TOPIC: Aermacchi AM 346 for TSP L-2

As promised/threatened, a thread about building a model of the shapely Aermacchi 346. I wanted to call this thread, "Aermacchi AM 346: Trials and tribulations" as making a viable (light, flyable) model of this very shapely trainer does pose some intereesting Challenges.
Here is the 'real thing':



and here is the 'semi-profile' plan that Rob Smith and I put together with my 'mock up' to check everything sorta fitted together:



Which it did. But, you will have noticed, being angular it doesn't look too much look like the actual aeroplane.

The AM 346 needs, perhaps, to be 3D printed (see the separate thread on this topic). But I thought I would try an adaptation of my tried and tested methods, which worked OK for the F-15 (see separate thread). The real M 346 is of course much more curvy.





Above: basic structure put together. The fuselage is a bit thicker than my usual practice. At this stage it looks horrible.

After a bit of carving, it looked a little better. I then added blue foam 'cheeks';



Above: I use bluefoam very rarely, but managed to find an old tube of 'UHU Por' foam friendly impact glue.

After some serious carving and shaping and sanding I was really quite pleased with how the fuselsge was taking shape and looking more like the real thing:



All well and good, you might think. But (and it's a serious 'but') it weighs a massive 18 grams, With more bits to add like the intakes and outer fuselage sides with added blue foam cheeks, etc). I could see the fuselage ending up at 25 grams even before adding the flying surfaces.

Hmmm ...is this a problem? It's quite a big model - the photo below shows it with the F-15 for comparison:



But I'm tempted to start again and add at least 8 grams lightness. The options are:

1. Repeat using less, and lighter, balsa sheet. 2, repeat using Depron sheet, 3, ask Terry Kidd to 3D print me a fuselage.

I note Howard Metcalfe is facing similar problems with his F-22 Raptor.

Any thoughts?

Looks promising to me Roger. (The F15 looks the dog's also).

AM346 3D models
Some of these 3D models have been created for such as the X-Plane flight simulator and other computer graphic projects. The Buccanear too started out as a flight simulator CGI model and I modified the STL file for printing. This saves a heck of a lot of work! Both 3D printing and computer generated images both use the STL file format. (Standard Tesselation Language).

Roger asks: how easily can an STL file be created for the AM 346 (and, please, pretty please, prays Father Luke) the F-35?



Just arsking ....

If an STL exists it can generally be adapted for printing fairly quickly. Even if the STL was created for some kind of graphic purpose. Creating an STL from scratch can be quite time consuming. I'm creating some unique cookie cutters for my daughter and that's taking a few hours.
Fortunately there are many open source models out there. Like, for example these F35 models.
www.thingiverse.com/search?q=F35&page=1&...things&sort=relevant

Some progress with the Aermacchi M-346. I decided my 'mk 1' was, at 17 grams just for the basic fuselage much too heavy, so started a 'mk 2' using significantly lighter balsa and (cheating a bit) reduced it to 88% of the mk 1.
Having already made one fuselage, the second went together much more smoothly and weighed a little under 10 grams.
This is called progress.
I could then make the flying surfaces, 2mm wings, tailplane and fin 1.5mm. These were anded to shape, doped, covered with light tissue and painted with a couple of coats of thinned grey acryllic.





Above: M-346 mk 2: these bits weight 16g ..... not too bad.

The rudder was hinged and some panel lines added. The red underside of the wings is authentic:



and adds a nice splash of colpur to the overall grey.

Rob Smith sent me a useful article about a plastic model M-346 published in in 'Aviation Modeller', and this helped me put together a preliminary set of decals:



I liked the 'Flying Tiger' motive (which is again authentic):



and took a couple of happy hours reproducing it. There are times whem my OCD comes in handy!

Still to do is the lower fuselage and the air intakes. Onward and upwards!

Glad to see someone is making progress with a new model, looking good, it will be interesting to see how you are going to do the engine pods, they are quite shapely too?