The Boys With Big 'Uns model airplane videos show off the jet powered Me 262 to advantage.
In comparison with the Allied fighters of the same period, including the RAF's Meteor, the Me 262 was much faster and carried heavier weaponry and had the potential to return mastery of the skies to the Luftwaffe.
Radar equipped night fighter versions and sub-types designed to stand off from large bomber formations and blast them out of the sky were also developments against which the Allies had no answer. Yet for years the programme was held back by official disinterest, and by the personal insistence of Hitler that the world-beating jet should be used only as a bomber!
It was in the autumn of 1938 that Messerschmitt was asked to study the design of a jet fighter, and the resulting Me 262 was remarkably unerring. First flown on a piston engine in the nose, it then flew on its twin turbojets and finally, in July 1943, the fifth development aircraft flew with a nose wheel. Despite numerous snags, production aircraft were being delivered in July 1944 and the rate of production was many times that of the British Meteor. On the other hand the German axial engines were unreliable and casualties due to engine failure, fires or break-up were heavy. The MK 108 gun was also prone to jam and the landing gear to collapse.
Yet the 262 was a beautiful airplane to fly and, while Allied jets either never reached squadrons or never engaged enemy aircraft, the 100 or so Me 262s that flew on operations and had fuel available destroyed far more than 100 Allied bombers and fighters. Even more remarkably, by VE-day deliveries of this formidable aircraft had reached a total of 1,433.
The immaculate Me262 RC model airplane shown in the model airplane videos of The Boys With Big 'Uns was built and flown by John Greenfield.
Filed under Blog, Me262, Messerschmitt by 
The RC model airplane de Havilland Comet of Steve Holland is well known to the large model aircraft community being some 10 years old now but still in excellent condition and flying as she did on day one.
The de Havilland DH.88 Comet won the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race, a challenge for which it was specifically designed. A twin-engined British aircraft, it set many aviation records during the race and went on to set more as a pioneer mail plane.
Despite previous British air racing successes, culminating in 1931 in the outright win of the Schneider Trophy, there was no British plane capable of putting up a challenge over the MacPherson course with its long overland stages until the de Havilland company offered to produce a limited run of 200 mph (320 km/h) racers if three were ordered by February, 1934.
The sale price of £5,000 each would by no means cover the development costs. In 1935, de Havilland suggested a high-speed bomber version of the DH.88 to the RAF, but the suggestion was rejected. De Havilland later developed the de Havilland Mosquito along similar lines as the DH.88 for the high-speed bomber role.
3 orders were indeed received, and de Havilland set to work. The airframe consisted of a wooden skeleton clad with spruce plywood, with a final fabric covering on the wings. A long streamlined nose held the main fuel tanks, with the low set central two-seat cockpit forming an unbroken line to the tail. The engines were essentially the standard Gipsy Six used on the Express and Dragon Rapide passenger planes, tuned for best performance with a higher compression ratio.
The propellers were two-position variable pitch, manually set to fine before takeoff and changed automatically to coarse by a pressure sensor. The main undercarriage retracted upwards and backwards into the engine nacelles. The DH.88 could maintain altitude up to 4,000 ft (1,200 m) on one engine.
De Havillands managed to meet their challenging schedule and testing of the DH.88 began six weeks before the start date of the race. On the day of the race, the three distinctively coloured planes took their places among 17 other entrants ranging from a new Douglas DC-2 airliner to two converted Fairey Fox bombers.
The rest, as they say is history. You can see history re-enacted every time you watch the model airplane videos featuring this beautiful scale model airplane.
Filed under Blog, Comet Racer, de Havilland by
The RC model airplane featured on the DVD was built by Ted Allison and weighs in at 70 lbs with a wingspan of 11’3.
The de Havilland D.H.103 Hornet was the British piston engine fighter that further exploited the wooden construction techniques pioneered by de Havilland's classic Mosquito. The Hornet entered service towards the end of World War II and later equipped Fighter Command day fighter units in the UK and was used with success as a strike fighter in Malaya.
Design and development
Designed as a private venture for a long-range fighter for use in the Pacific Theater in the war against Japan. From an early stage it was also envisaged that the Hornet could be adapted for naval use, operating from carriers. As a result priority was given to ease of control, especially at low speeds, and good pilot visibility.
Construction was of mixed balsa/ply similar to the earlier de Havilland Mosquito, but the Hornet differed in incorporating stressed Alclad lower-wing skins bonded to the wooden upper wing structure using the then-new adhesive, Redux. The two wing spars were redesigned to withstand a higher safety factor of 10 versus 8.
Apart from the revised structure the Hornet wings were a synthesis of aerodynamic knowledge that had been gathered since the Mosquito's design process, being much thinner in cross section, with de Havilland designers adopting a laminar flow profile similar to the P-51 Mustang and Hawker Tempest.
Control surfaces consisted of hydraulically operated split flaps extending from the wing root to outboard of the engine nacelles; like the Mosquito the rear of the nacelles were part of the flap structure. Outboard, the Alclad-covered ailerons extended close to the clipped wing tips and provided excellent roll control.
Hornet I PX217. From a sequence of Charles E. Brown photographs taken in September 1945. Medium Sea Grey over Dark Mediterranean Blue "High-Altitude" camouflage initially used on the Hornet.
Ted Allison is a long time member of the Large Model Association whose large rc model airplanes feature in The Boys with Big 'Uns model airplane videos.
Filed under Blog, de Havilland, Hornet by
At ModelAirplaneVideos.com we are looking for the best quality recordings of great models. Our first offering is of The Boys With Big 'Uns from Peter Latham. These compilations of the flying season of the Large Model Association each year serve as an enduring record of great models and great modellers.
If you know of similar, bigger or better in any way then we would be delighted to hear from you and your recommendations of model airplane videos we can use.
Filed under Blog by
