Hey Steve,

Hope your trip is going well. It'd be great to see some more pics and the specs on the Curare 20 as well as the 40! Also, was the MK 20 designed for retracts? Does yours have them? Which ones?

With the Tipo, the unknown is with respect to how stable and predictable the smaller versions (10 and 20) will turn out to be. Although the original Tipo was a great flyer, later versions flown by top pilots had increased wing area which leads me to believe that it improved the stability and tracking.

The plans are scaled uniformly to reach a desired wing span. There is no deviation in fuse width with respect to the 60 size at a given scale. However, after reviewing the 10 and 20 size plans, I tend to agree that the width could be increased slightly (10-20% max) and deviate from true scale (see post above in reply to Don). This would also aid in arriving at a desired nose ring diameter to fit standard spinner sizes as well as allow installation of ideal size electric motors and inverted mounted engines.

After a little thought and planning, I estimate that the 10 and 20 size Tipo's could be built, with minor modifications, to 40 and 64 oz (1134 and 1814 g) respectively including retracts. Of course the AUW will largely depend on the power plant chosen. For the smaller ones, my interest is in finding the ideal electric power plant while retaining the classic piped 40-45 and 60-65 side mounted engine for the 40 and 60 size. I believe that a light 300W and 500W max output will fly the 10 and 20 sizes very nicely using 8" and 10" e-props, respectively. The electric plants will have to be high KV units spinning these smaller props at high RPM. Wheel diameter would also be increased slightly to 1.5" (38mm) for the 10 and 1.75" (44.5mm) for the 20 (equivalent to spinner cone size) compared to what's depicted on the plans. This brings the wheel base down flush to the bottom plan line.

I didn't find any problems fitting appropriate size servos size-by-side in the fuses. My preferred method though would be a center mounted P-P setup for the rudder with either a side mounted split rod servo for the elevator or dual mini servo's in the rear - the location will largely depend on CG (battery pack chosen as well as landing gear setup). It is possible that the CG offset caused by dual rear mounted mini servos for the elevators will be similar to the setup for a split rod single internal servo (light servos and carbon rods strike me as mandatory).

Finally, even though the plans emphatically say that a hatch is unnecessary, I think the bottom front of the fuse is ideally suited for a hatch to access radio and power plant gear.

I look forward to further news re the 20 Curare.

Cheers, David.

P.S. PSD files are not a problem.