I consider this the flagship of my fleet. It is my first major scratch built project. I was assisted by some laser parts from Bob Holman Plans, but I only used the wing ribs and not the rest of them, such as the wing pylon, firewall, etc. But the ribs helped me deal with a tedious chore. The plan was drawn by Tom Hunt, who owns Modelair-tech. The plans alone are available from Tom, but you can get his plan and some laser cut parts from Bob in one package.
Now that brushless motors are all the rage (and they are great), too many modelers are overlooking the old Astro cobalt motors. They were the motors of choice up until a few years ago. Modelers assume that brushless motors are more efficient, and thus they will get longer flights. This is true only if you fly with the motor running at maximum RPM throughout the entire flight. What many modelers don't know is that precision Astro cobalt motors with their ball bearings are as efficient as brushless motors in the mid RPM ranges where we fly most of the time. This model flies on a seven cell pack of 2400 mAh Sanyo SCR cells, and it will stay up until I am tired and want to come down. I can fly it for 20 minutes easily, and a half hour or more if there is some decent lift.
The CG on this model is about 70% in back of the leading edge due to the short nose. If I were not using the heavier Astro motor and Nicad batteries, I would need to put lead in the nose to balance it. A nice, quiet brushless outrunner is simply not the best power for this model in my opinion. I know some modelers have powered them with brushless outrunners, but I bet there is some lead lurking in the firewall area.
The model is also now guided by Spektrum. I used an AR7000 receiver, and I am very pleased with it. No antenna to worry about, no frequency pins, no interference, no worry flying. All my models are now on my trusty DX7.
I was pleased that Quiet Flyer published a photograph of my model in the "In Focus" column of the February 2004 issue.
These old timer designs are perfect for electric power. There are several reasons for this. First, they were designed to fly long duration free flights; they were semi-gliders.
Second, the old gas motors with their coils and condensers weighed as much as - or more than - modern electric power systems.
Those are Trexler airwheels. I used them a bit, and they wore out and I replaced them with modern foam wheels.
I made the landing gear from made of 1/8" music wire, and it has proven quite resilient.
My building motto is you cannot have too many gussets. They weigh little and add tremendous strength to a structure.
The fuselage longerons are all 1/8" bass wood.
