F-105 Thunderchief from Arkansas [Dynasoar Roketry]

[Crawf56]

OK, all balanced out. Ready for a test flight! Hopefully will get time this week.

 

[Crawf56]

Got back from our trip a bit early this weekend, and the weather conditions were perfect. So I decided to go for a launch!

And then things went a bit wrong.... Somehow, I had grabbed some launch lug tubing that was fairly snug. It would fit over my launch rod, but required too much "push" to get the model off the rod.

Replaced the launch lug with a better aluminum tube (using hot glue), but ran out of daylight. Hope to launch soon.

 

[Crawf56]

Launch, flight and...…. SUCCESS!!!

Did one flight today, and the F-105 flew well. No flight or launch pics, but here are some views at the Kennett, MO, RC Field.

 

[burkefj]

Hooray! You really should switch to a 6' rail, you will be much happier I'm sure

 

[Crawf56]

Time to work on a few scale details. I had a bad experience a few years ago: I had built a 1/5th scale DFW C.V [WW1 German observation airplane; 100 inch wingspan]. Had it completely painted, scaled out, etc.

The DFW never made a circuit of an RC field. After 2 rebuilds (3 crashes), I abandoned it. What I learned is, make sure your model can FLY before you spend all that time finishing it.

 

[Crawf56]

Frank, how do you make your panel lines?

 

[burkefj]

I use a fine line sharpie, and clear triangle or ruler.

Frank

 

[Crawf56]

Another launch for my F-105. Winds closer to 10 mph. Almost still in the air, due to the wind.

Sorry, no flight pics...…..yet.

 

[burkefj]

Cool, those are really the best days for flying for me, I love doing elevator landings....only issue is gust off the rail and reacting to it, but once off the rail flying in wind is a lot of fun with these.

 

[lakeroadster]

I met a fella by the name of Brent Danner and his wife at Starbucks the other day. He had on a "Vietnam Veteran" hat and I thanked him for his service.

He flew a F-105, tail number 320. He stated he and his wife take a 30 day trip across America every year. Seemed like a great guy, very friendly, and appreciated my gesture.

He casually said "Look up Wild Weasles when you get back home...."

Hero's walk among us.

 

[Crawf56]

I met a fella by the name of Brent Danner and his wife at Starbucks the other day. He had on a "Vietnam Veteran" hat and I thanked him for his service.

He flew a F-105, tail number 320. He stated he and his wife take a 30 day trip across America every year. Seemed like a great guy, very friendly, and appreciated my gesture.

He casually said "Look up Wild Weasles when you get back home...."

Hero's walk among us.

"Wild Weasles were F-105's specially modified (during the Vietnam War) to hunt Surface-to-Air Missle installations. The job was very dangerous because SAM sites were heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns; some guns were radar controlled.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

Dad’s group of UH-1 Slick pilots personally thanked the wild weasel group, he flew slow mostly unarmed helicopters during nam. His greatest joys were the last day. Landing on a Navy destroyer in an Army chopper for a barrel of ice cream delivery to infantry grunts. The sight of an unarmed OV-1 barrel rolling overhead into oncoming fire as a diversion while guiding a THUD and F-4 onto AA targets that were about to wipe out his helicopter squadron. That unit he was in lost 33% of helicopters to AA guns larger than .50 cal just hidden in the forest. He described suddenly an unexpected wall of tracers emerged from jungle below and at that point you knew the flight path was fubar for all. The Weasel group respected the helicopters for finding Sam sites meant to destroy B-52s usually burried in the forest well deeply in camo. Dad was mostly sorry for the 52 crews. Helicopter pilots got to pick own routes. Nobody usually knew were SAMS and AA were until too late back then. He described vividly the Central Highlands being littered with B52 wrecks from arrogant commanders not letting bomber crews pick own routes around SAM sites.

 

[lakeroadster]

"Wild Weasles were F-105's specially modified (during the Vietnam War) to hunt Surface-to-Air Missle installations. The job was very dangerous because SAM sites were heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns; some guns were radar controlled.

