[nicolas]

This is not a new tutorial, it's Jacques Brault's tutorial reformatted (pictures were gone)

Jacques Brault:

Since I often get the question "How do turn down planes that quick?" I decided to post a step by step guide while I am working at a new B-17F on how I proceed to make reasonable quality 100% Planemaker planes in a short time.

I use the following software for developing aircraft:

• Planemaker, of course
• DesignCAD Express by IMSI, a cheap and simple 2-D CAD
• Photosuite, a simple drawing software (my version does not handle PNGs)
• Photoshop, for the finishing touch and transparency

This tutorial will address modeling and painting only. Proper data input in PM is a matter of good research in available documentation and on the web.

The biggest advantage of this method is the elimination of fitting pictures to suit PM requirements and the elimination of the trial and error required to make the points fit the picture. Data input is straight forward and exact. That is a big time saver.

Step 1 : The first thing is to get a reasonably good 3-view drawing to import into the CAD.



Step 2 : The airplane contours are traced over the drawing in the CAD. At this point you do not have to trace all the lines, only the ones that will define the basic shapes (fuselage, cockpit, nacelles, wings, controls and stabs)





Step 3 : Re-arrange and dimension the drawing - I use the span to dimension the tracing. At this point you will add the landing gear positions, the reference lines and points, etc.




IMPORTANT: At this point you should make all the necessary corrections so the views line-up properly. Many 3-view drawings are not as good as they look like. Many times right and left don't line-up, scales are not consistent between views and the drawing may have been deformed. You may also have to move some components so they line-up properly. Correcting now will save a lot of headaches in Planemaker later.

Step 4: I start with making a separate layer for the wings and other surfaces. The sample below is for the horiz. stab.
I make wings out of a set of misc. wings, usually taking the control surfaces and where the shape changes as separators.

1. I first trace (in green) the contours and the separations between the future misc. wings.
2. I divide the separations into 4 parts and I trace a line that joins the 25% chord sections.
3. I measure the 25% chord lengths (19,2.1), the roots and tips (11.54,5.42,0.84), the sweeps (9.24,31.95) and the % chord taken by the controls (34%,43%).
4. The elevator will span the outer 6 sections of the 7 sections inner misc. wing. This is close enough to the actual elevator root location.

I repeat the same for the main wings and the vert. stab. If the surface is curved, I will subdivide into a manageable number of misc. wings that will in turn be subdivided and the chord modified to fit the curve.

OK, I completed the input for the wings.

Before going on, a word on airfoils. The B-17 used the NACA 0018 at root and NACA 0010 at tip. To obtain the proper wing thicknesses I will modify the available NACA 0009 airfoil by increasing the relative thicknesses to 18% and 10 % respectively and will add a 13.5 % thick at the junction of the two main misc. bodies outboard of the engine nacelles. It does not yield exact aerodynamic results but it should not be far from reality.

Step 5: The vertical tail unit deserves special attention. It is much curvy and has very large extension in front. This extension will be a misc. body with sections in the shape of a doghouse. Note that the two upper points of the section must have the same (or very close) coordinates to avoid getting a dark edge.

You do not have to make horiz. and vert. stabs from the wings menu. A surface can be made of any misc. wing also. (the horiz. stab is made of two misc. wings) In the case of the vert. stab, it is made in three parts: 1 misc. wing (#9) and the two vert. stab elements which will get curved by modifying the chords. There are also two rudders in use: #1 is the upper 6 sections of the 7 elements misc. wing #9 and the other is the lower vert. stab #1. Misc. wing #9 was positioned first then vert. stab #1 was attached to it and vert. stab #2 was attached to #1.



The reason why I use a bunch of misc. wings is to have the control surfaces roots and tips in their exact locations and to allow for different painting of the right and left wings. The following figure shows the completed wing assemblies in PM after all the wing data and controls data has been entered and the chords of the tip sections have been modified for curvature.



Enough for now, the next steps will deal with modeling the fuselage.

Step 6 : Making the fuselage is straight forward in this case since almost all sections are elleptical. I choose section locations and draw the upper/lower/horiz. coordinates lines. Then I simply locate the section relative to the plane ref. point, measure each coordinate line and input the values in PM for the appropriate points and locate the horiz. coord. at midpoint. Then I press the ellipse button a few times.




Step 7 : Nacelles are done the same way. The difference is in the reference point for measurement since nacelles are located according to the engine location, not to the plane reference point. Note that I managed to insert a cavity in each nacelle to allow viewing the engine objects that will be added as misc. objects.



Step 8 : The turrets are done the same way as the fuselage except that since they are bodies of revolution around the vertical axis painting is facilitated if they are shaped along the vertical axis and turned 90 deg in pitch when they are located in PM.



Here is the result so far.



Next time we will make the canopy which is a bit special, being a combination of flat surfaces merging into a curved surface. That makes things a bit more complicated.

Step 9 : Since the cockpit require flat surfaces blending into a curved surface, it requires working out the cross sections and then positioning the points along the cross section and transferring the points coordinates in PM. For the surfaces to be exactly flat, you need to group points together so you don't get out of plane. The points that will form the curved roof section farther along the plane are all grouped at the upper edge of the windshield on the front section. I also always group two points at the lower edge of the contour to prevent getting a dark edge since it is pointy. The points that will form the lower side of the curved surface farther down are all grouped at the junction between the roof and the flat sides.



Here is the final result. The bulk of the plane is now ready for painting. Prior to painting, I will re-map the paint areas to make the painting and positioning easier. We will see this next.



Step 10 : Once I am done with modeling, I customize the paint files. I first set the 2nd paint file to 1024 x 1024 and I erase everything in white. Then I take screenshots of my CAD drawings and re-map the paint files. It mkaes it easy this way to make a paint job.

BTW: If you do not have a CAD and want to repaint an existing model you can always take screenshots of the top and side views in PM for use as a paint guide.


I also mark in blue the areas that will become transparent. Here is the result in PM:



To enhance the details of the plane, I will paste cut-outs of the 3-view drawing I used to produce the CAD drawing over the corresponding areas in the paint files. This will provide all the panel lines of the plane.

I got started yesterday morning. After 1 1/2 days work here is a plane that is ready for painting and detailing.
This concludes this tutorial, I hope it will be useful to other designers.

Final result: Get Jacques' B17

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