Hands On Planes....Fuselage

airplane. The most popular fuselage, or body, from the hobbyist's standpoint, is the common box. Such fuselage most often consists of four longerons or longitudinal memvers braced by crosspieces. Box fuselages combine simplicity of construction, light weight, and adequate strength.

Before starting it is a good idea to cover your plans with wax paper and pin it down to the board using pins.

For box fuselages, select the hardest and thickest longerons and lay them down on the blue prints. Now put the vertical crosspieces first held in place by pins. Then follow the diagonal braces. Always build both sides of the box fuselage at the same time to insure an identical fuselage. Now that all the parts are dry remove them from the wax paper. Assembling the two sides is the only difficult operation. First, cut the top and bottom crosspieces to their proper lengths. Attach the widest crosspieces first; then, after the cement has dried, draw together the nose and the tail of the body as required, finally inserting the remaining crosspieces in. Tip: When pulling in the two sides of the frames, wrap a rubber band around it temporarily to hold it in place while it dries.

              Typical wood sizes for box-type fuselages.

                    12"-18" wing span----1/16" square balsa
                    18"-24" wing span----3/32" square balsa
                    24"-36" wing span----1/8" square balsa
                    36"-48" wing span----5/32" square balsa
                    48"-60" wing span----3/16" square balsa
                    60"-over wing span----1/4" square balsa

Some models have bigger fuselages compared to their wing size and require heavier wood than the sizes listed above.

Gas model fuselages of box construction are covered with sheet balsa siding: Small models with a wing span of 48" or so require a 1/16" thick balsa and larger models require 3/32" thick balsa.

The other most popular kind of fuselage is the round or oval fuselage which uses formers to define the shape. The first step is to put in place the nose former and the tail former including the main stringer. Then you can add the rest of the formers in place. You can cover the fuselage with balsa sheeting or put multiple stringers across the fuselage. There will not be a difference in strengh of the fuselage if you put sheeting or stringers.

After finishing the construction of the fuselage dont forget to sand it down to get even and soft edges. This is very important when you are covering the airplane with MONOKOTE or paper.



	You need Java to see this applet.