tinsink

I just finished a top Flite Head Master from a kit I had for 30 years. I made it with barn door ailerons. Does anyone have any suggestions for an engine? I think I could get away with a .15.
Anyone have any experience flying one of these planes? Input is appreciated.

Rich

Deadstik

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Hi,

Flew one of these in 1970 w/Controlaire Galloping Ghost and an OS .15 R/C. Quite honestly, it wasn't nearly enough power if you want it to fly like is the norm today. Yes, the .15 is enough.. but if I built one today, I would put in an OS .25. Glad you've got this old classic and would like to see a picture just to jar my memory.


Deadstik

dasflugmodele

Heh Tinsink, You got a good one. I flew mine with an os max 15 and galloping ghost in 1970.Great flying plane. If you are useing late model servos, small ones you should have no problem Good luck and fly fast turn left.

tinsink

Thanks for the information guys. I'll try to get a picture when I install the engine that I just bought. It is a .19. I think this is enough power. By the way, I had a similar size trainer with a Magnum .25 in it. This thing was a rocket ship! But good on fuel consumption since I never took it over 1/2 throttle.

Rich

vector-RCU

My Feedback: (8)

Hello,
I have a favor to ask. I have a Headmaster II kit with no plans. I there any chance i could pay you to have a copy made at KINKOS ? I would love to build the plane. You can email me directly at [email protected]

Thanks,
Lewis

tinsink

Hi Vector,

I will, for sure, get you a set of plans, however,
make sure that you have the correct plane. I was told that
there is a Headmaster kit (which I have) for a .09 to .35 engine and then Topflite came out with a bigger .40 size version of the plane. If you have the .40 size plane I don't know if these plans will do you much good. Anyway, I'll make copies if you want them

Rich

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

My first R/C power plane was a Headmaster. It's what I learned on.

1973, Kraft 5 channel, Enya .29

Great memories of that plane, what a fantastic flying machine. I can't remember why I traded it...I think it was for an airboat.

I loved it with the .29, the .15 seems anemic to me.

tinsink

I have put an O.S. 25 in the Headmaster at the request of
someone who wants to buy it. Wait'll he sees this thing
zip along with that engine! I don't think he knows what he is getting.

vector-RCU

My Feedback: (8)

Hi Rich,
Thanks again for helping me out with the plans. People like you are what this hobby is all about. As far as the engine goes, the OS will be hot. I am going to use a brand new Veco 19 I have had for years. Should be a real good match.

Lewis

PeterH

I, too, learned to fly on one of these in 1972. MRC (Futaba) 3-channel dry battery radio, OS Max .20 baffle-piston engine. Not overpowered by any means. I think it would be very happy with any of the current Schnuerle .25's. It would not be overpowered, but no trainer. Any version we build today could be lots lighter than original ones, if for no other reason than we could halve the weight of the onboard electronics and batteries.

As for the Headmaster II, a friend of mine is a hobby dealer with a complete NOS kit on the shelf. I'm sure he'd love to sell the kit. This is indeed a much larger airplane than the original Headmaster.

tinsink

I was having so much fun flying the Headmaster I lost track of flying time and ran out of fuel. Unfortunately I was past a treeline
when the engine quit and I was hoping to glide it over the trees and back to the field. If I only had 2 more feet of altitude I would have made it. Needless to say it got caught in a tree about 25 feet up. It was unscathed while in the tree, however, when I
pushed it out of the tree with a big stick it fell right to the ground and broke the stab off. I will have to repair it for the weekend. By the way, does anyone have a suggestion for a flight timer? I assume an alarm wrist watch will do.

Rich

hattend

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A simple kitchen timer works, Thy're good up to an hour and just listen for the "ding!". If you want to spend a little more, they sell electronic kitchen timers that aren't so bulky.

Don

Mavi91

I picked up an old model at an auction last year and recently got it up and running, including the OS .35 Max that was mounted on it (but less the old wideband receiver).

Someone told me he thought it might be a Headmaster, but wasn't sure. I wondered if anyone might be able to identify it for me. I extended the nose 1 5/8" to get better balance so you'll have to subtract that in your head. I'm very pleased with how it flies.

Anyway, here's a picture. Is it a Headmaster with a nose job?

