Futura RCJI article - Schlusen.net

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TOMAHAWK FUTURA 

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The Arrival 

You know what it s like when you see a.jet 

and you just can't stop thinking about it? Well 

that's what happened to me some time back 

when I.first saw the Tomahawk Futura. Ugly, 

odd, weird, were my first impressions but for 

some reason I was continually drawn back to 

the Futura website like a bee to honey! 

Resistance was futi1e so with a little creative 

accounting i decided to scratch my itch once 

and for a1l and order the 2.5 metre Tomahawk 

Futura. 

The day of arrival couldn't come soon 

enough so in anticipation of the jet's arrival 

aided by the superb communication regarding 

shipping and the delivery timeline from 

Tomahawk HQ based in Roth, Germany, we 

were able to make sure all parts were ordered 

in advance to ensure no delays in building. 

\\4ren it did arrive, the three metre box that 

held within it my jet, delivered by Schenker 

International with great care, due respect and 

no doubt a little suspicion with what was 

housed inside, there was not only great 

excitement but also a huge sense of 

anticipation. 

Once in hand my trusted friend Phil and 

fellow jet tragic and I, carefu11y unpacked the 

contents to reveal what was a goliath of a jet. 

How could I have ever thought this jet was 

odd, weird or ugly? This jet was a beautifully 

crafted model with sleek lines, scale and size 

that no photo, however well taken, could do 

justice to. 

\\'hi1e i appreciate some people prefer 

smaller jets, for me, the bigger the jet the 

betterl After all when you come from a country 

as large as Australia where floods, fire and 

creepy crawiies are big, then it is only a 

natural progression to have big jets. 

The Futura is a monster. lowering over 

similar sized jets due to the nature of design, 

width of fuselage and overall height. I thought 

my Skymaster Viper Jet was big but not 

compared to this. I thought Sydney Opera 

House was big, but not compared to the 

Futura - well ok, so it's not as big as the Opera 

House but only just! 

Thomas Hochsmann the owner of Tomahawk 

Desiga in Germanl'laughed when I told him 

how thrilled I l'as irith rhe size and beauty of 

the jet. He simp11 remarked, ''fhat's why we 

love doing what we do to hear this from our 

customers.rr Thomas went on to tell me that 

the Futura Jet was launched at JetPower 2008 

after many years of designing aircraft for other 

manufacturers. The Albatros from SLygate is 

the basic design irom thomas Hochsmann. 

The ASK21 glider from Airworld and the Big 

Fox from Paritech was also very much a family 

affair being designed, built and prototyped by 

Holger Hochsmann. 

The turbine chosen to provide the thrust 

needed for this project was, yet again, a Jets 

Munt Merlin 160 with full auto kero start. 

Intairco in Melbourne, provided the balance of 

equipment required and while I have a 

preference for Hi{ech servos particularly the 

HS7955TG, I decided this time to give JR 

84i1l8511 a go. A1l fuel leads, screws, air 

systems and batteries were at hand ready to be 

placed into their new cavernous home. The 

working area inside the Futura is larger than 

some Japanese apartments, as such, the word 

massive is not a word that does the interior 

size justice and on pointing this out to Phil, my 

expectations of a super quick build turnaround 

were set. 

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JAMES ELLINGFORD/PHIL CELIMA 

JAMES ELLII.IGFORD/PHIL CELIMA 

- 

James Ellingford and Phil Celima talk us through 

their experience of building and flying the Futura 

rMFWure%5m 

Lets Put it Together - By 

Phil Celima 

Unlike James, the moment I saw this 

jet is the same moment I knew he just 

had to have one. I did a good deal of 

praising up this jet before it arrived and 

to be perfectiy honest, I did begin to 

think that perhaps I had given it too 

big a rap, but when the jet arrived what 

linle negativity I had vanished by the 

time the kit was unpacked and loosely 

assembled on rny front lawn, 

incidentally dwarfing our family dog! 

