Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Back in the early 90s, when practically everyone in our Atlanta RC club was still flying pattern aircraft, there was a guy that built and flew a FK Speeda. I think it was a FK glass and foam version of the Blue Angel. What a beautiful aircraft! It had an OS 61 SF ABC pumper long stroke engine with a pipe for power and trike Spring Air retracts. It was super fast and so graceful, with incredibly large loops and could do a slow roll from horizon to horizon. I loved that design but try as I may I could not get a kit from the US distributor, Mutchler’s hobbies located in Corydon, Indiana. I had one on back order for many months and finally in mid 1992 gave up and ordered a Great Planes Tiporare from Tower for $180 with shipping. Later on I ordered an OS 61SF ABC Pumper long stroke #17712, a pipe and header and a Sullivan flex mount to go with it.

By 1992, competitive pattern flying with Tiporare class rocket ships had decreased, but I didn’t care because I loved the way these aircraft flew and considered them the zenith of pattern aircraft design. Apparently there are many that agree with me because Tiporare class kits on ebay sell very well and demand premium prices. I’ve also seen post on RCU about flyers whishing that the SPA would create a venue for flying these ballistic missiles.

I started building the kit right away and by August, the build was moving along pretty well only to be interrupted by our relocation to Iowa. Iowa has a super great winter building season that last at least ten months or more, so when we got settled in I had a lot of snowy cold days to work on the Tiporare.

I made pretty good progress on the Tiporare in Iowa. The wing was sheeted, joined, the center section glassed and the stab, rudder, and the Spring Air trike gear installed. By May of 1994 we had paid or dues in snow and ice country and were given the gift of returning to Atlanta.

During the summer and winter of 1994 I got the fuselage and wing center section painted and the wing, stab and rudder Monokoted. By mid 1995 the OS 61 and radio gear was installed and it was almost ready for flight. At that point, much to my dismay the yellow Perfect Paint demons attacked my beautiful white Perfect Paint and turned it ugly YELLOW. Not so perfect! The white (now yellow) paint was used as the base color on the fuselage, wing center section and main gear wheel wells. Disheartened, I removed the un-started engine, radio and retracts. Sadly, I let the Tiporare collect dust in the shop until I was recently using some Top Flite LustreKote, MonoKote matching paint, on my Howard Engineering Kwik Fli III build ( http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/Howa...2434444/tm.htm ). I did some research on the white LustreKote paint and discovered that it did not yellow. I had the paint solution I needed and it was time to get the Tiporare airborne! The first order of business was ordering a new Futaba 9C Super PCM radio with digital servos and some white LustreKote. The first radio installation used Futaba S148 BB servos so the digitals should drop right in.

My reason for starting this thread is to provide the RCU forum with some information on the pattern rocket ships of the late 80s and hopefully get some inspiration from those of you that flew/fly and love these airships.

Image of the Tiporare with yellow/white paint before starting my paint work and the 1991 Great Plans catalog showing the Tiporare, IIIusion and Dirty Birdy 60.

To be continued…

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Deleted - editing problem.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

I'd have flown it as it was. Waiting 13 years isn't really my style. (I'm living proof of why ARF's are popular.)

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Mike you going to Buff's this weekend? Looks like we'll get blown away on Sat with 20-30 mph winds. I was going down there today for some practice but looks like that'll be a wash out.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

I am very close to posting picks of my refurbished Arrow pattern plane with supertiger .61 rear exaust and retracts. Complete strip and redo. It probably took 3 months. the servo installation has been tough because of the design leaves very little room. A lot of room is taken by the pipe and fuse is narrow. I love the retracts though. I hope to fly it Saturday or Sunday.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

I’m looking forward to seeing your Arrow pictures. The Tipo fuselage is very narrow and tall too! These babies were made for “warp speed” so they kept the frontal area small. Two servos will just barely fit side-by-side. The GP fiberglass fuselage does provide a little extra space compared to a built up balsa fuselage though. I guess you could call it a “tall body” (from top of the fuselage to the bottom) or as some people oddly say “wide body”. A wide body to me would be a fuselage that is short from top to bottom and wide in the direction of the wing span.

