SirKnight

My Feedback: (6)

Can anyone identify this sea plane? Very different with an inhedral wing. Gets on step very very fast!
Has a 73" wing span and weighs 8 pounds.

A buddy of mine had this plane setting on his work bench. Looking at it I kinda liked it very different looking. Star Wars Thing is what I called it!

I told him I never owned a sea plane, he told me I could have it! Just one catch.....he wanted to fly it once. So I agreed. We talked about it a bit and he told me the previous owner tried to fly it, but the floats filled with water and they couldn't get it up on step. And even he didn't know much about it.

So I took it home and started working on it. First I took of the covering from the floats. Noticed they weren't covered very well and there were many small areas that would let water in. Plus the balsa was very thin in spots. I studied it for awhile and took off for Walmart and picked up a can of foam.

I drilled 1/4" holes in key spots and injected foam in the floats. Had a bunch left so I did the same to the aft section of the fus. Recovered the floats and went over the whole plane with an iron to make sure everything was stuck good.

Did some mods to all the controls. Took out the center of the golden rods as I was getting a lot of slop. Replaced them with .70 carbon rods. Now no slop!

The only spare engine I had around was a YS .61 with a tuned pipe. So it went on.

Noticed it seemed a little on the tail heavy side so I stuck a big 6 volt battery pack against the firewall. Still a little bit off so I added 4 oz. of lead to the motor mount.

Set up a time with my buddy to see if it would float. Took it to a small pond near by.

In the water it looked like the rudder was about 2" under the water. So we decided to start her up and taxi it around a bit. As soon as it was moving the tail would come up (no steering). It got up on step very fast only a few feet and just a few more it was flying got up to a few feet and I shut it down (used only about quarter throttle). Did this a few times and took it home.

Added a water rudder and we set up a time the next week to fly it a local lake that the club goes to.

Next week came, got up early and headed to the lake. On arrival saw that there a group of flyers there. Everyone came by to look at it But no one seemed to know what it was.

Taxied it out and gave it about quarter throttle within a few feet it was in the air. Pushed the stick up to half and it was climbing fast. My buddy kept saying slow it down. I yelled I am as it was going around like a bullet! With a few clicks of trim I started getting the feel of it, was very stable! Tried to do a roll, but the ailerons were set at low rate. Set it high which was all I could get out them and did a very slow roll. Did a few loops and found this thing is very easy to fly.

Ask my buddy if he wanted to try it. He said sure! He agreed it was very stable, after a bit it need to land low on fuel! Told him to bring it on in, well the landing was not that great. It was coming a little hot and a little steep and wap it hit the water hard. Ended up cracking the wing spar, but it'll fly again.

SirKnight

My Feedback: (6)

One more pic. The ones that were taken while it was flying didn't come out very well.

jeffo

My Feedback: (68)

Knight-
It is a Laddie Mulusko(?) design.The same cat that designed the Northstar.Up here in Mich. He was at a float fly I attended and he had the same plane.He flew it a couple of times,but my read on the performance compared to the Northstar was the Northstar was a much better flying plane.Goodluck on your Star War project.
-Jeffo

seaplane

I agree with Jeffo as I also saw Laddie fly it. I think RC Modeler had the plans available.........Seaplane

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

it's an Aquabird.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_32...tm.htm#3235261

paintballer1

no but very interesting

cyclops2

It looks like a sport version of the USN Seamaster. A 6 engined jet powered seaplane from around the 60's to 70's ?

Wayne22

My Feedback: (2)

The full scale was a ground effect homebuilt. I saw it in Air Progress many, many years ago..

johnboyrc

The Aquabird was in the Sept. 1992 RCM Magazine. It says 60" wing, but not sure if that includes the winglets (7lbs also). I bought the plans and started building the fuse a couple years ago. The wing is a foam core, and I need to order some from a good foam cutter. It's suppose to have a big cowl on the front, that's why it's tail heavy. With the four stroke on it, a bigger prop with less pitch may be nicer, less speed but more air being pushed through. Your ailerons look like regular balsa ailerons, constant shape which will lessen the roll rate (but much easier to setup). The plans show tapered ailerons, similar to the northstar.
I would love to see what the radio setup looks like, is it possible to see a few more pics SirKnight?

seaplane

Laddie (striped shirt) flew his Aquabird at the Skymaster's Float Fly a couple years ago.

SirKnight

My Feedback: (6)

This one has a built up wing. Plus I think it's size has been blown up a little bit, it's a lot bigger than the pictures I've seen.

I'll post some pics of the radio set up when I get some time.

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

The Soviets fooled around with surface-effect vessels that had wing planform such as this. They weren't ships, they weren't exactly airplanes, but they carried huge payloads very fast in ground effect. Imagine a 250 kt jet-powered liberty ship. Go to Google and search sometime on "ekranoplan"

marijn

Haha it's very clearly a modified lippish style Wig vehicle. Wig(Wing in ground effect) vehicles fly very low over the water, to create an aircushion under the wings, which gives you more lift. At the same time the wingtip vortexes can't really expand, because they have no room, as the water is so near to the plane. This saves you drag, so flying in ground effect reduces drag and increases lift.

Dr. Lippish came up with a ground effect vehicle just like yours, only with a smaller wingspan compered to the length of the craft. It is very clearly that the designer of you plane got inspired by these ground effect vehicles. So....in fact your plane shouldn't fly higher than half of it's wingspan, but as your model clearly has bigger wings it can fly as a normal airplane. Lippish Wig vehicles could fly higher too, only that cost a lot of fuel to stop them from falling out of the sky

make a search at google for X-114, or X-113, or flightship 8, or just look at www.se-technology.com/wig, there you will find all the information on ground effect vehicles you may need.

Marijn

LADDIE

The Dr. Lippish design did inspired me when I was designing the Aquabird.
Laddie.