A plane to go with my Depron XB70 Valkyrie

Personally my take is the TSR2 was too far ahead of Soviet thinking at the time and needed to be dumped before it became a serious problem to Soviet thinking at the time.

At long last a test run of the pair of 12 blade 40mm EDFs!

The are beautifully balanced and can run a very low P.M.
Together they are taking 36A  delivering 511W. Probably more power than it is likely to need but is does shut the door smartly enough!

Having proved that everything still works time to consider where things need to go.
I decided a 4s at 511W was more than I would ever need so down to a 1500mAh 3s.reducing the power to 242W. Should be adequate as the FX108 only weighs just over one pound ready to go!.
An approximation of the CG suggested even the lighter battery needs to go behind the cockpit allowing the Rx to go forward in the cockpit area and so be well clear of the ESCs.
The leads for the Rx brought forward to the cockpit area.
 
The battery compartment is just behind.
Slowly getting there!

Now virtually complete although the paint is still wet!
 
It has two hatches  The rear one is for the battery.
The smaller one forward is for the Rx. At the moment it has the stab Rx from the "flying pancake" which interestingly uses exactly the same settings as the FX108 so it simply shares the same TX "model match" slot, no binding required.
Once the Fx108 proves to fly adequately? the it will befitted with a basic Rx allowing the stab Rx to be moved on to the next project!   .
 

A better picture of the XF108 Rapier.
 
The silver is basically an undercoat. I have ordered some acrylic silver spray to give a more "metallic" finish. I will then paint the cockpit glass detail and the jet pipes but that's about it.
With a 1500mAh 3s it weighs 462g (16.3oz). This will give a power loading of 237 W/lb which should be adequate even for an EDF!

On a completely different subject there is much discussion on the replacement Air Force Ones that being prepared by Boeing from a pair of already built but never delivered 747s.
Of note is the current 20 year old ones have a trade mark fuselage undersides a high polish finish. The replacements will have a different scheme as they have to be painted all over. Apparently 20 years back the 747 was skinned in Alclad which had a pure aluminium skin rolled onto the aluminium alloy sheet so could be left polished. To save expense and weight newer 747s are just clad in a high strength aluminium alloy that has to both chemically treated and painted for corrosion resistance.
A further complication is the FAA are insisting the new Airforce Ones meet all the current civil airliner specifications which the undelivered 747s do not. This could cost Boeing an extra $1billiion and the whole conversion is a fixed price contract. Another Boeing Oops! 
 

Tump will probably scrap the FAA as he has the FBI, its only a couple of letters different.

And that could cause the CAA to 'crash-land' as well!

Next week he says he is going to sign a Presidential Order banning paper drinking straws! 
He says paper ones don't work so all will have to be made from plastic
Along with his mate Elon Musk Trump seems intent on testing whether the American Constitution effectively grants the President "absolute power". Heaven Forbid!    

The XF108Rapier is now complete.
Silver spat, cockpit glass and tail cones painted.
 

 

 
Now I have to pluck up the courage to fly it. 
 

I do hope it goes well.

Although its weight has crept up a bit to 370g with the paint this evening I did a nose down thrust test on a set of scales which gave a total of 810g. Subtracting the its gross weight gives a thrust of 440g which gives a very satisfactory max static thrust to weight ratio of 1.2 :1. .

This does pose the question by how much should I reduce the throttle for the maiden hand launch to limit it doing anything too dramatic as the CG position is a guess.
My gut feeling is about 70%.
If nose heavy it will accelerate relatively slowly to give me enough time to react and keep the nose level before it reaches the ground.
If tail heavy it will not have the thrust to climb too severely and.In conjunction with the "stab" reaction hopefully it will "float" down more or less level.
If the CG is about right then from previous experience with low thrust EDFs it should fly quite adequately on 70% thrust.
Well that's the plan as soon as the wind is light enough.   

Should have flown had the maiden a week ago but I flew others as I was so out of practise .
Now of course now there is a rather gusty south-easterly!
Anyway while waiting for the weather I have been thinking about what I might build next particularly if and it is quite likely the XF108 meets it end.on its first flight.
It is probably fair to assume the FX108 will not destroy its twin 40 mm EDFs as they are right at the back so how about a TSR2.
 
Another high performance plane that was never used although the prototype did fly a few times.
A lot of plane with modest wing area so as a model it benefits from being light!

 

That's where this page started! 

All fixed from yesterday's hard landing.
 

 

 
A bit too gusty today.for a proper maiden.

All very shiny indeed!