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Banshee Electric Conversion

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MikeyPratt:
We all know the Sig Banshee, it was designed and build by long time modeler, talented designer, and Nat’s Senior Champion “Mike Stott”.  For it’s time it was a very competitive Stunt Models and excellent sport flyer.  Like many things, time marches on and things change as design techniques and higher flight performance is demanded.

With the now very popular electric motors and modern batteries, more people want a simple model to convert to the electric power model that provides a simple and easy to build model with great flight performance.  This is my intent to upgrade the Banshee making it easy to build and convert to electric power provides outstanding flight performance, I’m calling it the “Super Stunt Banshee” or SS Banshee.  During this build your going to have to make a few decisions on where you want this model to go, Sport or Comp Model.

Note:  In its stock form, built as designed it’s a very good classic model, most of the changes I’ve made were to update the Banshee to be more competitive P/A Stunt model.  Some of these changes will remove it from the classic Stunt category.

WING CONSTRUCTION:

Start by removing all the die cut balsa ribs from their sheets and placing the ribs in two stacks, (4) ribs marked R 1, and (14) marked R 2.  Take one of the R1 ribs and gently sand the outside of the rib with a sanding block with 220 grit sandpaper.  Don’t bare down on these ribs with the sanding block and distort the airfoil, we just want to sand the edges smooth.  Use this  R1 rib as a template to make a 3/32” basswood R1 to trim the outside edges of (4) of the R2 ribs.  Using a sanding block with 220 grit sandpaper sand the edge to remove any defects while cutting out the rib.  These trimmed R2 ribs will be used during the wing assembly to sheet the last two ribs of each wing panel. 

As shown in the photo make a simple balsa jig fixture to accurately position the ribs.  I used a piece of scrap balsa as the base, draw a center lines the length of the rib with a fine line ballpoint pen, place the R1 rib in place taking care to align the rib with center-line and pin the rib in place using T-pins, glue pieces of 1/4” square balsa to the base locatisng the upper & lower spar notches and at the end of the trailing edge, at the leading edge of the wing I added a 1/2” square balsa to align the the leading edge notch about 1/4” tall.  Draw a line around the outside edge of the rib, remove the R1 rib from the jig fixture and place a mark on the top of the rib, this allows you to accurately insert the R1 rib back into the jig fixture, place the R1 rib back into the fixture again and draw a line around the rib with a fine point pin.

Now you can check the accuracy of the airfoil on each side of the rib by flipping the rib over in the jig, chances are, they will be the same or only a lines width apart.  If they are not the same, sand the edge of the rib with a sanding block with 220 grit sandpaper until they do match.

NOTE: This my seem like a lot of work but it only it only take a few minutes of your time to do this to insure the accuracy of the finished wing.  In fact, I do this on all the kit ribs Ive used over the yeas in including die-cut or laser kits just to make sure.

Stack the fore W1 ribs together and align the ribs with short pieces of 1/4 square balsa in the spar notches and again plan in place with T Pins, sand the edges of the ribs so they all match with 220 grit sandpaper.  At this point I like to make an additional basswood W1 ribs to use as a cutting guide.  The basswood rib must fit into the alignment jig. 

Next, place one of the W2 ribs in the jig and trim off to match the basswood rib in alignment jig, do this on three other W2 rinds, these ribs will be used in the outer two ribs of each wing panel to sheet the last two ribs with 1/16” balsa to greatly increase the strength of the wing when fully assembled.

john e. holliday:
The old DOC will be watching this. D>K

MikeyPratt:

--- Quote from: john e. holliday on March 25, 2022, 11:16:21 AM ---The old DOC will be watching this. D>K

--- End quote ---

Hi Doc,
I’m drawing a set of plans for the SS Banshee as I go along, I think it’s going to be a fun project, it’s already a good flyer so making it better should be really easy.

Later,
Mikey

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