the front of the plane there is a cross-member made of depron, connecting the left half of the fuselage to the right half. This piece is too wide to allow both top and bottom of the fuselage to connect. Easily fixed but unexpected and therefore puzzling for a while. |
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Left half of the fuselage completed and most of the wiring installed. Looking at the spine here (white). |
| View of that finished left half of the fuselage. |  |
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Some more sanding required. That top line should be straight. You're looking at the centre section of the wing here (the light bit) held inside the wing 'saddle'. Also seen in the picture above. |
| At the back of the plane, slots have to be cut out for the tail stabs to slot into. I used a little DIY laser to help align those slots with the fuselage. Yes that's Paradude in the background, an onging project (#22 on my home page). |
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Here's an interesting one. I just happened to put the wing section and the tail section to one side like this and then it struck me that this could make quite an interesting plane in its own right..... |
| Another quality issue I think. These are the tail stabs and I would have liked to see the front of the stabs go right up to the fuselage. As is, I had to pin them to the fuselage (glued in a bit of cocktail stick!) and fill in the gap with filler. Also visible is how much the left side of the fuselage is out of line with the right side (check the join just in front of the stabs). |
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Just for fun. As I am using a single motor at the back, there are 4 dummy engines sitting empty so I thought I'd do something interesting with them. Cut from an aluminium drinks can, they spin with the slightest wind. |
| The main structure is complete apart from the nose cone. The 3S Lipo battery will sit just behind the nose cone, so to keep easy access I am putting a little hinge at the top of the nose cone (just visible), and use some velco underneath the nose cone to keep it 'shut' during flight. |  |
And here are some further detailed pics showing what it looks like just prior to painting : | |
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Late Sept 2012, after a lot of hassle the painting/decorating is finally coming to an end. Even after covering the foam with watered down PVA glue before using Styro friendly paint there was still quite a bit of foam 'eaten' by the paint. The areas that did best were those that were completely shielded from the paint, i.e. those that I had covered with paper beforehand. Tip for anyone else building this particular kit : stick paper on the ENTIRE plane before attempting to paint it. Also some areas that were sanded proved to be impossible to cover fully with paint afterwards, as small pores remain. The damage is visible below left, look below the 'Air' in Airbus. The picture below right is a close-up showing those pores just below the letter 'S' in Airbus. | |
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This is what the front and back now look like : | |
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... and here is the full shot : I made the decals myself, they are waterslide decals printed with an inkjet printer. There is bit more to do, that blue from the tail needs to be extended downwards right to the underside of the plane. |
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Late October 2012 - all painting and decorating is done. Surprisingly this has added over 100 gr to the total weight and as a result the centre of gravity has shifted back by over 2 cm. To compensate for that I had to move the battery forward right into the nose and add some extra weight in the nose as well. |
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... and here's a real one for comparison : ..as you can see that one doesn't have a propellor on its tail ! |
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This one is now going into winter storage, ready to come out on a nice spring day for its first 'all-dressed-up' flight.
This gives me room in the workshop for some surgery on the big Concorde, which is having its 3 EDF units replaced with a twin propellor setup.
Comments ? Suggestions ? Requests ? Email me on :
