I haven't been up here for a few months (computer crash and work).
Just came across this one. HOT!!

130162411803 You know where. May not be there long.

You know, being in the hobby today it's almost incomprehensible that Great Planes ever produced such beautiful kits of a competition aircraft. The good news is we have people like deadstick who are still doing it.

David

Nooooo... I had ebay set up to where it would email me when the keyword "tiporare" showed up. I never was notified of this listing! Frustrating.

It was nice that GP carried those aircraft, but don't give them that much credit for bringing great things or beautiful kids to market early on. I will give them credit for growing the business, improving and modernizing some real classics, and adding to their heritage in a positive way.

Great planes has over the years absorbed (incomplete list):

Andews (AAMCO) where the Aeromaster came from

Top Flite - monokote - lots of kits/designs - and they have added under that brand name too

Bridi - original product line included Kaos, Super Kaos, Super Sportster, et al (the DB, UFO, Deception which they never brought to market)

Tipo 720 and Illusion were aquired from WK hobbies (my first Tipo came from WK)

Very recently they now have acquired Lanier and Carl Goldberg Models.
Maybe the Falcon 56, Sr. Falcon, Skylark and Skylane 62 will live on!

From what I understand, all of the glass molds for the pattern ships were sold back into the model industry. So they are out there. Just not much being done with them.

It is good to see some of the older designs resurected. I know DeadStick has a growing catalog of the better designs. Some good wood kits in smaller businesses. Good to see some work out there on Curare and other designs too.

Did the Super Sportster come from Bridi? I always thought it was based on the Aamco Trainermaster. Am I wrong?

-Johnny-

Don Anderson derived the Super Sportster series from Bridi's RCM Sportster. Anderson explains this in the RCM construction article for the SS 120.

Raindave has that right....

The Bridi sportster was a smaller .25 size plane if I recall. Same sort of "classic" styling with the turtle deck and all. Anderson expanded on that basic design and styling.

The Andrews Trainermaster and Sportmaster were excellent in their own right. I owned a sportmaster at one time..... real nice flying plane. Only had a K&B61 for power in mine. But I recall one club member years ago who powered his sportmaster with a Rossi 60 Sure woke up some of the old-timers in the club with that bird!

I can't say for sure that the original Sportster wasn't 'influenced' by Lou Andrews designs, but the appearance and construction are certainly very similar. AAMCO released the Minimaster which was a .25 sized design and looks similar to the Sportster. The original (prototype) Minimaster was actually a 40-45 sized airplane - sort of a modernized (at the time) Trainermaster: bolt-on wing; no rounded wingtips, a bit sleeker fuselage. If memory serves, both the Sportster series and Andrews '-master' designs had semi-semetrical airfoils. Great airplanes. Back in the '70s my dad and I built 3 Aeromasters, 2 Trainermasters, 1 Sportmaster; 1 Sportster .25; 2 Sportster 40s. They all flew great and most had long flying lives.
-Will B

Aeromasters and the other Andrews designs like the H-ray and X-ray were common at my field when I was learning to fly.

For those not familiar, the Sportmaster was basically a mono-plane version of the Aeromaster - slightly longer fuselage, and of course a larger wing planform. Outstanding flying aircraft... very robust too.

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Me too. eBay didn't deliver again.

I'll never understand why GP went with a wooden wing and a fiberglass fuselage. I bought the Airborne version with the foam wing and glass fuselage. Wish I had another one now.


Ed Cregger

I'm waiting until I get a bandsaw or small tablesaw so I can make an accurate jig to solder those cabanes. I'm not going to start this one until I can get all that wire bent and soldered dead on.

Wooden wing? That's weird... even the original construction article had a foam wing. Maybe that was the first few runs of the kit. Interesting to find that the real name of Great Planes version was the tipo 720.

That has to be the best selling pattern plane of all time.

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Yep, the original GP kit provided a wooden wing.

They had to differentiate because of the Tiporare's successor, the Hippo Tipo.


Ed Cregger

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Both of my Trainermasters had symmetrical airfoils, not semi symmetrical. They were my first low wing "full house" models. Loved'em both.


Ed Cregger

They didn't. I've got a GP Tipo on my pool table right now, and the wing is foam. So is the one in the auction referenced in the first post.



grim

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Actually, the first offering was with the built-up wing. Later they offered the foam wing version. I wrote them about their mistake. I like to think that my letter, and those of others, helped to change their minds and caused them to issue the foam wing version later on.

Ed Cregger

The RCM Sportster had a flat bottomed wing, so it was not the progenitor.

I too suspect that the Trainermaster was the inspiration for the Super Sportster series, but if one pays careful attention to the airfoil shape, they are nearly identical to the RCM Trainer by Joe Bridi. Only Don Anderson knows for sure.


Ed Cregger

Here are Jim Feldmann's words:

Cool. Mine is from 1986. I got it for my 16th birthday. I need to start a '21 Year Tipo Build' thread.

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I know it is confusing, but look at the RCM Sportster's airfoil and then look at the Super Sportster's airfoil. The former is flat-bottomed, the latter is fully symmetrical. Being performance oriented, I always look at such details. Perhaps the authors meant "in spirit" and not in the particulars? Hard to argue with the article. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Ed Cregger