I have previously posted photos of my mower. Look them up. Here are the istructions and drawings. I tried to first put them on SPADWORLD, but I could not get Photo Gallery to work for me.

Villa,

EXCELLENT!!! [8D] Thanks for going to the trouble of drawing these up and sharing!

How does it handle in the air, like a PBF?

Blue skies,

DL

Thanks Villa, for an excellent set of plans.
This Spads on My build list.
Jeff

Villa thanks loads for your plans this is a must build for me .I have seen them fly and they look like a kick in the butt .thanks again lee

Thanks for the complements. This is my second mower. It has many improvements over the original, mainly in the attachement of the handle sides and of the main landing gear. It flies fantastically.

I just noticed a good improvement. I used heavy duty Futaba servos, # S3010, on the elevons. I had 3004 on the original and had one failure. The servos fit very tight inside the wing but it turned out OK on mine. The top of the wing bulges a little. I have changed the drawing to show that the elevons are glued between the top and bottom sides of the wing so that the TE is 12MM thick. On mine the TE is only 8MM and the elevons are glued to the top of the wing, after reducing that surface to just the thickness of the COROPLAST plastic material. This will give the elevon servos a little more room, plus stiffen the TE. I'm not happy with how the drawings turned out on RCU. I would like to see them just a little larger so the dimensions show up better. After I initially loaded them I saw a need for a larger size. I made them a little larger and tried to load them as a second message, just like the first message. The system would not accept it. If the MODERATOR can assist me with this I will load them again a little larger, and also with the design changes explained above. The instructions will also change slightly. I took some photos of the mower yesterday and will post them soon.

I jusy noticed that I posted two copies of the same drawing and left one drawing out. By next weekend I will make the correction by reposting everything and asking the moderator to eliminate the first posting.

On 10-29-05 at about 4:20 PM eastern time I posted 5 drawimgs plus 5 photos of my flying mower and received the message that the upload was succesfull. I asked the moderator to please replace the drawings at the beginning of this post with this new post. My new post has not showed up. I hope this complaint shows up here. I ask that the moderator let me know with a message here if I am violating some rule and what action I need to take. Thank you.

I was told to try to post again so here goes.

It went thru. Great. Use these drawings and photos. Here are the new building instructions:

A beautiful set of plans Villa
Thanks again.
I hope to start on one as soon as I get laid off for the season(I work at a marina).[8D]
Jeff

Bump back up as I'm redownloading the plans [8D]
Jeff

Hi Jeff. With you working at a marina the thought of a Flying Lawnmower with floats crossed my mind. That would be too weired. If you see any problems with the drawings let me know.

Florida can use a flying lawnmower with floats, what with all the hydrilla they have down there.

Now that would be cool. [8D]
Jeff

I address this to the modelers who like to build their own planes. I have been surprised that not one person has mentioned they actually built my Flying Lawnmower. I fly mine just about every weekend and I still have a ball with it every time. It loops, it rolls , it lands. It will do cuban eights all day long. After nearly one year, I cannot recall having to repair anything on it. It is tough as nails. On rare occasions it will roll over on landing, yet I have yet to damage anything. I think I have broken a few props. The drawings and instructions dated after 11-1-05 are the latest. There are also many other photos which can be searched by author. I do tend to show a lot of detail on my drawings and this can give the impression that it is a difficult design. Actually, it is extremely simple and bulletproof. Just make up you own details like on the other SPAD designs. I would like to read why people are afraid to build/fly it. Maybe I can do a better job with the instructions.

Villa, it is a cool site to see. I watched the mower fly on one of these sites. I am currently in a thread building a few coro cubs and planned on building a corostar next but just might have to do one of these next. I live up in ND so the snow will be on the ground shortly. I'll have to put ski's under it. I'll let you know when I start and keep me in mind if you think of anything to include or omit on the craft. I'll let ya know the results. Looks like a great build. Thanks.

Rio

I posted details of my lawnmower on another thread, but as this thread is dedicated to that mower and I as am so impressed with it's performance I'll repeat the post here.