Once inside the workshop a 

thorough inspection revealed 

magnificent glasswork matched by 

excellent qua1iff materials 

throughout, from the GRP skins to 

the true aircraft grade p1y'rvood. It is 

great to finally deal with a company 

who can, not only tell the difference 

in pl5,'wood, but who actually insist on 

only using the very best. Okay, so on 

with the buiid. 

With a strict deadline from James 

saying, "Can you have this buiit by 

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James gives scale to the 2,5 m span Futura 

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the time I get back from my nine daY 

holiday" there was no time to waste. 

Luckily for me the owner and co-writer 

not only gave me nine days to complete 

the task but generously, also gave me 

the accompanying nine nights! 

The retract units supplied are pulpose 

built for the Futura and are made from 

T6 aluminium billet material, complete 

with Festo 4 mm barbed fittings. Keep 

this in mind when compleling your air 

system as standard 3 mm air line will 

never stretch to fit a 4 mm fitting. The 

chosen valves were none other than 

Jetronics Throttle Programmable Retract 

Valves, which come standard with a dual 

3 and 4 mm barbed nipple, Perfect for 

the 4 mm fitting on the retract air rams. 

The main gear tucked neatly away 

! 

The landing gear is precision 

machined from T6 billet 

alurninium 

e4tC$Hf{ 

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ABOVE: The 

main gear retract unit in Position 

BELOW: The main fuel tank with plenty of 

room for the electronics 

Another side note, that when using large 

diameter air tubing coupled with large air rams 

be sure to utilise the huge area beneath the 

main accessory tray and use the largest air 

tank/s available. Even though Jetronics valves 

have minimal air loss the air rams supplied by 

Tomahawk are rather large. The undercarriage 

struts are beautifully made from T6 billet 

aluminium and utilise the classic trailing link 

suspension system. The overall 

craftsmanship of the 

undercarriage, wheels and 

braking system is simply 

superb. 

The fuel tank for lhe Furura is 

manufacfured in-house by 

Tomahawk, as is the hopPer 

@nk which comes comPlete 

rn)tth a t0 mm landing around 

the body which makes 

mounting very easY. In fact, 

even the main tank comes with 

a mounting system that allows 

installation to be comPlete 

within 10 minutes. No joke, it is 

that quick and easy. 

Anyone that has built a few 

jets knows that the fuel tank 

installation can be a huge 

bottleneck in the assembly process and 

ashamedly I find that sometimes I am left 

with no other option than to use silicon to 

permanently install the fuel tanks into 

position. Not so with this jet. Futurars clever 

designed fue1 tanks and mounting system 

means that they can also be removed just as 

quickly as they were installed making 

serviceabili[z a pleasure instead ofwhat can 

be a painful task. 

The Futura's beautifully designed hopper tE 

HCJETf I.|TEHNATIONAL.CCIM i':: :-': 1:'..


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The Tomahawk supplied tailpipe is a 5070 

dual wa1l tube, which not only helps to keep 

weight down but also protects the tailplane 

assembly from convection heat. The forward 

section of the tailpipe is single wa11ed but 

sufficiently surrounded by enough air within 

the fuselage to keep the radiant heat from 

affecting the fuselage structure. 

Power 

The chosen engine for this project was the 

mighty Jets Munt 160K and, as such, the 

installation was as easy as it gets. Again, there 

is just so much room that you can mount your 

ancillary engine equipment anpvhere around 

the engine compartment and be fooled into 

thinking you have inadvertently left some 

components out, as once installed there is stil1 

enough room to mount another. 

The smoke system used came via an Orbit 

variable speed smoke pump which was fed 

from two smoke supply tanks mounted 

beneath the engine suPPort rails. 

The flying surfaces on the Futura are Kevlar 

embossed with live hinging except for the 

rudder, which uses a removable fu11-length 

hinge pin. Also another nice little time saver 

fiom Tomahawk is that all servo mounts came 

pre-sized and ready to accept standard sized 

SETVOS. 

