Tim, your right it was one of my favorite !! I was lucky enough to be able to fly with those guy's back then and I can't tell you how much fun we had !!
As for the paint jobs Bryan, all of the guy's painted their airplanes and most used the same scheme so you would know who was flying just by the paint job. Remember Dave Brown's ?? Steves Bootleger was that way as well..
Curt Oburg just built a Super Cuaure and when I saw it, I reconized it as one I took a picture of 35 years ago !!
He flew it with us @ the Hodges contest this past May...

Dave

Paul, Thanks for the specs

All I have fora Bootlegger planwas a Build manual pic that I scaled up. That was the reason for wanting the specs. I overlayed my compensator plan on top the that scaled up manual pic. But after viewing the pics you posted I think the scaled up bootlegger from the manual is a lttle fatter then the Southern RC Bootlegger plan you have. Here's what I came up with. See pic . It appears that the Bootlegger is just a strentched out Compensator. Similar to UFO being a stretched out Dirty Birdy.

Thanks for posting the overlay very interesting the length of b legger versus compensator. I have built 3 Compensators and best one was streched about 1 inch wing saddle back. Anyone built a wood fuse bootlegger I know thats not likely but just thought may learn something?<br type="_moz" />

Tim,
This is a fiberglass top half of a Bootleger that a friend of mine damaged, He gave it to me because he did not see any use for it.
I plan on building a wood fuse and use this for the pipe cover. Thats my Compensator with a Dirty Birdy canopy in the background..

Dave..

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Hey Dave, I wonder if that fuse was one of "Don&rsquo;s Direct Discount Model Sales", since it&rsquo;s epoxy glass and not the Blue poly used by Southern RC.</div>

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">
Bryan thanks for doing the overlay
.</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">I&rsquo;ve wondered about the actual differences between both planes.
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">I just never got around to checkingthe differences between plans.

Just a note I actually have what looks like 2diffrent plans of the Compensator.
</div>

Paul, You are right !! it was not a So. RC kit, The guy that gave it to me said it was very thin glass and he did not think it would last !!
I guess he was right and that's why I have it now I reinforced it and feel it will work just fine !!
Dave..

This Bootlegger sounds it was a hot little number!! I don't see how it could have gone under the rader for so long.

Thanks to Paul the fuse part of plans have been printed and now I can begin to see the build possibilities for wood fuse with Dave's pipe top made of fiberglass. Wood is a better material to use from the vibration standpoint being reduced easier onradio/servos. Still making plans to attend the Prattville contest Sunday and make tracing of Dave's pipe tunnel area. He has the part lined up to have mold made and more pipe tunnels from his old Bootlegger.

Tim

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Two Compensator plans? Both Southern RC?

Here's the updated Compensator/Bootlegger overlay.
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Tim,

It appears that there's goin to several Compuleggers, aaaahhh, I mean wood fuse Bootleggers based on the response to your thread..

Heres more cool Bootlegger pics from the David PhillipsCollection at theTrenton RC Flyers website.

A few more Bootleggers.</p>

The top left photo in both of Bryan's picture post belong to Steve Helms the designer of Bootlegger. I like the design and will try to copy paint scheme on the plane that we all draw from the various plans. Bryan, Dave, and Paul what is your opinion of the flat vertical fin or at least the way I read plan it is flat.

Tim<br type="_moz" />

Despite what Trenton might say, I believe photos 2 and 6 in the previous to last post are Compensators.

Picture #8 in the previous post is a Deception with RE setup - sometimes also referred to as an Exception (integral fin, full length rudder in most cases). There are many similarities between the Bootlegger and the Exception but the signature is in the tail feathers.

David

David

Do you have copy of the Exception/Deception RE plans? Might get some ideas from that drawing also.

Tim

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Paul

What differences do you see in the 2 Compensator plans? I know that Rhett is suppose to have streched the fuse on one but always thought it to be undocumented. I may have faulty memory or bad information but Eureka does offer streched fuse version.

Tim

Tim,

There were no published Exception plans - that is, with a RE setup. The photo pretty much says it all though except for a possible pipe floor and modified FW. You might be interested in following Kevin's "ground up" build on RCG. He's basically building a wood Exception fuse with foam core surfaces.

The Deception plans I can email you - I should have your address at home.

David

Good catch on the two Compensators. The other is an odd one isadeception at least as far as what it really is.hehe. Althought #8 looks as if the rudder does not go all the way down past the stab the Canopy seems to be a little too short for a Standard Deception asitbarely makesit past the center of thewing,. See pics. It could be a Deception, but I still think #8'looks like a Bootlegger with Deception style rudder. We could call it a Deceptulegger.

