eastlondoner

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Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

They are all very nice! Specs? Plans?

BIll S.

eastlondoner

Thanks, Bill.
The ones with purple wings have 55" wingspan, while the others are around 59". Most of the fuselage pods are made with 1/8" liteply, although the second one and blue-winged one have 1/8" balsa with the usual 1/16" ply doublers. All have a semi-symmetrical airfoil, although the blue winged one and red wing design have thicker wing sections with narrower chords, so they have very pleasant flight characteristics. The first one has dihedral in the wings, the others don't.
I put between 1 - 2 degrees postive incidence on the main wing, 0 degrees on the tailplane/ stabilizer. 3 degrees side thrust and 3 degrees downthrust, with the exception of the last design (red), which has no downthrust.
I might draw up the plans neater before uploading them.
They're such simple designs to build and if there's ever a bad/ serious crash/ damage to the pod, the boom can be unbolted with the tail feathers still attached and only a new pod would then need to be built. Minimal 'waste'.

Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

They look like they could lend themselvs to scaling up very easily!

ratshooter

Here is a boom model I built many years ago. Its my own design. I got the airfoil from a Thunder Tiger Tiger Stik. Sorry for the bad pics. They are photos of a photo. But you get the idea. It was powered by a TT GP 42. The pod was made from 1/8" luan paneling. The boom is poplar split to 3/4" from home depot. I made several. They were darn good flying planes that could be built in a day.

MILDBILL-RCU

My Feedback: (6)

Years ago there was a plane called "the yard dart". It had a carbonfiber tube fuselage & a hard wood profile type center section to mount the engine & wing center ribs to. I loved that plane & have wanted to build another for many years now. Well, here is my attemp at it. This time i made it a 60 size & used an aluminum channel for the tail boom. I also added L.E.D. lights inside to allow me to fly at our night flys we have.

eastlondoner

@ Bill,

Yeah it's really easy to scale up; I'm busy building a big 2 metre (79") wingspan version of it at the moment. Got a OS FS200 4-stroke ready for it.

@ ratshooter,

Cool. [8D] Seeing that design with the merging twin booms makes me think of a kit (trainer type) that Balsa USA used to make, although it didn't have the same conventional look in the front. Will try Google it later.

@ Mildbill,

That's really interesting; I'd never heard of the Yard Dart before. What did you use for the forward fuselage? Hardwood? I've tried using a double laminate of 1/4" ply on a previous design, but there was still a fair amount of flex in the 'profile' when I bolted everything on, which kinda put me off. Any similar problems?

I took this pic at the flying field late this afternoon:

ratshooter

Balsa USA still makes tha plane. Its called a Swizzle Stick. I built one for my wife in about 1979. It flew ok but I didn't like the exposed gas tank of the wood beam motor mounts. And it was the insiration for my boom plane. I ended up covering in the tail section and that was one of my favorite planes to fly. It was really nothing more than a sweet stick with a cabin of sorts. Plus I made several more planes based on that original boom design. Here are some pics.

ratshooter

A couple more from the same family. These are pictures of the pictures so they are'nt too good but you get the idea.

eastlondoner

@ ratshooter,

Dig the pre-war US colour scheme on your one stick pic. [8D]
I really enjoy the simplicity of these types of designs; a kind of a RC blank canvas that's so easy to personalise.

I use Profilm/ Oracover for my models.

eastlondoner

The 2-metre wingspan (79") stick's wing takes shape:

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Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

looks great Eastlondoner!

nice size too.

Built-up balsa wing?

Bill S.

eastlondoner

Thanks Bill.

Yeah it's the biggest sport plane/ stick I've scratch-built so far.
The wings are foam/veneer, so not as light as a conventional built-up balsa wing, although very quick n' easy to make.

I've started on the pod now. Not sure what thickness balsa to use for the tail feathers. Usually use 1/4" balsa for the .40-.60 size planes, I guess it should be OK for this one too..

KitBuilder

Sort a looks like the Dura-Plane from the 80s?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...og&sa=N&tab=wi

Mike

eastlondoner

Sure does Mike. The Duraplane and the Byron Originals Pipe Dream from the same era were big inspirations.
What put me off the Duraplane was the use of u-channel aluminium for the boom, which flexes too much for my liking, compared to the square thin-wall aluminium tubing that I use. Maybe that's why they only made the Duraplanes with tricycle undercarriages, unless I'm wrong (although I did see some tail draggers in that google search; dunno if they were officially made by Duraplane like that)? I remember that they had a more aerobatic version as well.