With this build we decided on a different 

approach with regards to the power system. 

Most jets this size end up with reguiated 

power boards and multiple batteries, but we 

wanted to retain the multiple batteries for 

redundancy but did not want to use a regulated 

power board as the power demand from the 

servo and electronic set-up used is well within 

the rated capacity of Orbitrs Powerjack 

married to a single Futaba 6014 2,6 GHz 

receiver. Dual Duraiite A123 batteries supply 

unregulated power via two Fromeco Zodiak 

switches. 

For those that do not know anlthing about 

these Zodiak switches, I have to say they are a 

nice piece of kit and essential when using 4,123 

The orbit variable speed smoke pump works fine 

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batteries, in that the switch incorporates a 

milliamp/amp counter which does exactiy that, 

continually measures the draw on the batteries 

so the user knows exactly what banery 

capacity is left before every flight. The 

batteries themselves are easily mounted on the 

purpose built and supplied forward tray. This 

also helps in providing the majority of the 

Flap extended to reveal the internal horn and 

pushrod 

required C of G baiance for the Futura. 

With all mandatory equipment fitted the 

model was balanced at the suggested forward 

location (centre of main spar). This model did 

require a further 0.4 kg/1.0 lb of lead to get 

the C of G bang on and as with everlthing in 

this model this weight can be easily reduced 

as flying confidence builds. The a1l up weight 

of the Fufura came in at a very respectable 18 

kel39.6 1b, so when powered by your [zpical 

160 class engine a 1:1 thrust to weight ratio 

exists. Not bad for a jet this srze. 

Nearing the end of the build, I realised 

something was wrong. That was, that I did not 

have to re-engineer a solitary thing during the 

build process. This is just about unheard of 

with the current ARF kits on the market today 

and definitely a first for me. 

In all, the Tomahawk Futura is by far the 

easiest. quickest and honestly the best jel I 

have built and without giving too much away 

the Futura flies better than any other jet I have 

seen. I decided moments after finishing the 

build that I can't let James have all the fun, and 

ordered my ownl 

The Maiden Flight - James 

Ellingford 

The day of the maiden couldn't come 

soon enough and Phil had not only 

done, yet again an outstanding job 

building the jet, but he had done it in 

record time. I am the first to admit that I 

will never ever truly be able to 

appreciate what goes into building a jet 

as my interests firmly lie in flying. 

The day of the maiden flight came 

and it was one of those champagne 

summer days, clear blue skies with a 

very light breeze which helped cool the 

fie1d a 1ittle as the sun blazed overhead 

and the temperafure soared to 35 

Celsius/95 Fahrenheitl 

With the jet now unpacked Irom the trailer 

and assembled it was time to inspect 

everything to make 

Festo air mounts {itted into the wing cot 

Ai4 valves, lights and Rx all mounted on the plate supplied with the kit 

'!tr 

44. 

The port wing showing'Night Fire' landing and position lights 

sure a1l was in order and where it should be. 

Then it was onto topping up the air system ar 

fil1ing the massive five litre fue1 tank with Jet 

A1. Not sure if you have ever fi11ed a five litre 

tank before but even with my trusty Jersey 

Modeller fuelling station it seemed to take 

forever! Air done, fue1 done, pre flight done 

there was nothing left to do than head off for 

the mandatory bathroom break and sit back 

with as many cigarettes as I could possibly ja 

into my mouth. Me nervous? Don't be 

ridiculous! I am an Englishman and it's aboul 

maintaining tradition, nothing more! 

