Scratch building a 1/8th scale MIG 1.44

[Davie Matthews]

Hi Jet Fans,

Seasons Greetings to you all.

I would like to introduce you to my scratch build (in progress) of the MIG 1.44.

Attached below are just some of the pictures from this past year of the build so far. I have designed it at 1/8th scale so it will be able to fit into an estate car with ease and as you can see, there is still lots more still to do and I do hope you enjoy this as I move on with this project.

Firstly, as I can't get near the full-size version I had to make do with a plastic kit. The Revell and the Zaveda 1/72nd scale kits are the same moulds. Interestingly as all you hardened scale guys know, the 3 views on both of these kits differ from each other and differ from the actual plastic in the boxes. So that said, this will be a scale-ish build as the plastic and the 3 views don't match the full-size specs that I have to hand from 3 different sources.






First job is to cut it up into sections for scanning....








After scanning and a bit of CAD work (300 plus hours to make corrections and all that good scale stuff) I have some workable drawings.











Once I was satisfied the drawing all worked and were made "more" scale (notice I said more...) ....I ran some plywood through my laser cutter in house.







Here is the fuselage all jigged up.







Addition of some foam with gator/gorilla glue....












A bit of sanding and a few layers of 200gsm glass cloth/epoxy and peel ply.





After I removed all the peel-ply I then set about filling and priming the surface with a tub of filler and some 2K paint in my spray booth to get rid of the nasty fumes that a set of lungs doesn't take to kindly too.





Then once its sanded and sanded and a bit more sanding, I filled any small imperfections so I can star on detailing the surface.








And here it is with a set of balsa covered foam core wings for the "all together" photo shoot for inspiration for the next stage of the project. "detailing, moulding and finishing"









More to follow very soon as I get back into this build for 2015

[Davie Matthews]

and this maybe of some interest on this project.

Video number 2 http://youtu.be/46KRKihvluk A day lasering all the fuselage parts

Video number 3 http://youtu.be/pwCikFfKsfo Adding the foam to the top of the fuselage.

....and so on

[Martyn Ball]

Just seen this, never seen how you scale up a model.

Awesome job mate!

Hows it getting on now and whens it going to fly?

[Davie Matthews]

Hope to start detailing the plug in the next week or two. Then its on to making the moulds. From there.......I hope to have a test model flying during the summer.

[Phil Mackie]

Wow impressive and dedicated work, following with interest.

Phil.

[Dave Miller]

Hi Davie
Having recently joined this forum i was suprised to see a mig 144 project that looks so similar to my own. Looks good. Like mine i suspect yours has taken longer than anticipated!!!

If your interested in a parallel build thread, mines herehttp://www.rcmf.co.uk/4um/index.php?topic=67594.0

Regards
Dave

[Dave Miller]

At the risk of hijacking Davies thread, heres a pic of the finished 142 LFI. The LFI was the smaller single engine variant which never got as far as the prototype unlike the 144. Some of design feature ended up on the j10.

The purpose of building this model was to make the mistakes and learn before my bigger 144 is finished. I know of one 144 that was built in Germany which was destroyed on its maiden due to difficulty in rotating with the cg being so much further ahead of the main uc. When it did leave the ground it flipped vertical stalled and...you know the rest.

Im using the time honoured method of long nose wheel initially but Im thinking of partially retracting the main uc to bring the wheels forward a couple of inches before or during the takeoff run (arduino based controller).
Its a polyester resin fus with balsa covered foam wings and weighs 4.5kg. The canards are fixed but i can make these functional easily enough.

If it flies with the os65 up front, i may consider fitting a 40/45N turbine and make it look a bit more "scale".