fighters used aircooled radials . The engine manufacture was licensed from Germany and the Daimler
Benz 601 powered this very attractive Japanese fighter.
The attributes that make it attractive for electric combat are its thin fuselage cross section, easy to
duplicate canopy, and low wing configuration.
What follows is a build along of this fine Japanese fighter for electric RC Combat.
The fighter has been scaled to 32" span, will be powered by a brushless CD ROM motor, use a 2 cell
1320Mah Lithium Power Battery, have a Castle Creations Pixie 10 Speed controller, Hitec 555 receiver and
control will be provided by three Hitec 55 Servos, one in each wing panel and one on the elevator.
of blue Dow 25lbs foam has been
cut to rough shape with a bandsaw.
The side view has been cut and the
taper from the rear of the wing
saddle to tail has been cut away
board. Has the engine thrust line
marked on it, the wing saddle cut
out has been made and the area
where the elevator will mount has
been but away
followed with a sanding sponge
has been completed. Final
sanding will come later.
construction materials. This KI 61 will have a 32" wing span. To make up a set of templates to cut out
the blue foam parts an office copier is used to enlarge a good three view drawing.
My three view had a span of only 6 inches. To get a 32" span the drawing had to be enlarged 533%.
This is beyond the range of most office copiers, which only go as high as 400%. So the enlarging was
done in two steps. First the image was enlarged to what would fit on one 8-1/2" X 11" piece of paper.
The span was then measured on the copy and the appropriate enlargement figure was entered into the
copier.
Modern Digital Copiers have the ability to automatically "tile" enlargements. I set mine so that it printed
out 8 pages of paper at the size I wanted. Users scissors and past I glued the pieces onto poster board
to make cutting templates. It is important that you estalish the thrust line on your template as you will
need this reference line to set wing and stab incidence. Most three views that have panel line detailing
on them include a line through the center of the spinner back to the rudder. On mine I used the line on
the drawing to establish the thrust line. The thrust line runs through the center of the prop. I set the
wings and stab on the KI to be exactly parallel to the thrustline which is also called 0 degrees of
incidence.
Before finishing the fuselage template it is necessary to know what airfoil you will use so you can make
the wing saddle cut out to the appropriate size. I use Profili Software to draw my wing templates. The
KI wing uses the Clark YH airfoil at 130% normal thickness. I also make my airfoil cutting templates
from Proifili prints.