My Build of Mikey’s RC F22 Raptor

I’ve stumbled across www.mikeysrc.com some time ago when I was searching for a cheap RC helicopter. On his website he also offers a bunch of free PDF plans for different easy to build RC planes. The EDF powered F22 Raptor instantly caught my eye. Not only is it very easy to build but also very cool looking 😉

After a long time waiting for the electronic to arrive from Hong Kong I’ve finally finished my build of Mikey’s RC F22 Raptor…

First of all here are the electronics I used. I got them all from different E-Bay sellers for a total of about €40 including shipping from Hong Kong.

• 64mm EDF with 4500KV Brushless Motor
• 30A Brushless Speedcontroller
• 2x 9g servos
• V-Tail Mixer (as my 4ch radio can’t do any mixing)
• 6channel 35MHz Receiver
• 1500mAh 25C LiPo Battery

As every PDF build this build started with downloading and printing the PDF 😉 Here’s the link to it: http://mikeysrc.com/F22-Raptor.html. After having cut and taped together all the pages I cut out all the parts and layed them onto my foam board. Small pieces of tape help to keep them in place while copying their shapes to the foam board.

The next step is to cut out the parts from the foam board. Take your time for this step in order to get nice and clean edges.

As you can see I’ve already cut off the ailerons and elevators of the plane’s body. So the next step is to make the hinges for those.

I’ve cut an approximately 45° bevel on each of the 4 control surfaces and the F22’s body. That way the control surface will still be able to move all the way up and down after the hinge tape gets applied. I’ve put the tape for the hinges on the top. So obviously the relief cuts must be done on the bottom side of the control surfaces and the body.

After cutting out the hole for the EDF it’s now time to glue it all together. I start with the bottom pieces first.

On the PDF plan you’ll find two lines that show you where to glue the bottom fuselage pieces. I’ve transfer that lines from the plan to my foam board and glued the pieces there. But you need to glue them in a certain angle to the plane’s body. I used the height of the rear end of the nose piece as a guide. I’ve put the bottom fuselage pieces on the line transferred from the plan and angled each piece until it’s height was about the same as the height of the rear end of the bottom nose piece.

When I tried to glue the ducted fan bash guard to the bottom fuselage pieces I found that it was to wide. So I just trimmed it to fit between the two bottom fuselage pieces.

Now that the bottom of the F22 is finished adding the tail fins is up next. The plan includes a template that helps you the find the correct angle when gluing them on. I also decided to cut an angle on bottom edge of each fin. That way the fin has more contact to the body and the glue should hold much better.

The barbecue skewers will add more stiffness to the wing. They should also create an airfoil shape of the wing and therefore hopefully create more lift. The exact location is also marked on the plan. Just transfer the line from the plan to the body as you did for the bottom fuselage pieces.

Please note that I did not yet glue the top nose piece onto the body. There reason for this is, that I don’t yet know where the battery hole needs to be cut in order to meet the center of gravity as marked on the plan. After I’ve installed all the electronics I’ll determine where to put the battery. Then I’ll know where to cut out the hole off the top nose piece.

After I had cut out the servo straps I realized that my servos where a few millimeters smaller than the hole from the plan. So I decided to redo them with a hole that is just as large as my servo casings are. That way I don’t have to use a lot of glue to keep the servos in place.

There is no hint on the plan where to put the servos. I’ve tried different positions and I I think the best place for them would be one or two centimeters in front of the aileron hinge. The exact location depends very much on how long your control rods are. I’ve started with the one for the aileron control surface. If you attach it to the aileron control horn and the servo, you automatically get the length needed for the push-rod to the elevator.

Finding the right servo location and the correct push rod length took me a while. But when both pushrods are attatched to the servo and their control horns at servo center position both control surfaced sould be leveled.

After the servos are setup the rest is just a matter of a few minutes. I installed the EDF unit and attached the speed controller. Then I connected the servos and the speed controller to the receiver, and in my case I also had to connect the V-Tail mixer.

Finally I put the battery onto the nose of the F22’s body and moved it around until the plane stays perfectly leveled when lifted at the center of gravity marked on the plan. Now I cut out the battery hole of the nose piece and glued it on.

And there it is: My build of Mikey’s RC F22 Raptor!!!

Unfortunately, this winter we got a lot of snow. So the first flight will have to wait 🙁