I built one for our club air show as most of the display is centered around prop hanging and speed planes, and I wanted something unique.
My son and I have built some very successful correx models before, a Mig, a Corsair and some fun planes, like the round floppy disk. As we only decided to build the mower 4 days before the show I was most impressed with Villa's drawings and instructions, as it only took us 3 evenings after work to construct. I love the way of using bamboo sticks for the hatches, will steal that idea in future! We glued the entire craft together with hot glue, our favourite way.
My son had two flights the day prior to the show in moderate winds; with CG per plan it flew without any adjustment. Each flight ended in a deadstick however due to new props on the OS46FX and me adjusting it too lean. On both occasions though, although it does not glide like an ASW28, my son managed to glide it down without damage. (one arrival was quite severe but due to the inherent strenth no damage occurred).
On the day of the air show (as often happens on these occasions) the wind gusted between 30 and 50km/hour 90 degrees across the runway. The mower flies so well that my son managed a complete display, including some aerobatics and low passes, much to the delight of the spectators, even if the mower was crabbing at 45% to the line of the runway most of the time due to the wind! By this time I'd sorted the OS46 so landing was no problem, according to my son like bringing in a trainer!

I hope this encourages more people to try unique craft, this one won't disappoint!

Francois

Hi Francois. A well written article. Look over my Canard at http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3580825/tm.htm for another easy build that is tough as nails. It is a little different and lots of fun to fly. Be sure to read everything there, because I have decided to shorten the profile fuselage.

Did you make the Flying Lawn-mower landing gear exactly to my plans? If not, let me know how it differs and how it performs over many, many landings. Getting it to land right was a very long process for me. Analyzing why it was rolling over on many landings was interesting. Had to change the design 3-4 times. Now it lands like it is on rails. I have flown it up-side-down a few times but it is very stressful for me. Your son is probably doing it already. Rudy

Hmmm, I tried the flying lawn mower on the LHS flight sim, I think it was the G3 version. I felt like a complete newbie when it crashed before I even knew what happened!!! Hopefully your design flys better than the one on the Sim! [8D]

My G3 simulator does not have the Flying Lawnmower. Must be an add on. I'll have to look for it. It does have a P-51 Mustang. I have done a roll on takeoff. Can you manage that? My mower is a bit twitchy in roll since the wing is only 24 inches. Like any wing with no dihedral, roll correction is a constant requirement. The mower just needs a little more than that. In high winds it is an adrenalin rush. During the flare at landing in high winds it is steady as a rock. Try it, you'll like it.

Hi Fastsky
A friend of mine, who has flown my Flying Lawnmower and thinks it is easy, just flew the one on the simulator you mentioned. He had no problem with it. Give it another chance. If there is an option for high/low rate, slow things down. After take off you can also reduce the throttle till you get used to it. Like any flat wing plane, it is not rock steady in roll. Frequent aileron input is needed. Since all of my wings are flat, I don't even notice the frequent aileron input requirement. Go for it!!!!!!!

Re: "you can also reduce the throttle till you get used to it" < now thats just crazy talk!!!
Thankx for the feedback. Maybe I was just having a bad day or maybe the servo switches were reversed and I didn't notice. I'll try it again when I get back to the hobby shop. [8D]

Except for franc and his son in Africa, above, I have not heard from anyone who has built my Flying Lawnmower. Well, a Mexican friend of mine recently built my mower. He maidened it himself without any help from me. That indicates that this Flying Mower is not hard to fly. When his brother visited him from Texas, he liked it so much that he talked him out of it and now the mower is in Texas. This is such an easy build I'm surprised others have not tried it. I flew mine for about 5 years and it was always the most interesting plane at the field. The kids could not get enough of it. I'm constantly being urged to repair mine and get it up again. Attached are two photos of his SPAD Flying Lawnmower.

Thanks Villa, i knew you had the mower but I never looked at it. I need to build one for the West Coast spad event in july. I am doing as many unusual spads as I can. this fits the bill. I also need to check out the canard pusher.

You should check it out. It's a pretty cool design and will attract LOT's of attention.

Thanks again Villa, especially for making the point about being careful not to overheat the engine on warmup.

jack