That's what I meant by... Heroes Walk Among Us

Brent's wife referred to it as Suicide Missions... 1st in, last out.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

The craziest story I heard from a buddy of Dad’s named Bob Holt. Dude flew L-19 bird dogs with two aerial smoke rockets. Well Bob was more adventurous is the polite phrase and would exchange boring old smoke rockets for HE then go dance around 12.7mm DSHkA AA nests in a tin wrapped Cessna product without flak protection... There was a story of how a crate flown over twice was just a crate... Once a crate with camo net... Then a crate unboxed into unknown pipe pieces... Then on the third pass it became assembled into a Dshka AA gun that began firing... Bob took a 12.7mm round in the thigh that day. Alcohol killed Bob after the war not a Russian AA gun. They’d all crack up laughing how a seemingly innocent crate wasn’t so innocent. Bob said he was nuts to overfly it three times, but curiousity of what was in a crate and why people were unpacking it so feverishly got the better of him. Stories like that were vivid enough to realize no one fully knew where AA was. The unit literally thought ol’ Bob had a death wish. Bob was only over hyper and disgruntled when no F-105s were around to do the dirty work.

 

[Crawf56]

Cool, those are really the best days for flying for me, I love doing elevator landings....only issue is gust off the rail and reacting to it, but once off the rail flying in wind is a lot of fun with these.

That is one of the surprising aspects of the model. Rather than nosing INTO the wind like a rocket (on launch), the rocket glider was blown back in the direction of the wind, once it cleared the launch rod. I had to make a launch path correction, and the model kept climbing.

 

[burkefj]

Yeah, they are slightly tail heavy on launch, so pitch away instead of a nose heavy rocket that will pitch into the wind in my experience. Once they are off the rail and you adjust they typically just go straight..

 

[Crawf56]

Panel lines in progress.

 

[Crawf56]

More panel lines.

 

[burkefj]

Nice, I forgot to mention that it is a bit harder to get the sharpie to draw as nice a panel lines as on the other flat model master/testors paints, they tend to need a couple of passes.

 

[Andrew_ASC]

Nice panel lines.

 

[NJRick]

Beautiful! always loved the F-105!

 

[Crawf56]

I have been putting together models for around 45 years. And whether it is the divisional markings on a Tiger tank, or the national symbols on a B-57, there comes that moment when you put the decals on, and the model just pops!

On my F-105, I have made a crude copy of the scheme from 1965 of a 562nd Tactical Fighter Squadron / 23rd Tactical Fighter Wing (6235th TFW) aircraft.

 

[Crawf56]

The source for the decals was MotionRC. They sell a wide variety of jet RC models, and spare parts for those models.

Most of the decals you see on my F-105 came from an F-16 decal set.

 

[burkefj]

Very cool, looking great. BTW, it will look even better if you split the rear to simulate the AF petals and do a couple of pen lines ....

 

[Crawf56]

Here is a launch of my F-105 at Memphis, Tennessee, on Dec. 29, 2018.

The conditions were fairly windy. So, I pointed the rocket glider into the wind at launch, and came back to the launch area. Note how the model slows down when I turn into the wind on glide.

 

[burkefj]

Windy days are the best, love to do hover landings.

 

[Crawf56]

I have also had a strange paint experience with my F-105.

On the bottom of the aircraft, I used Testors/Model Master Flourescent Orange. For some reason, it is having touble sticking to the Blenderm tape. I have never had this problem before.

 

[Crawf56]

Oops...here is the pick of flaking paint:

 

[burkefj]

Nothing sticks to blenderm, if you mask over it, the paint will pull off but I've not had it flake by itself....

 

[Crawf56]

By the way, this model flies fantastic. I am very impressed with using the elevators for aileron control in this setup.

Note that the model is setup somewhat like a delta wing. After apogee, I run some "up" elevator for consistent glide.