XB-35 Flying Wing RC Model

[jjr2001]

Work in process. Mostly made from lite plywood, balsa, and some depron foam.
I will post new pictures as the work progresses.

Cheers, JR

[C-Bag]

Very cool/ambitious.

So is this your homemade plans or an existing set? And has this flown as a model? No landing gear? So hand launch and put it down in tall grass? Flying wings are notoriously unstable needing computer aid I thought. I admire those that can spend so much time and such fine craftsmanship in the face of it all being turned to splinters in a heartbeat. I look fwd to more pix and maybe a mov of its flight?

[jjr2001]

Hi C-Bag, There are plans for the B-35 that were made in about 1986 and published in one of the model magazines. I purchased a copy of the plans and the build article. Motors used back then were not very powerful so I changed the motor type. It is now being built with 4 brushless motors and LiPo batteries. There is landing gear. It is of the fixed variety and not retractable. (keep it simple).
I have access to a 700 foot long runway at my RC club field. It is paved so no grass! This model uses washout in the wing tips to aid stability to the aircraft. With the 4 pylons and 4 props the plane is suppose to fly! We shall see.. I have had them break into little pieces in the past but hope this one will not have to be ("re-kitted"). I will have 800 watts of power in this model where the original builder was only able to get 400. So by theory it should be able to fly straight up since it will have a 2 to 1 power to weight ratio.

I will post more pics as the build progresses and a flight video.

Cheers, JR

[C-Bag]

"Re-kitted"! LOL, I love it. Never heard that one but it's been too many decades since I messed with R/C. Washout in lieu of a vertical stab is an interesting trade off. You will have your hands full I'm sure.

My wonderful wife bought me Real Flight R/C sim several years ago and I still get that out and run through a couple of my favs. To my surprise the kits with electric motors are my favorites. Lot to be said for not having to deal with starting and the mess the fuel makes of everything. And they have plenty of power(!) plus I never was one of those guys that has to have the roar of an engine to have fun with flying. I think that's why I liked gliders too. My fav RealFlight to fly is the BeeGee racer. Very sweet to fly, very acrobatic and not too bad to land for such a short coupled aircraft. Best of all I don't have that horrible soul implosion when I auger one in

[Frank S]

I was out with a mate flying his model DC3 with 4 cox .35 engines, down in Au back in 89 when he handed me the control unit.
Here he said, I'll get us another brew I told him you better let me get the brews and you fly the plane because I'm libel to make a big crater in the ground with it. Sure enough it wasn't 10 seconds later when I yelled its coming down, its coming down Hurry its going to crash. He grabbed the unit it was dead stick right into a paddock with 3 ft of water. turns out the control unit had shorted out somehow. Wasn't pretty, too bad there was no one around with a hand held super 8 movie camera would have been a spectacular film to have been sold to Hollywood

[jjr2001]

I agree totally with the noise issue. When I started flying electric back in 2006 I was just about laughed off the club field since my electrics did not have any Vrooooom and everyone else was flying glow or gas. Well for some reason all of (the old ducks) are now flying electrics. It is so obvious to them now that they don't need the Vrooooom and would rather have a clean easy to set up plane. I prefer planes that are "drop and go", that is take them out of the trunk, put the battery in and fly. My largest is a 68" wing span pattern plane that I scratch built for electric power with a 6 cell 5000mah battery making about 1300 watts. Nothin like flyin your own home built...

I still have and use my RealFlight simulator. It is great to keep up my flying ( skills?? ) when I can't get to the field. I have added a lot of planes to it with expansion packs and the RealFlight Swaps web site so the choice is almost unlimited. However I have not found a B-35 yet!...I figure that if I can bulk up the F4-Phantom to double its weight and not crash it I should be able to fly most anything..

Cheers, JR

[jjr2001]

Frank, sorry for your loss! It smarts when they go down. With the hit in the water "puddle" I doubt that it could have been "re-kitted". I usually crash mine myself! I have seen several really great scale builders bring their hard work to the field and then let some "expert" pilot fly the plane....No thanks, if I built it I can crash it as good as anybody can!..Now of course we do help out the new pilots by getting a plane up about 3 mistakes high and then toss him or her the control box but always ready to take over.
Almost as much fun flying RC as making tools for the shop!

Cheers, JR

[C-Bag]

My brother and I flew control line all the way through highschool. I was more a stunt guy, my bro was combat. I did the building for both of us. I never flew contest stunt but my brother was ranked in open combat even though he was just a squirt.

My uncle was a B-29 co pilot in Korea then became a test pilot until he had a heart attack during a test flight. Somehow they had never detected his problem so he was grounded. So he became one of the top simulator trouble shooters and his passion hobby was R/C. I loved the idea of R/C but it was for rich guys as like a Kraft Gold Medal 4ch was over $500 at the time. My uncle found a complete rig with a Falcon 56 w/35 + 4ch kit radio(Radio Shack?) that one of the guys in his club was getting out and I could afford.

My uncle did all the tests to make sure the radio etc was ok and we went to their field which was a taxi way at the local airport. Everybody was warned about the noob and my uncle took it off and handed off to me saying fly a flat figure 8, which I did.

Everything was fine and my uncle was quite impressed when all the sudden it went to full throttle, full right aileron, full up, full right rudder. My uncle dumped his coffee on me and took the box back and is calmly working the sticks to no avail and calls out he has no control and it looks like one side of the battery connector has lost contact throwing it into this condition. What saved it was he'd set up the control horns to the least deflection so it was it was doing lazy right handed loops. It lost altitude with each lazy loop so it was death in slow motion He said it's going in and it worked out that the bottom of the last loop it hit the gear hard and bounced up. When it hit the gear the other connector made contact again and he got control and put it down with no damage, didn't even kill the engine. That setup was ok but the old 56 was already fuel soaked and the radio wasn't the best. But it served its purpose to get me over to see and hang with my uncle. He passed a couple of years later at only 39.

I probably was the only one who felt this way, but there is something really special about going to a field early in the quiet morning with air still and getting out the gear. It always felt rude to fire up one of those noisy 2 strokes. I love the photo realistic fields in RealFlight, I don't bother with the fantasy settings except the island one for flying the PBY.

Interesting JR you mention using your overweight F4 as training for the XB-35. Does it get squirrley or just everything is happening so fast and you have to be on your toes? I remember somebody calling the F4 the flying brick, but I was never as interested in jets as I was prop planes. particularly WWII vintage.

[Frank S]

JR it wasn't my loss the plane was built and owned by my mate there in Australia there were about half a dozen other flyers tof his club there that day and 2 of them augured their planes into the ground as well.it looked to me as though those guys got about as much enjoyment out of destroying countless hours of builds as much as they did flying them

[jjr2001]

JR it wasn't my loss the plane was built and owned by my mate there in Australia there were about half a dozen other flyers tof his club there that day and 2 of them augured their planes into the ground as well.it looked to me as though those guys got about as much enjoyment out of destroying countless hours of builds as much as they did flying them

Indeed, I have seen many a plane bite the dust only to see the owner bring out another one the next day and try it again!. Must be the challenge to get it right! Now a days it only takes 3 days and a fat check to get your next one in the air but where is the fun in that. The hobby can be a huge cost with the jet turbine types costing up to 40,000.00 bucks..Yikes, that is the cost of a very nice new car. What are they thinking! Anyway most of my electrics are sub $200.00 and the electronics and motor usually survive to fly again. Great fun.

Cheers, JR