United3dArtists

The V-700 Victory-type fighter aircraft.
http://united3dartists.com/forum/vi ... 984#p28984

A small update:

Full View: http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1 ... ter1.1.png

That's cool. It looks realistic, like it could really fly, and the smooth parts have the stealth look of an F22. The forward swept wings add to it's sci-fi look. So it is great both for realistic and for sci-fi looks. Cool X logo too.

Thanks Finis! It's my dream to fly this aircraft once, be it in a simulator or real life. This is a dream that I probably will never come true. Still I enjoyed working on it and will continue improving it in the future. The wings for example are terrible, not the overall shape seen from above but rather the fact they are a bit square when seen from a horizontal front/side view, this is because I never changed the original design in the beginning and now I will either have to make some parts all over again or just live with it... Choices, choices...

Oh by the way, the X logo is supposed to be 3 Vs Though I do agree it looks more like an X.

Hmm, seems like I never posted this render of the model here. Well anyway, here it is:

Looking good M, maybe some photo textures of real planes to give it a little more realistic look?

theuns wrote:Looking good M, maybe some photo textures of real planes to give it a little more realistic look?

Well if I succeed in making a scale-model version of this then I won't have to make it look realistic. All I'd need to do is take a picture

I'm really exited at the moment, just got my first little RC model and I've been having insane fun. It has a built in camera so maybe I'll upload a video some time

Ok, here is my first try at building my own scale model. Didn't go perfect as you can see but at least I found out what material I shouldn't use.

A very nice effort Mikom.... but as you say the material is tough to work with.

Styrofoam needs extremely sharp tools and a lot of patience. If you try to take too much away at once it helps you too much to match.

I use styrofoam to build the base of hallowe'en props then use polyfilla or other fine grained fillers to cover the surface for detailing and painting.

Also, I believe you can find a very fine grained styrofoam as well which would make it much easier.

My suggestion for aircraft models would be balsa wood. Light and easy to use and can keep your edges very crisp.

I'm not sure if it is styrofoam. It's just a material I happened to have lying around, I think it belonged to the packaging of my bed. It only worked quite ok when I cut from certain angles but I really think I should have used a small hobby-saw, one with a really thin blade.
As for the actual flying model/prototype; I'm going to have it printed in 3D. I'm going to build the model, hinges, frame, flaps and all in 3D and then send it to one of those websites online where you can print 3D models in a material of your choice. Since I'm going to be making the aircraft very thin(apart from the frame) I think simple plastic will be the best and cheapest alternative.

I haven't decided on the engine yet and I'm going to do a little more model flying to see what's best before I decide. If I do decide however, I could model the engine in 3D as well and I could build the frame to properly fit around it.

But all that is still far in the future, a couple of months from now anyway. Right now I'm giving myself a little crash-course in flying (huh huh).