As is customary, our club in Sydney, 

Australia, soon fil1ed with members, eager to 

see this piece of German engineering take to 

the sky. The usual club pre-flight banter took 

place as I headed out to the start up area to 

fire up my turbine and get the show on the 

road. I couldn't help but comment to Phil ont 

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Awaiting the 

maiden flight 

Easy access to all areas is assured with the large, removable hatch 

' . - ^^.-^ *''den i"nit"il";;a tense time 

Lined uP readY to go on tne I 

tor the Pilot! 

more time hor.v large the jet seemed compared 

to all others I had flown and once out of 

earshot from the rest of the members I took 

some comfort in my own prediction that the 

plane should handle and fly beautifully and 

that in fact, this maiden should be a walk in 

the park. As a good friend, Phil agreed and 

said, as usual "She'll be right mate" which 

translated in English means, all will be fine my 

friendl 

Once the one-piece canopy, which appears to 

be the iength of a football field, was removed 

the inner workings of the Futura become clear 

to see. \Vhat I love about this jet is that with 

canopy removed all is exposed to see. No 

hidey holes, no hard to get to places, 

everl'thing easy to check and easy to reach. 

With a1l checks done there was nothing left to 

do than start her up and taxi-out! 

Ready for Take-Off 

: Sitting at the end of our 1000 ft east 

. west grass runway, the Futura, with 

I her flaps set for take-off, had an 

: incredible presence even though I 

was standing some 250 ft to lhe wesl 

of her. Final check to the wesl rhar 

' the runway was clear it was now 

time 1o fire rrn the Iets Munt and 

find out how the Futura would fly. 

As the aircraft built up ground 

speed it was instantly noticeable 

that I had fantastic rudder/nose 

wheel control, as only slight corrections were 

required. As speed continued to build a little 

elevator was fed in and she lifted off the 

ground with such grace and beau[' that I 

could hardiy believe my 

eyes. I do have a habit of 

talking to myself on the 

flight line, which even 

annoys me but sticking with 

tradition is important. 

"Positive rate of c1imb, gear 

up, speed building, flaps 

up." A little up elevator was 

added to compensate for 

reducing lift as the flaps 

retracted then away the Futura soared. 

"Wow", was my initial thought at the forty 

second mark. "Itrs flying almost dead straight" 

One click of right aileron and the Futura was 

] 1lOne click of right 

I I aileron and the 

Futura was flying 

perfectly straight 

and level 

flying perfectly straight and level. 'That was 

too easy", I thought to myself. "Let's see how 

she performs a ro11." Hard right aileron was 

added and she rolled, not barrelled, but rolled 

perfectly on the horizontal a-ris. l,eft roll, again 

perfect. "Wow, this was too good to be true", I 

thought as we hit the three-minute mark. 

At this stage I usually get the aircraft up high 

and perform a basic stall to see what she does. 

So up the Futura soared responding perfectly 

to my inputs and off with the power. A little up 

elevator, more, more, and the Futura started 

getting light on the sticks, more up elevator, 

then bingo, she stalled very gently and I do 

mean gentiy dropping her nose and a wee bit 

of wing. Recovery was a simple matter of 

neutralising the sticks allowing her rime ro 

build speed. powering up and 

flying away. Again, wow was 

the only thing going through 

my head as this jet was 

shaping up to be the best 

flying model I had ever flown 

Four minutes into the 

maiden flight signalled rhar it 

was now time to get her slow 

and dirty to see how she 

handled and also to allorv me 

enough time to get used to the model in slow 

speed flight to ensure a half decent landing. 

After all, there was a crowd gathering back in 

the pits and I certainly did not want to do the 

Coming in for a low pass to impress gathered club mates 

A fast pass with smoke on 

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Flaps and gear down to check handling at slow speed 

walk of shamel Slow flight was a walk in the 

park and the Futura was stable throughout. No 

nasty surprises. no biting. no letting go in 

turns, no bouncing in the air and simply no 

other movement other than what I asked the 

Futura to do via my radio. 

