Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

There was a series in Model Builder 1988 with the story and plans of Walt Good's R/C Guff. It was supposedly the first successful R/C airplane that won many contests in the late 1930's. Its clumsy and mammoth yet delicate appearance speaks of how form follows function for that time. No checkerboard or sunbeam decoration; just two cloats of clear dope and one coat of orange dope to seal the bamboo paper. It was powered with a gas engine that was equivalent to a glow 29 which was able to haul the 8 lb bird into the air.
This model has continued to hold my attention for a building project and am interested in others' experience with it.

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

I have a Guff build on my todo list. Charlie Chomos from across our Northern border brought a perfect built Guff to Toledo last year for the VRCS display.

However, for a radio I would use my modern single channel system for it. Charlie flys the stuff with the old radios and rubber band escapements. He flew his Rudder Bug in 2009 at Muncie in our VRCS reunion.

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

There is a website that has free downloadable plans for the guff. I was on the site a while back, but can't remember the name of it. A google search for free R/C plans might find it.

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

Modern CAD drawing:

http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=109

Air Trails version:

http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=2319

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

That is the free flight version of the Guff. The Good brothers built the Guff in several sizes, they had the Guffie for Class A, Guff for Class C and the radio version with an 8 foot wing span. There was a three part article on the RC version of what was referred to as "Goods' Championship Radio Model" that ran in Air Trails magazin in November 1940, December 1940, and I presume January 1941 (I missed that slight detail when I made a copy of the articles).

The first article details the design of the airplane and construction (including the two piece wing).

The second article covers how to build the transmitter, receiver and the actuator. Both a rudder only design and the more advanced rudder/elevator system. The Goods brothers had worked on the problems of developing the control system and airplane for four years by the time this article was published. Over that time, they achieved 150 flights including winning the Nationals in 1938, '39, and '40. The 1939 version was rudder only. The rudder/elevator version required about twice as much radio gear since each control required it's own receiver

The final installment covers operating the radio and flying.

The airplane was powered by a 1/5 hp Brown "B" motor turning a 14-8 prop. I would imagine the RPM was rather low.

It flew at a slow enough speed that the standard launching technique was to have two guys running along side of it, each grasping a wingtip to ensure that it tracked straight as it gained speed to lift-off.

The development of hobbiest RC was delayed by the advent of WWII.

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

HighPlains,

Is it possible to get a copy of the Air Trails articles?

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

Thanks, HP for the bit of history. The one link I gave was the 3 channel R/C CAD version. The other was the 1940 plan in Air Trails. IMO, either one would be fine for modeling in R/C. I think it was the CAD one that showed down thrust for the engine. If the case, then would make it easier to adjust. Just not my type of plane.

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

I got my copy of the first two months of the article at the AMA museum. I would imagine that they would still do this. I have never found copies of copies to be good as copies of originals, due to the alias effect on photos and the slight distortion inherant with copiers (designed in to protect money). But PM me if you can't get them through the AMA. Air Trails was a large format magazine back then, about the size of a Life magazine, so it takes the better part of a 11x17 sheet of paper for each page. I've got 14 pages for two months.

Unfortunately I am a model magizine fanatic, though I lose all interest in anything that has .com on it's pages. Actually the ARF destroyed the hobby IMO, though I have read in some old magazines the lament that kits were doing pretty much the same thing decades ago.

I saw the actual Goods' Guff hanging at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. At least it was in 1985 (has it been that long?) I read somewhere that the Good twins had over 1000 flights on it by then. Remarkable radio reliability considering all the experiments.

While the RC Guff has a fuselage that closely resembles the FF Class C version, the outline of with wing and stab is quite different. Also, the FF versions have polyhedral wings, while the RC Guff has dihedral only at the center of the wing. The plans were shown so that any modeler could draw up a copy with about 20 feet of shelf paper and an hour or two. The only thing shown full size is the ribs for the wing, stab, and vertical stabilizer/rudder. Funny thing is that the wing and horizontal stab have one rib, while the vertical gets 5 ribs.

This airplane was designed by a couple of college kids, albeit way above average young men. Walt Good recieved his PhD and went to work developing the oscillator in the Radio Proximity (VT) Fuze. This was the heart of a weapon of incalculable importance, since it was much more likely to destroy or damage enemy aircraft than shells that exploded at preset altitudes or time interval. A very desirable feature when planes are attacking at multiple altitudes at the same time.

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

I'll look them up the next time I am in Muncie.

Thanks,

RE: Walt Good's R/C Guff
 

I have a video interview of the Good brothers in which they said that the wing of the Big Guff was the wing from a plane called the KG-1. They flew the KG-1 as a free flight plane, and later wanted to fly it by radio control. They were unable to fit their original radio gear into the KG-1, so they built a wider and taller fuselage and called it the "R/C Guff".

Klarich Custom Kits cut me a short kit for a full size Guff, they can also cut them in smaller sizes.