And how quick Ray can scan
Thanks for the scan Ray - I recievedthe construction article from AAMMay 1974 fine and have read it now. Man, I cannot imagine a design contests like that would be possible today for (modern) pattern but we are at the hay days of old classic pattern when the pattern plane design contest in AAM was held.
When I read the article about the Fakir-I (there was also "second place"Fakir-II, see below for info) my memory wake up when I saw the nose gear doors. I had the exact same nose gear door arrangement on my Mach 1 back in the 1970th and I remember now I got the idea from this article about Fakir-I in AAM. Two door halves and a spring in the middle keeping the doors open when retracts down and noseleg pressing on the spring, and closing the doors when retracted. Simple and bulletproof. Although it was metal to metal (spring-noseleg) it never caused any radio "noice" (I had an EK Logictrol super pro 7 ch radio back then, nice quality US radio but not super expensive). See images below of the nose door arrangement on the Fakir-I.
Some summary from the article in AAM below where Fakir-I (and Fakir-II) was presented.
It is drawings in the magazine also on both planes but I post not any of them here because of copyrights.
Fakir I
By Howard C. Mottin
The February ('73) issue of AAM contained the announcement of a Super Design Contest, based on the drawings of Bob Lopshire.
The botton view of the Fakir was on cover of the Doylstown World Championship program (also on October '71 AAM) and the top view appeared on the cover of February '73 AAM. Using the rules for the contest as a guide, I created the idea of the Fakir-I. The contest called for the plane to be designed on paper first and then constructed according to those drawings. Finally, the rules reguired that the flight characteristics be demonstrated at the '73 NATS in Oshkosh.
Wingspan 61 inch, Wing area 650 sq in, Ovl length 52 in, Weight 7 lb, engine 60.</p>
On the drawing in the AAM May 1974 it say:
Full-size plans available - see page 84.
I do not know what it say on page 84 but I checked AMA Plans Service and this Fakir (I) was not listed so I suppose a high resulution scan and resize to scale 1:1 of plan the AAM will be one way of getting a plan to build from.</p>
Fakir II
Mottin and Lund where neck and neck down the straightaway (they both captured the essence of the Super design Contest), but Fakir II was edged out by a nose (spinner?). Here is a look at the "other" winner.
By Bruce Lund
I gathered data from the most popular designs in use today. Averaging their areas and moments, I put all the data into a bag, shook it up and came out with:
Wingspan 62 in, Wing area 679 sg in, Length 51,5 in, Nose moment 14,5 in, Tail moment 31,25 in, stab area 177 sq in, Rudder height 9.375 in.
The wing layout and the airfoil is the same as Don Colemans Cutlass Supreme, but with barn door ailerons a la Banshee. The stab is Tiger Tail, The nose moment is the same as the Super Kaos, Banshee and Tiger Tail. The tail moment is close to Mach 1</p>
Plans service is not avaliable for the plan reproduced here.
[My comment: Plan is in the AAM and could probably be scanned in high resolituion and rezised to scale 1:1 to produce a printable PDF or similar.]</p>
It is kind of strange Fakir-I has not been up for discussion before here in this forum?
It is a nice plane in my opinion - look at the two colorpictures below. I could not find infoin AAM how it fly (page 93 was missing in the scan from Ray, maybe it iswritten something there).
And it would also probably be a good candidate for electric motor today for those that would try that since there should be rather easy to make a hatch from canopy to motor and place battery, ESC etc in that compartment.
In the design contest rules it was said flight characteristics be demonstrated at the '73 NATS in Oshkosh. Now, was it flown at the 1973 NATS? And if it was competing in the NATS that year what place did it reach?
/Bo
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