Started back in the hobby last year after a near 30 year layoff. Built 3 and started a 4th last year, which I recently completed. Had a Flying Fool kit I was going to do. Wood was awful. Terrible wood, very heavy, parts were more crushed out than cut out. Eventually decided to scale it up 25%, extended the top wing a further rib on each side, added flaps, 3 line throttle, etc. Completed weight with a Thunder Tiger 46RC with expansion muffler came in at 50.5oz. Traditional silkspan covering/dope finish. Im old school. 2 flights on it at this point, very conservative flights. Its over powered and at max power is clearly faster than my 29oz Shoestring Stunter with a Fox 35. A more in depth flight test coming next week.
A Bones shot. This was with my original struts. Top wing was closer to Fuselage than it should have been due to some distortion in the pattern I was working from.
Almost done (still had to complete lead outs
The cowl is made from a cut down plastic bowl I got at the dollar store! Note that the lower flaps really act as actuators for the upper flaps. Havent explored stunts yet, but this thing is so stable in level flight its like its on rails. Found a site called Tinypic that I was able to upload pics with. Im calling it the Super Fool. Painted it after a Navy PT-17 trainer.
Every piece of wood weighed less than its original counterpart, despite being larger and in many cases a bit thicker. The struts I made as laminates, 3/32 balsa cores glued between 1/64th ply. They were a third lighter than the original solid 1/8" ply struts.
Completed!
Topic: Latest project (Read 1863 times)
