ilikeplanes

Seems like a good project but it may be more than I can handle.

Thoughts?

CafeenMan

I don't think anyone can answer that for you. How much experience do you have? What's the toughest project you've completed? A lot of guys have built Staggerwings, so it's possible for some people, but your skills and patience are the determining factors here.

It will be a long project and if you don't like building then it's probably not something you should take on. If you like tedious stick fitting and detail work, then it's a great project. Unfortunately, I think Staggerwings are some of the ugliest planes ever designed so it's not something I would build, but again, your opinion is the one that counts here.

- Paul

JWN

My Feedback: (42)

Also, which kit or plans are you looking at building? Some are very simple and quick building, others take a considerable amount of time to be sure the model is built straight.

John

ilikeplanes

I have quite a bit of experience. Probably a dozen or more kits. My only real scale project is the Sig Citabria which I'm finishing right now. I'm not in a hurry to finish anything, we have ARF's for that. The only kit I know of is the old Royal kit still available, I believe. It's certainly a "builders" kit.

CafeenMan

I think the Staggerwing will be a good progressive step from the Citabria. Royal kits build nicely and are about the same difficulty as the classic Sig kits. Sounds like a good project for you.

The only thing to watch (and I'm sure you know this) is that with the two wings, wing alignment and incidence become more critical. Having a couple incidence meters (four even) would be nice. Call a few buddies to bring theirs over when you're ready to mount the wings

staggerwing

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You can get the "old Royal" kit new from Hobby Barn in Tucson, AZ. It's made by Maurataka in Japan. They used to make it for Royal.

It is a builders kit. A friend and I built one last winter. The instructions leave a lot to be desired, but if you like carving and sanding, it ends up as a super model.

MikeSell

My Feedback: (2)

RCM has a plan for one that doesn't seem too difficult. It is designed for a .60 two stroke but would qualify for giant scale meets. Just over 60" spans flown with a .90 4 cycle seems quite an acceptable size.

ilikeplanes

I'm thinking I need some practice on retracts and wing fillets before I take on the Staggerwing. I've always liked the Top-Flite Sea Fury, which would be a good stepping stone.

Has anyone actually built a Staggerwing?

staggerwing

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As I said above, we built the Maurataka Staggerwing last winter.

ilikeplanes

Could you tell me anything more. How are the wings mounted, how do you make the wing fillet, did you use retracts, does it come out heavy, how does it fly, how is the windshield/windows constructed, are the instructions in English, etc?

staggerwing

My Feedback: (5)

Luckily we had both the old Royal and new Maurataka plans and instructions. What one didn't explain, the other did. We made many modifications in the process. No we did not use retracts because we couldn't find any that would fit within the wings. The wing fillets are made by carving and sanding alot. This is also true of the tail area. Wings are attached with a typical dowel and nylon screw method. Angle brackets hold the interplane struts. The installation of the tail wheel is very tricky. We ended up making the rear cone removeable. It is powered with a RCV 90 which fits totally in the cowl. It does a good job of pulling it around here at 6,000'. Don't really remember the weight. It's covered with fabric and painted with Nelson's paint. It's in the color scheme of a Staggerwing that my buddy owned in the 50's. It flys fine. Pretty fast at full throttle and fast on landing even with the flaps down.

Hope this helps.

ilikeplanes

Yes, thanks. I'm a little confused on the retracts. Did some Beech models have them and others not?

I also like the looks of RCM plan #620. It has a 64 inch span with cowling available from Fiberglass Specialties. The 1975 picture of the model in yellow and brown sure looks nice. Lone Star Balsa is calling my name.

Oh yea, if I build from plans, can the windshield be made from a flat sheet of plastic?

quint-rcu

My Feedback: (24)

I'm just completing a Royal Staggerwing. As previously posted it is a half kit/half scratch building project. I used Hangar-9 (P-51) mechanical retracts for mains and a Robart retractable tailwheel with a separate standard servo in the tail. The retracts fit perfectly into the wing although the wheel themselves come though the top of the wing into the fuse area where they are not visible. Installed a full interior (very modified Beech Bonanza interior kit) and a Saito .91 up front. Added an on-board glow driver and using individual mini servos for the ailerons.

The fairings were quite simple to do using 3/32 sheeting and a few blocks here and there and yielded a perfect fit with hardly no need of fillers. I too made the tailcone removable and ran the antenna down a length of Nyrod sheath inside the plane all the way to the cone. Windshield is the one supplied with the kit and fits rather nicely after some trimming, but can be made from flat material. Covered in Century 21 fabric overall and matching Monokote for the areas where the full sized had sheet metal. I have a progress pic posted here [link]http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_1320353/mpage_1/key_/anchor/tm.htm#1378628[/link] and will add a finished one in about two weeks before the first flight.