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

It could be the camera angle but it looks too short coupled aft of the wing to be a Headmaster.

Are the wingtips plastic?

Don

Mavi91

Don,

Here's more of an overhead view. Yes, it is close coupled. The wingtips are balsa. The stab is quite large compared to today's typical designs. The stab was built-up construction but had, from the visible repairs, been broken many times. I did the same on my first, wildly out of trim flight. So I replaced it with a built up but sheeted one.

One of the features was an area behind the firewall for the tank that I couldn't fit any commercially available tank of adequate size into...so I had to build my own.

The original firewall was at the place where the nose is painted black and it was partially cowled forward of that with the engine mounted in vertical position. I'm sort of sorry now that I changed that, but I only paid $7.00 for it & it was so grimy and broken that I just wanted to see if I could get it flying. It flys extremely well so I guess I'm happy. It's capable of turning on a dime without being twitchy in level flight. The wing is a true Clark Y and you can slow it down to a walk without losing control.

There's a small compartment and hatch beneath the tank area that apparently was supposed to be access for the battery.

I did a tail volume calculation and it put the CG at 28% which did land on the top spar. It is not a D-tube wing.

Thanks for your interest.

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

If the airfoil is flat bottom, it's not a Headmaster. The Headmaster had a symmetrical or semi-symmetrical airfoil.

I'm going back 30 years on this topic, but I'm pretty sure of the airfoil.

tinsink

Fella's

If its a flat bottom wing it looks to be from an H-Ray, but the rest of the plane is not familiar although it may have a few characteristics of the Headmaster. Is there any visible signs of part numbers on the inside? If not it may be home built.

Rich

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

If it's an H-Ray, are the fuselage sides made from ~1/4" thick sheets? I had an H-Ray after the Headmaster and I was amazed at how stout the fuselage sides were when I built it.

That H-Ray was the most fun-spinning airplane I have ever owned...it would come down like a helicopter. I probably could have "landed" it while spinning without damage. LOL!!!

Don

PeterH

Headmaster wings were fully-symmetrical. The manufacturer made a great to-do about the kit box floor being cut out so that it could be used as a wing building jig. And the original wingtips were vacuum-formed plastic. The fuselage sides were a collection of die-cuts and sheet sides. The blue stamping of the part numbers on the internal reinforcements would be a give-away for that.

tinsink

Hi PeterH,

If your ever in Southern CT come on down to our flying site in Milford. I'll bring my Headmaster and one of the other members can bring the H-Ray. We can compare the planes to the pics and figure out what the heck it is. And then I'm gonna take up the H-Ray and try to get it to spin!
Hattend- that H-Ray fuselage must have 1/2" sides. There's a lot of lumber in it.

Rich

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

I knew it was real thick...again, I'm going on memory from decades ago.

Mavi91

I've followed the conversation and concluded that my plane must be a homebuilt. There were no parts numbers on anything I could see. The final hint came this Saturday as I was making a high speed "strafing run" of the field and the wing folded just outboard of the dihedral brace.

During the postmortem I could see small indentations on the wing ribs which I take to be the marks from a hand-held template used to individually cut each of the ribs.

I could fix the wing, but then I'd have to completely recover and I'd still have a relatively weak design (not a D-tube). Since I altered the fuse to begin with I guess I might as well keep altering and cut a new wing from foam.

Thanks to all for your interest.

Carolina Raptor

My Feedback: (1)

Interesting reading, I just posted some Headmaster pics from '73-'75 of a couple that I had built back then, they are in my gallery. One with transparent orange wings and the other a gaw awful black (what was I thinking??)

They are kind of dark, I may need to rescan them.

Grampaw

If memory serves me right, the original Headmaster by Ken Willard had a Clark Y airfoil, or something similar. He came out with an upgrade of the original in the late 70's or 80's and it was either Headmaster Two or something like that. I believe this one was designed for a .4o and did have a semi-symet airfoil. Either one is a fine plane as Willard turned out some great flying models.

CurtD

My Feedback: (1)

Yup, I'm sitting here looking at an old, faded Polaroid of my Headmaster from 1977 (near as I can remember). The wings are clearly semi-symmetrical. Ah, yes... I remember that sweet little Enya .29 that moved it along. Both plane and engine died due to radio failure (World Engines Blue Max - what a POS).