Plane Storage System

Plane Storage System

Storage of planes is a common problem. In the last house, my babies either lived in the loft, or on the top bunk in the boys room, which was less than ideal. With the move to the new house, and the chance to have a real workshop, I started to think hard about how I was going to store my planes.

I knew that storing nose-up was the best way, as any fuel or oil left in the engine would run to the backplate, thus helping to protect the bearings and other parts from corrosion, so this was one of the key parameters in the design. I also wanted a system which would get the planes out of the way, but provide easy access for maintenance or flying.

The solution came in the form of a length of picture rail, which I've had in the wood inventory for years (since 1987). I fixed this to the wall of the workshop about 600mm below the ceiling. This would give me enough space below the stored planes to fit in some storage shelving for non-modelling purposes.

I then devised a bracket system, easily fabricated from plywood to hold the planes in place. The one in the photo on the right is the format used for fuselages with an attached undercarriage. For those without, a horizontal 'T' shaped plate is used with a doubler to give some thickness to locate the dowel(s) which are then installed to match the wing dowel holes in 'F2'. You can just see the latter arrangement on the left of the picture, holding the Silhouette in place.

Of course, you also need somewhere to store the wings. I stole the design for this wing rack from one of my colleagues in America, Frank Gorzela, who also happens to be an R/C flyer. Frank built his unit out of plastic tubing, using tee fittings to take the horizontal wing supports. He also used foam pipe insulation to provide the padding for the wings.

I used 80mm x 50mm CLS timber for the uprights which were fixed to the wall after drilling them for the dowel bearers. I bought some 22mm pine dowel, and a 22mm spade bit for drilling the holes. This allowed me to adjust the hole diameter by filing the edges of the spade bit to get a nice tight fit for the dowels, which were then glued in place with PVA.

After fixing to the wall, I cut lengths of pipe insulation to finish off. The glider on top is my Chriss Foss Middle Phase, which has yet to be flown in anger. Sorry no photos.

This page was last updated on 21/02/04