Also, I preferred a 'normal' wooden pod structure (either 1/8" balsa with 1/16" doublers, or 1/8" lite-ply sides) than the PVC/ guttering idea, and I'm no fan of rubber bands for holding the wing; prefer the look and fit of nylon wing bolts.

The whole idea behind these was if I do have any (serious) crashes, the entire boom and tail feathers can be unbolted and maybe just a new pod would need to be built; minimal waste etc.
It's also easy to make a pod n' boom arrangement like this for any 'spare' wing lying around..

ratshooter

EastLondoner I like the foam wing idea and thought that was what your first plane had for a wing. I have an old Johhny Cashburn JC trainer that has a foam sheeted wing for the front part and cap strips that make it look like a built up wing. I used to go in Cashburns shop and watch them cut wings. Johhny was a nice guy and I bought my first plane and radio from him.

I have been giving some thought to making another pod and boom plane like the green one but using a SPAD wing instead of balsa with the luan paneling for the pod since it works so well and used to cost about $10 for a 4x8' sheet. Its hard to find now but the shooting range I go to uses it for target backstops and the next time I am there I will find out where they buy it from. I will most likely use coroplast for the tail feathers. This should be real cheap to build. I like cheap.

I flew my spad saturday and thats a fine flying model. Wings are super quick to make too.

All of my planes were and are covered with monocoat. I think next plane I cover will be covered with Coverite.

eastlondoner

@ ratshooter,

Cool. I've thought about trying some of the SPAD designs from the www.spadtothebone.com website, but I guess I'm in some sort of halfway limbo between the SPAD construction styles (i.e. aluminium fuz/boom) and more traditional r/c plane building.

WRT Monokote, I was quite tempted to get some when I visited a hobby shop just outside Toronto back in April, although I'm very happy with how well Profilm / Oracover works.

Here's a few pics of the Byron Originals Pipe Dream, the plane that started all the 'departing from the conventional r/c plane' thoughts (for me) in the late 80's:

ratshooter

Hello East. I rember Byron originals but sure don't remember that plane. The last monocoat I used didn't seem to stick and shrink as well as I remembered it doing. Thats why I am going to try a different covering material.

The Spad stuff is fun. Its a whole new way of building and they are some tough models. I flew mine into a curb and bent the snot out of the landing gear and cracked the fuse in 3 places. I just glued more PVC over the cracks and straightened the gear and was ready to go in about an hour. I also stalled it in after the engine quit and it broke both nylon engine bolts and that was the extent of the damage. They just a kittle more than a wood plane but I already have some plans for making the next one lighter.

If I make another pod plane I may even just make a wood chissis for the fuse and cover it with 2mm coroplast instead of wood. Then no monocoat will be needed at all.

eastlondoner

@ ratshooter,

I've only seen one SPAD design locally, the tail feathers and 'wing' were also coroplast, cut kitchen board for the engine mount, etc.

Here's a pic of it; really crappy pic taken with the cellphone I had at the time:



Here's another earlier design, from circa 2004: loosely 'assembled' to see what it'd look like before final assembly: half a profile, half a boom thingy, but there was too much flex on the profile part (1/4" x2 ply laminate) when the wing etc was attached.
I scrapped the profile part of the fuse at that point and a few weeks later built another more conventional lite-ply pod:

Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

I remember the Pipe Dream. It was interesting how you could adjust just how much dihedral it had. Always wanted one back then.

eastlondoner

Brings back memories, Bill.

I've nearly finished the 'pod' of the 79" wingspan pod n' boom sport plane.
It's going kinda slow at the moment with all the Christmas stuff going on; hopefully I'll get time to put together the tail feathers and start covering next week.

Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

making nice progresss!

Its 25* F today here in NY. Zero desire to even work on one when its that cold!

Bill

eastlondoner

I can empathise Bill. I so want to get building further on the plane, but I'm not venturing into the workshop when it's cold like this. Having 'flu at the moment doesn't help either. [&:]
I'm on leave from the 22nd, so hopefully I can make some progress with it before Christmas.

eastlondoner

Finally finished the 2-metre version. Saito 125a up front. Maiden flight next Saturday, weather permitting. [8D]

Twin_Flyer

My Feedback: (4)

Looks great! built up wing or 'plast?

Bill S.