In answer to your other question; only the earliest models used fixed gear, all the others had retractable gear. The very later 'G' models had a better strut cover and were faster for it. You might check out this link for a good rundown on the Beech Staggerwing.
[link=http://www.staggerwing.co.uk]STAGGERWING DATA PAGES[/link]


quint

ilikeplanes

Wow, I sure like the looks of that. I think I'll go with the Maurataka kit. All them stringers and fillets look purdy. If I get stuck, I always have my RCU buddies to help. He, he.

Thanks.

quint-rcu

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Finally got it finished and flew it today



quint

JWN

My Feedback: (42)

Very nice. Please post a flight report.

John

quint-rcu

My Feedback: (24)

The plane came in around 10 lbs with a full interior and an on-board glow driver which yielded about a 24oz/sq. ft. Having heard the horror stories on heavy Staggerwing models I asked our club's best flier to take the first flight. After a thorough final check we fired up the Saito .91 and pretended to set the idle while nerves settled, then my friend Paul Berger taxied it out and made a pretty take off with a slight cross wind. After a few trimming passes he retracted the gear and made a low flyby at 2/3 throttle.

The plane handled very well at all flight speeds, but seemed to groove best at 2/3 throttle. Some gentle loops and barrel rolls later he commented that the plane rolls axially with little or no correction and flies inverted with just a trace of down elevator. Since I plan to fly it in a fairly scale manner (and in deference to the very thin wings and 'stick' construction) he didn't try any snaps or radical maneuvers. The top wing attachment structure does not look too strong, but was certainly up to the task. He made a couple of low speed passes and noted that it began to get squirrelly and quickly drop a wing if you slow down too much. - It wanted to drop out of the air. Paul then set 30 degrees of flaps and noted that we had too much down elevator mixed in, but unlike some models, flaps really help the Staggerwing. He was able to slow down quite a bit more with flaps before she headed for China. For the first landing he retracted the flaps and set his pattern with a slight cross wind. As she crossed over the end of the runway about 30 feet up it slowed down too much without the flaps and snapped but Paul managed to recover into a main wheels landing.

We refueled and adjusted the flap to elevator mix to 4% negative elevator at full flaps, then took it up again. Now we took time to just enjoy the sight of that big red bird with the elliptical stagger wings. She tracked through anything asked of it at 1/2 to 2/3 throttle and flew in a very scale manner for (relatively) slow fly-bys. The second landing was s-w-e-e-t. Flaps down and with no wing walking she came over the runway and made a nice wheels landing then taxied back to us.

Final thoughts are that it is a worthwhile project that flies very well as long as you remember to keep the landing speed up and use flaps. Take offs and flight are on par with most aerobatic bipes. It's not a plane for low time pilots, then again it's no monster. I plan to take it up next weekend and enjoy the Staggerwing.

JWN

My Feedback: (42)

Odd for me, but I actually jumped a little when I read your description and hit the spot when it snapped on the first landing!

I'm glad it turned out to be a pretty good flying model. I've only known one other person who has built, and flown, this model. He did not add any scale details other than retracts. I believe his came in at about 8.5 lbs and he said he could knife edge loop the model quite easily. I do not know what he powered it with, but it was most likely an OS .60 FSR.

I like the red with black markings. It's quite attactive on this model.

John

gary9648

My Feedback: (1)

They forgot to mention the Byron Staggerwing. I have built five of these over the years and have one almost ready for paint now. They fly great and look fantastic in the air. No I did not crash all of them. Only two of them were mine. The first I had up to last year, that I built around 1985. Sold it to another modeler to finance my new one. Iron Bay models can make most of the parts if you need them. They now have all the rights to the Byron line. Good luke with your Stagg

ilikeplanes

quint, good job. It looks excellent. I have some screen savers up from a Staggerwing web site. It's inevitable that my next project will be a Staggerwing of some sort. I guess it comes down to the Royal kit or plans built.

amilcar

thanks for the report I have a royal staggerwing in the box and i was about to sell it before reading your report ,I heard the same about that they don't fly ok ,this and that ,,,as a matter of fact I lost the chance to buy one a few years ago for almost nothing because of that reason .
finally I bougth one ,,,now Im planning on build it maybe this winter reading your report help me to decide what to do with it ,,,,again thanks for all the great info