H5487

Does anybody put out plans for a 1909 Demoiselle? Sig makes a 44"WS electric kit but I'm looking for something a little bigger for a Saito.

Thanks!

guerjac

There is a plan for a "substitute" named "Tagazelle" in a french magazine "MRA". Span 80" mine is flying with a Saito .72 (not a pattern flyer!!!)

F106A

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Flying Models magazine has a plan that takes a 60.
Jon

khodges

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Here's one a 2.20 might get off the ground, saw it at Nall last year. He said it glided like a brick. There is one of the major plans marketers that has them, can't remember who, somebody like Palmer or Hostetter, or Uravitch.

mgnostic

I've seen an example of the FM Demoselle at a funfly. A very pretty airplane. Think very large park flyer. It has a very low wing loading and lots of drag. It flys very slowly. The original Demoselle was kinda marginal in its flight characteristics. Alberto Santos-Dumont was was a small statured person and was one of the few who culd actually make the real thing fly. I would suggest picking your motor for spining a large diameter prop at low rpms. The one I saw had a fourstroke. The airplanewas lightweight but lots of drag inducing wires and struts

jlsimon

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I bought plans from a guy name Randy Charles. He has a set of huge plans that yeilds a sorta Demoiselle at roughly 40%. It looks like the Demoiselle well enough but is more based on the aircraft used in the movie "Those Magnificent Men In their Flying Machines". Power is a Quadra 30. The fuse is about 8-9 feet. The wing is about 80 inches and the chord is about two feet! It mainly uses spruce, ply and balsa. Its just three channels (R, E & T) but I was planning to add to wing warping as well. The instructions are online as well as pics. The plans themselves are CAD drawings he has ouput to order. Warning, this is for the scratchbuilder with many details you'll have to engineer.

I hope to get around to it but in the meantime, I am continually on the lookout for someone putting an old baby carriage out to the street. I'll need those old style 12-16" wire baby buggy wheels for this plane!

http://www.alien-aircraft.com

Regards

Jerry Simon

louierc

Jerry - I havbe been looking for a similar plan, and remember the movie, "Those Magnificient Men . . ." Do you have these plans, I would be interested in scaling them down to a smaller size, maybe 50-60" span for electric power.

Louie

jlsimon

My Feedback: (164)

Louie,

Yes, I still have them. Haven't gotten around to building it yet though. I haven't looked at them recently but I think there's five sheets. To get a 60" span would be about a 25% reduction. A local Fedex/Kinkos does that sort of thing. I'll take a look at the plans again and can see about getting a scaled down copy if you want that.

Regards,

Jerry

louierc

Thanks, I have been looking at the Sig kit as a starting place or using a plan like you have, but reduced. I'm thinking a slow flyer, electric, so I would have to build it light. Let me know what you think. Louie

jlsimon

My Feedback: (164)

Louie,

I just went to his web site and he appears to be offering them again in digital format. You take the file and get it printed out to what ever size you like.

jlsimon

My Feedback: (164)

Scaling down shouldn't be a problem. I think you could build it light enough replacing the spruce with basswood or arrow shafts and thinner balsa for the wings. Just power it to fly slow and overcome the massive amount of drag.

louierc

Yep, drag like a box of rocks!

H5487

The problem with a Demoiselle design is that there's no fuselage to hide the receiver, servos and battery in. If you scale the model down too much, this stuff won't fit inside the wing (the only real place available to hide the stuff) and you'll have to either leave it exposed or add a non-scale box to hide it in.

Harvey

jlsimon

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Carve a pilot and hide it in the body.

H5487

And I've heard of that being done with good success. There's no reason why it can't be done again. (Plus, the open framework of the Demoiselle design looks awfully odd flying around with a big hole where a pilot should be! [X(])

Harvey

louierc

I am looking for a Demoiselle-like plane, open structure, pilot up front, fabric looking (maybe) undercambered wing, does not have to be an exact repoduction. My thought was to build one larger than the Sig kit (44") but still make it electric powered. If you could come close to 1/4 scale (there are reported spans of 16 to 20 ft, but I am still looking) like 50-60" span and use a 1/4 scale pilot figure, you could make (conventional) working controls (which the original did not exactly have) that would move the pilot's arms and feet. Might look sort of cool in slow flight. Maybe add ailerons or wing warping, put these servos in the wings, and put the tail servos in a box under (in the seat?)/or behind the seat. Could the battery be put into the dummy gas tank behind the engine?