The new white paint job on the Tipo turned out super!

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

The paint is looking pretty awesome! The rudder pull-pull and elevators are connected.

To be continued…

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Wasn't the tiporare just a modified curare?

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

There was a decision on the forum about the development of the Tiporare including how the two parts of the name came about Tipo rare, but I can’t find the post now. I think Tipo is Italian for “Type” and then the English word added “rare” for (Typerare) Tiporare.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

The Tiporare has legs! After many years the Tiporare is again settled on its Spring Air gear. Painted the wheel wells with flat black to cover up the white paint that had yellowed. Spent more time polishing the fuselage paint and it’s looking pretty good now. The main gear and nose gear are installed and plumbed. Used the ball chain trick to pull the air lines and servo leads through the wing passages. The two digital Futaba S9252 servos are installed in the wing.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

I thought it sounded like a nice tune. "Long way to Tiporare". It looks to much like Hanno Prettner's Curare, not to be influenced by this world winning design. Saw a few Curare's at the Canadian Nationals in 1978. Not to mention saturns (Ivan Kristensen) and dirty birdys.

What does the under side of the fuselage look like?

It's 12 degrees celsius today, and the snow has practically disappeared. If the weather keeps up, flying might start again in the next couple of weeks.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

I’m installing the radio gear and the wing is off, but here are some images of the bottom. No gear doors of fancy stuff like that! It does look like Hanno Prettner's Curare but I don’t know the history of how it came about other than I think it was Prettner's next variant of the Curare design. Maybe one of the pattern experts can give us the history of the Tipo design.

Good news on the snow melt!

To be continued…

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Hanno Prettner's next variation on the Curare was the "Magic" with an enclosed tune pipe running through the turtle deck.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Dick Hanson designed the 'Tipo'. I think you can still get the plans.
The Magic was Prettner's ultimate pattern ship - at least in terms of complexity - flaps, airbrakes, variable pitch prop. He did a '180' after the Magic and designed the Calypso to move pattern in a less complex direction.
I wish he still competed [:o]. Pattern seems to in an expensive direction, but the equipment sure is great.
Happy flying,
Will B.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

The nose, thicker stab, slight tail change, and a tuck down both sides of the fuse are the most visible when compared to the Curare.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

The radio gear is installed. I’ve temporally installed the engine and pipe to work on the fuel line plumbing.

To be continued…

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Close up of the engine installation.

To be continued…

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

After a lot of hand wringing on how to create a removable loop in the main fuel line, for fueling the tank, I came up with these ideas and settled on the brass loop. That’s the right hand image below. The main fuel line from the tank will project out from behind the engine flex mount, connect to the loop and then another line will go back to the pump. The loop will be easily accessible behind the engine. I didn’t have much luck bending the brass tubing into a loop, so I cut up three pieces and hi-temp sliver soldered it together in a loop. After cleaning and polishing the outside of the loop I ran it through a ultrasonic cleaner a few times to make sure the inside of the tube was clean and pressure tested it under water.

To be continued…

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Anyone out there remember the starting distance from the center of the head to the fat part of a tuned pipe for an OS 61FS P LS with APC 12 -10 W prop?

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Try this out.

http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomfr...tunedpipes.asp

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Thanks Paternguy! I’m taking about the position of the pipe, e.g. how much to cut off the header to tune the pipe.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

It tells you in the chart at the bottom of the page how long the header on their test engine was.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Thanks! Found it, I was on the wrong page.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

No prob.

RE: Great Planes Tiporare – Thirteen Year Build
 

Anyone got any pictures of Hanno's Magic loaded with all the goodies?
Your Tipo is looking real fine 8178.