Six minutes up and my beeper alerted me to 

the fact that I had one minute left. Feeling very 

comfortable with the slow flight characteristics 

and having my levels of trust in the model 

soaring upwards I found myself in a very 

relaxed state, which is not usually normal with 

any maiden flight. The reason I was so relaxed 

was that the model had done everl'thing 

perfectly and while the landing still lay ahead I 

was confident that she wouldn't let me down. 

It was now time to prepare the aircraft for 

landing. I am convinced another cigarette at 

this time would help but I just can't for the iife 

of me work out how to light it while flyingl 

Nonetheless I pressed on and lowered the first 

stage offlaps and as nothing really happened, 

other than the aircraft slowing down, seconds 

later, I lowered the gear and the finai stage of 

flaps. 

The Futura during the landing set up phase 

behaved beautifully. With flaps out and gear 

One very happy Futura owner after the successful maiden flight 

hanging down below waiting to be reunited 

with the ground my confidence in her grew. As 

the Futura has massive flaps by any measure 

power is added to simply and easily adjust the 

descent rate. Flying along, late downwind, I 

felt very confident that my Futura would 

behave as requested and do nothing untoward. 

Turning on to base and then final I slowly 

reduced power until I was centre with the 

runway. The Fufura flared beautifully and 

landed so well that I would have to say it is one 

of the best landings I have ever done. As I 

turned to Phil with a smile wider than a Great 

White Shark all i could say was 'Wow, what a 

jetl", to which Phil replied, "I told you she'd be 

rightIl 

Post Flight Brief 

The usual post flight analysis took place by 

fellow members with the resounding 

comments being, 'T\rhat an incredibly beautiful 

flying aircraft." I have subsequentiy had a 

firther 22 flights with my Futura with each 

one being as good and as predictable as the 

very first. Within two weeks of flying the 

Futura two people at my club alone have 

already ordered their own. It not only says a 

lot about the jet it also 

says a lot about its 

flying characteristics 

and overall build quality 

as well. 

The Futura 2.5 metre 

jet is the Holy Grail I 

have been searching 

for, for many yearsl It is 

a jet that I would highly 

recommend as both a 

basic trainer (first jet) 

through to an advanced 

fu1ly aerobatic model. 

The aircraft's flight 

envelope is truiy 

remarkable as it 

moves through 1ow 

flying speeds to high speeds with guarantee 

predictability. The only sadness is that I dou 

any other model I fly in the future will even 

come close to the flying characteristics and 

performance of the Futura. 

The Futura has got everything right and tl 

in a radio-controiled model, is extremely rar 

and hard to achieve. For me, I need a jet tha 

can handle 400+ flights per year irom a gras 

runway with absolute reliabili[r. I have no 

doubt as I sit on flight 22 thatthe Futura wil 

deliver the re1iabi1iff, consistency and learni 

curve to take my flying forward like nothing 

eise. 

Thomas Hochsmann's goal was to create t 

superb, aerobatic, constant speed jet, which 

has, by any measure, been achieved with th 

masterpiece of design in the Futura 2.5 met 

model. His goal was to create a beautifully 

built jet using the latest glass and carbon fit 

sandwich technology, which has been 

accomplished and finally, his goal was to bu 

a jet that customers from around the world 

would rave about and love to fly and yet aga 

job done! 

I know that I won't be flying any other jet 

the near future as the Futura ticks all the 

boxes and delivers more than even my higl 

expectations could have ever hoped to fulfil 

Update 

I understand that Tomahawk have now 

released a 1.9 metre version of the Futura a 

while I have not flown it Thomas Hochsmar 

assures me that it flies just as we11. So if sp: 

is your only hurdle Tomahawk have now 

delivered a solution to al1ow you to experiet 

the thrill and satisfaction of flying a truly w, 

class model in its 1.9 metre version. I honer 

feel that Tomahawk has set the benchmark 

that all others will need to follow. * 

],.]. RCJETINTERTIAT;ONAL.CSM,ii:i::;!1. :''

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