There are several Demoiselle threads on various forums.

Louie

R/C Lee

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I just finished a Demoiselle from Carstens plans. Originally planned for a .19-.25, I put a Saito .30 4-stroke in it. Instead of following the plans, I decided to substitute 1/4" spruce for the three main longerons instead of the 1/4" balsa recommended. Bad idea. I also used 3/8" soft copper pipe for the front "wrap-around" chin strap, thinking it would add some weight to balance out the spruce. It isn't enough. I bought a Revelle Visible Man on e-bay, modified it to fit the seat, and my wife made up the clothes. Very easy to hide the battery pack and receiver inside his body. Bottom line here is it looks very cool, and I can just imagine it flying like the Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. The only problem so far is that I know I'm too heavy for the Saito .30, and my cg is far too much to the rear. I'm going to try bending a new front chin strap to extend forward of the current one. Then, maybe add a roll of fishing weight and a .45 for power [&o]. Anyway, it's a good-looking model. If you build it, be sure to add a lot of tail lightener. Lee

louierc

Lee - can you post any pictures and describe the size? I assume your comment about the longerons means the spruce was too heavy? Louie

R/C Lee

My Feedback: (3)

The spruce was too heavy behind the cg. I tend to build a little heavy, and I didn't think the 1/4" balsa stringers were strong enough. Actually, they probably are, since they are "threaded" on completion with 50# fishing line which gives it a much stronger fuselage. Wingspan is appx 58". I'll try to post some pics - hope this works. Lee

louierc

Lee - that looks great! Did you build mostly by the plans? What does it weigh? Will it fly slow? What did you use for the covering, it looks like the real thing. Thanks for sharing.

R/C Lee

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I built it exactly like the plans, except that I substituted the spruce for the longerons, something I wouldn't do again. The plans show how to thread the fishing line through the longerons to add strength to the fuselage. The "instructions" that came with it mentioned that their model came out tail heavy and that they had to melt solder into the "chin strap" of tubing to get the weight forward. Actually, they said that their model was used in the Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines movie. Since we can't buy regular Coverite any more, I used a polyester fabric that I found on Tower's site for the covering. You have to use Balsarite or some equivalent on the bare wood, then the fabric will stick. It shrinks more than the Coverite did, so I got a little movement of the end ribs, but that's not too noticeable. If I had to do it again, I'd go with Nelson's Lite Fab, which is somewhat like the old Coverite and has an adhesive on the back. Also lighter. I always use Balsarite on the wood, though. I just used two or three coats of clear nitrate lacquer on the fabric to seal it, with a shot of butyrate in the engine/exhaust area. I haven't weighed it yet, but it has a lot of area and a very deep undercambered wing, so slow flight shouldn't be a problem. My thoughts are to replace the Saito .30 with an OS .46, maybe add a platform on the "chin strap", and add a scaled down somewhat authentic-looking "suitcase" to hold the weight needed to balance it. It'll need more power just to fly with the extra weight, and I fly at 3500 feet which takes much more power. Look up the Carstens Plans site and you'll find the model. They also have another model of that era, the Blackburn All Steel. Unfortunately, it has a very long tail moment and a very short nose moment. Would take some creative thinking so that one wouldn't come out tail heavy. Lee

H5487

Lee,

Is that Carsten's plan #CF-173?

Harvey

R/C Lee

My Feedback: (3)

Yes, that's the one. They also have a set of plans for the Blackbourne All Steel which I bought, thinking if the Demoiselle flies well then I'll build the All Steel. So, if you build the Demoiselle, remember that anything you put behind the wing makes this plane very tail heavy, so build light. The fishing line that gets put through the fuselage stringers will really strengthen the fuselage, so be sure to use balsa and not spruce like I did. [] Lee

H5487

Thanks for the info, Lee. Your Demoiselle sure looks nice! I'm sure all of us would like to see you post a few more pictures of it!

Harvey

louierc

Agreed, I'd like so see some more pictures of your great build, Lee. Would it be wrong to stretch the nose moment slightly to help with balance issues?