Bryan

I feel i must respond to this thread. It is very interesting and brings back a lot of memories. I built and flew 5 different bootleggers. the one that you say belonged to tom street I built and sold to him.. I flew it at the nats the year before. I would sell him my last years models. i believe I sold him 2 maybe 3 bootleggers. they are a flyers airplane they were a little harder to handle than the compensator, faster, required more concentration to fly. they are a clean sheet design, the bootlegger is not a modified compensator and if you do the measurements you will find that to be true. The proportions are different. Steve Helms designed the airplane and flew it with great success. the fuse was polyester and heavy as hell. In its heydey, the Rossi was king and they were impossible to get. Only the privileged few got them. The rest of us flew OPS and they were very cantankerous and very inconsistent. Nothing lasted very long,, plugs, servos, you name it. the typical prop was a 10.5x7 modified and they turned about 15-16000 rpm..The closeup you see of the nose of Steve's plane has a variable pitch prop which Steve flew with some success. I flew the plane for 3 or 4 years.

Mike,

Interesting tales. I noticed what looks like an MK varioprop on the front of Steve's Boot. Hanno flew the same kind of prop on the Magic in the early 80's and I was wondering what the vintage of that particular Boot might be. Webra short stroke up front?

I also saw a Boot in the pics with a red head OPS; these were the three port machines. Did they not perform well compared to the Rossi and Webra back then?

Er..., what does cantankerous mean? I guess I ought to look it up.

David

drmike,

Thanks for chiming in. It's always very cool when someone in the know posts about these type of Pattern planes in this case the Bootlegger and gives a report of its' flight characteristics.

My understanding of the Bootlegger is from forum posts from others who flew them. I was lead to believe thatthe Bootlegger was based on the Compensator not that it'sa modified Compensator. The overlays show that they are different. But they also seem related.

I would not knowas I'mjust making comparison between the two. The Bootlegger is longer andhas a taller tail moment above and below the thrust line as compared to theCompensator. The wing is also different. But the same can be said of the Dirty Birdy vd UFO comparison. Kinda hard to deny that the UFO had it's roots inthe Dirty Birdy. You would know better than most as far as where the Bootlegger had it's origins.

I like them both. I have a short kit from Eureka RC Airpanes but also thought it would be cool if I bashed it into a Bootlegger as I have more rear exhaust 61 engines than side exhaust.

With todays lighter epoxy glass fuses thanks to Don, this would at least solve the heavyt problem and if it flew faster then I wonder what it can do now.

Regards

Bryan

Also, the Compensator, I think, used a diamond airfoil stab and the Bootlegger's was more conventional symetrical airfoil. I believe the wing airfoils were similar or identical between the two planes.

I remember seeing Steve fly the Bootlegger once with the variable pitch prop. Was interesting to watch him reverse the pitch and "brake" after touchdown.

I agree with Dr. Mike, the OPS was a real power house, but tempermental. I've been an O.S. man for decades, since running the "Gold Head" back in the late 60's. They typically didn't have quite the HP of a few of the other top brands such as Rossi, OPS, or Webra but nearly always gave consistent performance. My wife remembers, when I became frustrated with the latest "gotta have it" engine, I would tell her I was performing an "O.S. overhaul", meaning I jerked it out of the plane and bolted in a new O.S. 95% of the time - Problem solved!

I'm still flying my old yellow rag Southern R/C Tiger Tail, which is over 20 years old with many hundreds of flights by myself and others. It has the blue poly glass fuse. I think one place the Bootlegger and other planes picked up weight was in the pipe compartment floor that had to be glassed into the fuse and then insulated with at least 3/16 in foam or balsa. Depending on insulation material and adhesives, this probably added substantial weight to the plane in many cases.

Jim Kirkland designed the Beachcomber for proportional control he did use some borrowed elements of reed planes is his setup. Was the Beachcomber a clean sheet design most certainly but with ideas from eariler designs. The Compensator used the diamond stab from Kirkalnds Intruder but was also longer by about 4 inches than the Tiger Tail/Sweetator and longer by over 2 inches than the Intruder. These were all planes from Southern RC and from the same general geographic location Southern Alabama panhandle of Flordia. It is safe to say that Steve Helms probabily did borrow ideas from his Southern RC fellow flyers and designers. At the same time how much could you change with the 10 cc rule for power in book. Changes came as more power was made from later engines ie bigger planes with longer moments to smooth up flying even further. The Bootlegger is 3 inches longer and no diamond stab, but with slightly less area than a Compensator. I will still try to build a bootlegger with wood fuse using the Compensator has basis for the former placement aft of wing saddle but use, bootlegger length, side area, and flying surfaces.

Tim

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The Bootlegger was a great design. I flew several in the mid 80's with being one of Dr. Mike's. I won the '86 NATS in Advanced pattern with a boot. I'll see if I can find some pics of my old planes. I had a Rossi in the one I flew in the '84 NATS. A OS in the 86 model.

Good Eye David , Those pictures #2 and #6 are indeed Compensators. The #2 picture is the airplane that I flew in the Tangerine back in the late 70s or early 80s. That airplane was a So. RC wood kit and had a Dirty Birdy canopy that made it look a lot like the Bootlegger.
Dave...