As our UK Telemaster gentleman says, we will help you with your Telemaster build. Just use the PM feature of RCU (Private Mail) to contact me if you don't want to ask the question in the forums, though it would be good if you did. If you have questions, you can bet that there are probably 10k more folks in the world that would benefit by reading the answer.


Ed Cregger

Great! Thanks Dave.  I will get those pictures blown up and print them out. It's so much easier when you have a picture to reference off of. (especially with this being my first build).  Now, I know pieces they are mentioning!

Well I actually started last night. Got the rib's punched out and glued onto the 2 spars. I'm taking this very slow.

It looks fine so far.

Try putting some greaseproof paper or thin plastic sheet between the plan and the structure, that way the plan won't stick to the airframe and you'll be able to use the plan again if you need to repair the model.

When my IT Guru turns up I'll upload a few pictures of my Barn Door Wing Senior Telemaster Build. All of the main components are built, I only need to build a flap and an aileron, to cover the model, and to install the radio and engine.

I hope to display the model and the rest of the Telemaster range at a flying event on Saturday 26th June. It's a good job that we have a Bank Holiday on Monday and that this coming Saturday is forecast to be wet. So it looks like it's D-25!

Wish me luck.

Awesome thanks dave! I'm not really sure how to set the 1st rib where both wings will touch to get the correct angle. I'm guessing i'll just make the first ribsexactly 90 degrees but there will be a gap when the wings fit together. I could make some type of piece to go in between them to correct this.

I have both the left and right main wings almost finished now.  I am going to make sure they will fit in my car tomorrow once they are together and then I will epoxy them together. I'm going to use seperate servo's for each aileron. This way if I want to get froggy I can set up flaperons. Thanks for the help so far Dave! I'm sure I will have many more questions. I was originally going with a saito 1.50 but I have a friend who is bringing a 1.20 to the field tomorrow and he only wants $150 for it.  He mounted it to his sr telemaster today and is going to let me fly it tomorrow to see how I like it. I will let you guys know on the power once I test it.

It will be easier to get it to hover if you build it without dihedral, the lifting tail surface or the flat bottomed airfoil and stick in a 32cc gas engine instead of the .61 they recommend.

In fact, I really question your choice of airframe for your choice of use and intended purpose. There are a LOT better high-alpha designs out there. How about a Yak 54 or an Edge 540? Or a helicopter?

A like comparison to this thread might be: "I want to race my Basset Hound."

I started this because I want a Telemaster, I will have 3 video camera's on board and wanted unlimited vertical and to be able to hover if I feel froggy (without the camera's). I have several 3d planes that are built specifically for hovering and 3d. That is not the intended purpose for this airplane. I do appreciate the recomendation though.

Dave,
I flew the 1.25 Saito GK today. It is a great motor and I will be purchasing it this weekend. it gives me almost unlimited vertical on the Telemaster ARF. I'll keep the thread posted with updates.

Here is the motor. Picked it up last night. Looks almost new.

What size saito is that? I have a senior telemaster with a saito 91 and it flies fantastic. I can basically pull throttle down to almost idle, and watch the airplane slowly float in front of me. You'll have a blast flying it. Keep us updated on the build!!!

Thanks Large Scale. I can't wait to get her flying.  That is a Saito 1.25. I will have a little extra weight on board.

This is the latest state of the build of my barn door Telemaster, I've twenty days to complete it if I want to show it off at a Fly-In on the 26th.

The ply plate will be used to mount the elevator servo, the screws biting into the balsa and ply on the underside.

Wing looks great dave! I took a few days off the project to give myself a break. I hope to start back tonight so long as all my work is done. I put the fin pieces together and am now finishing the horizontal stab. Next will be starting the fuse. I've looked at the plans and instructions and I'm afraid the hardest part yet will be the fuse.

I though some of you may find this interesting. So I contacted Jim Martin and worked with him on this bit of history.
Hope that I am not posting it out of place.
Jay Burkart
History of the Telemaster

The Telemaster was designed by Karl-Heinz Denzin while he, Denzin, was employed by Alexander Engel KG of Knittlingen, Germany. Older free flight modelers will recognize one of the design features which is the lifting stabilizer. Because of the lifting stabilizer, the usual balance point of "one-third of the wing chord aft of the leading edge" did not apply to Telemasters and modelers put the balance point anywhere from 40% of the chord to 50%.

At the time that I introduced the Telemaster into the USA market (I'm guessing the late 1960's or early 70's) the digital proportional radio hadn't been invented and the usual control system was the reed system. Reeds required an airplane that flew itself a bit more than the later digital proportional required, so the lifting stabilizer was a pretty good match to the reed systems as the stab lifted a bit more when airspeed increased which caused the nose to drop somewhat and a more level flight path to be attained. This inherent stability also made (and still makes) the Telemaster a good trainer for beginning RCers.

The first Telemaster kits that were imported from Alexander Engel had conventional "D tube" leading edge wing sheeting. Sometime in the 70's (and the dates are hard for me to remember) there was a bad shortage of balsa wood which was caused by the building of huge tanker ships for liquified natural gas. At this time Alex Engel substituted Duracell sheeting for the balsa D tube cover. The Duracell was awful. We had a lot of complaints because the plastic sort of a hard foam cracked and broke when it was bent. So, future large Telemasters started to use wood stringers along the top surfaces of the leading edge. It seemed that these sub spars apparently produced a more even airflow over the wing and probably turned out to be an aerodynamic improvement.

Telemaster was a German design and the original Telemaster kits were manufactured in Germany, but the name "Telemaster" has no German roots whatsoever. Tele comes from the Greek and Master is an English language word. The airplane could have been called Telemeister, which would have been Greek and German, but it wasn't, and the reason is that Alex Engel was a huge admirer of the United States of America. Alex had been a German soldier, a radar operator during WW2, and he was the operator who detected the huge Allied invasion of Sicily. Alex was captured by the Americans and ended up in a US POW camp in Nebraska where he got an English language dictionary. He studied English and became an interpreter for the US government. But he wanted to go home to Germany after the war and he returned to his home in Knittlingen which is a small town just north of Stuttgart.

An interesting thing about the Telemaster is that it was used to run “pull strings”, used as pilot leads to pull guy wires and electric wire over mountain ranges and other natural barriers in Europe. As of late the Telemaster has also become a tool used by scientists to do different atmospheric sampling tasks and aerial surveying. Also the Telemaster has become a popular subject for testing of autonomous flight controls. So it is really amazing how a 50 year old well-designed model still is so popular and to this day is venerated as a great design and keeps being used in new roles.

Jim Martin
Former owner of Hobby Lobby


Jay Burkart

Well the Telemaster Sales UK "works" Barn Door Wing Senior Telemaster finally flew in December 2010. If you go to my website www.telemastersalesuk.co.uk and click on "Our Telemasters" and then on "Original Design" you'll get a few stills of the completed model and a short poor quality video of its maiden flight.

The deadstick landing was caused by the engine not being adjusted properly to run at low speed. It was too cold to mess about! The flaps work but don't seem to make that much difference, other than that it flies like any other STM. As stately as a galleon.

A dle 20 would be perfect for this plane