The Airplane Designer’s Desk

In the forums and in questions that have been sent directly to me, it seems that there is a growing interest in using CAD for model airplane design. Whether the intent is to make more complex designs possible, or to help visualize the final product, or to develop a kit for CAM production (laser cutting or CNC), CAD is a very versatile and useful tool.

Given the interest, I thought that I would write a few articles on the subject of getting started in CAD, with a focus on application to model airplane design.

In this article, I want to define what is typically meant by the term “CAD” and also give you some links to browse some of the more popular CAD packages.

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If the time from box to flying field were the only factor in choosing your next plane, then I would admit that ARF airplanes have scratch or kit built planes beat hands down.  That’s a no-brainer.  But why choose your next plane based solely on that one factor?

I have compiled a list of 5 reasons why I think that you should build your next plane, whether from a kit or from scratch, and here they are in no particular order:

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Despite the numerous similarities, digital servos provide many benefits over traditional analog servos. This article will discuss some of the advantages of choosing digital servos for your next R/C project and address the relatively few drawbacks. A future article will describe the technical differences between the two.

The primary benefits of a digital servo relative to an analog servo are:

1. Improved holding torque
2. Finer resolution
3. Smaller deadband
4. Faster acceleration
5. Programmable functionality

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Recent discussions with friends and on message boards regarding the common types of plywood used to build R/C airplanes led me to think that a short treatment of the subject would be helpful.

There are three primary types of commercially available plywood common to R/C airplane construction, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Those three are: aircraft grade birch, interior grade birch, and poplar plywood better known as "lite" plywood.

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