Minime Kitfox

[airlina]

To occupy myself during those long, cold and dark upstate NY winter nights, I decided to build a minime version of my Series 5 Outback. I just finished it today and thought I'd post a few pictures. It was a fun project but as in any homebuild project it me twice as long and cost twice as much for materials than I figured on. I had hoped that it would fly as an RC model and all the control surfaces are servoed and work , but alas just like my real Kitfox , I built it too fat and it came in at twice the weight I had hoped and has the wing loading of the space shuttle. It was a great learning prototype for my next one that will be a bit larger and much lighter , so it will be a flyable version. Happy New Year to all! Bruce N199CL

[Dorsal]

Very cool :D

[Danh]

I like it!

[SkyPirate]

Awesome :)

[t j]

Mine is a little crude but built to exact scale to see if we could fit into a small T hangar with an RV9.

[airlina]

You are one up on me Tom, my minime Kitfox wings don't fold! Bruce

[wannafly]

Looks great guys. So if I sent you a picture of my kitfox IV will make me one?
You have made one, next one should be a lot easier. Let me know😁

[t j]

Here's a couple pictures to show secret details.

The fuselage started as a short chunk of 2x 4.
The turtle deck is a removable solid piece of wood that keeps the wings spread when in place.
Wing hinges are left over piano hinge from the real flaperon bearing hinge material.
Wing struts are #12 copper house wire.
Tail wheel is a small screw eye with a proper size rubber grommet for a tire. Also left over from the real engine kit.
Main wheels are wooden plugs that wood workers use to plug dowel holes.

Tools: Small hand saw, drill, pocket knife, rasp, sandpaper, tape measure to measure the real one and an Engineer's scale to lay out the mini.

Feel free to copy and improve upon as needed. Try it. It'll keep you busy during that snowy weather.

[airlina]

Looks great guys. So if I sent you a picture of my kitfox IV will make me one?
You have made one, next one should be a lot easier. Let me know😁

Hey Mic, The next one I build , will be jig built to speed the process and I need to lighten it up to make it an RC flyer. Let me perfect my technique and we will go from there. I was happy with the scale appearance of this 1st prototype, but it came out too heavy by an 1 ounce to be a flyer, so I have to perfect my technique to lighten up the next one . I am going to try carbon fiber tubing for the sub structure. I'll keep you posted. Bruce