Reiteration of the Falcon

[EddyR]

  I have stopped building any new models and I have giver many away. I decided last year to rebuild a few old models that were in good shape physically.
 The Falcon pictured here is 16 years old but it was not flown a lot until a few years ago. It had three motors in it and four pain jobs. It sat around for so long in my shop before the first flight it got hanger rash so bad it had to be recovered. This is the third covering on it and the forth paint job. The last one looked good but it had a clear coat on it over a four year old paint job and the colored dope on it was going bad under the clear coat.  The old finish has caused a few problems in the new dope but at several feet they do not show. This finish seems very stable as it is all dope.
   I built a new cowl and new flaps. I did all this as this plane is one of my best flying models when powered with a ST/46 ABC .
Ed

[Tom Niebuhr]

Looks great Ed !

John would be proud of you.

[tim lackey]

Stunning! Love the colors

[Tom Niebuhr]

Ed,

Is that from one of my kits? There are no better flying Classics than the Falcon.

I have to fix some glitches in the fillets on my new Jet  Falcon (Also Classic legal) and renovations on our house have held things up. But, it will look great when I get it finished. The same wing is used, but it is like no other Jet Style airplane ever designed. John did a great job, on the Jet that No One has ever seen.

[Target]

I have a couple design questions that pertain to, but are not necessarily specific to, this model, if your would humor me....

On the plans for this model I found on Outerzone, the outer wing shows that the right wings' outermost rib is spaced closer to the next inboard rib, than it is on the left wing (which has even spacing). While this results in a shorter wing, what is the reason for doing it that way instead of just spacing the ribs evenly slightly closer in the right wing to result in the same length wing panel?
The reason I ask, is that I would assume there would be some ever so slight fit problems if the ribs are made by stacking blanks.
Might be a good place for Bob Hunt's lost foam technique?

Secondly, is the cambered vertical still an effective way of doing things?
Is your plane setup this way, EddyR?

Thanks for your answers in advance.

R,
Target

[Tom Niebuhr]

In the Classic era it was very common to shorten the outboard wing by just changing the spacing. The Nobler did it that way to. The Clark Y airfoil (flat outboard side) works very well also.

The plans that you are looking at are the Model Airplane News version. They are legal to use due to the publication date, but like many magazine plans they are extremely inaccurate. Back in the day we always wondered why Falcons built from the plans didn't look like John D'Ottavio's airplane.

John and I worked together to provide a very accurate kit.. Here are some of the differences:  Airfoil was wrong and the MAN templates didn't even match the root rib on the side view of the drawing; the dorsal fin should end at the flap t.e. no at the hinge line; The rudder was approx. 20% too big; the fuselage was too fat; the tips should have been 3 1/2" not the 3" on the MAN plan; the tail surface should have been one rib bay longer. Even the wheel pants were not correct. We confirmed all of this with measurements with parts from his lod airplanes.

John had permanent metal rib templates machined for him and that is what we used for the kit, and the kit plans.

Many magazine plans were rushed to publication, and the draftsman worked from sketches with no final approval by the designers.

Bob Howard has recently had the plans to his Pegasus redrawn because he found that the magazine plans were accurate when he was going to build a replica for himself!

[EddyR]

My plane was built from the kit. I now have a different set of landing gear on it as the original was to short for 11" props. I built it with removable gear. I did fly it for two years with a ST/46 in it using a 9/6 three blade and it flew as good as it did with the 11/5. With the 11/5 I had to do a full up take off to clear the prop.
 The gear on it now is from one of my old Juno,s repainted. The plane is completely stock kit. It is lighter now than before the rebuild.
 Here is a picture at the repaint back in 2010. before this it was green.

[Bob Howard]

Yes, Tom is right, but there is a typo. The FM and all the other produced plans on the Pegasus are substantially INCORRECT. Milton Graham and I took old parts and drawings from the 1967 through 1969 period to come up with a very accurate set of plan which are different from the FM plans. I assumed the FM plans were correct because I sent FM very accurate drawings but they must have been ignored. To give you an idea, the plans on FM have a 9.25 inch center root and the original had an over 10 inch center root width. I have one in production and hope to fly it next summer. I apologize for indicating that the Dixon plans were accurate which, by no fault of his, and not. I really appreciate the help of Milton Graham for recasting the plans which will be available in 2018.
My apologies for my earlier comments on the accuracy of extant plans.

Bob

[EddyR]

 The Falcon and the 20 year old Don Ogren Saturn last week at the field before first flight. Flew the Falcon and it did not need any trimming. Flew it again this week and it is very easy to fly through the pattern. First full pattern I have flown in several years.

[Scott Richlen]

Good looking planes!!  For being 20 years old, that Saturn looks pretty good.

[peabody]

John gave me his 46 sized Falcon. Like a lot of John's planes, it was porky.....almost as if he had dipped it into a paint bucket. It was unflown.
John didn't start using removable / adjustable tanks until he started building with Windy, and the 46 Falcon's was encased in epoxy.

Way above my skill level to restore, I believe Tom Hampshire has it (?)

The 46 had the same nice lines as the Falcon

[Lyle Spiegel]

Eddy, I have one of Tom N 's JD Falcon. Build is completed, all silkspan and in clear. Have not decided on trim but I'm admiring the JD Falcon logo on yours. Is there any way to share an image that I could use to get masking or film cut?
Thanks .
Also planning to build an Impala from Tom's short kit.

Can't wait to see Tom's new "Jet Falcon". Hope Tom posts pics soon.
Lyle

[EddyR]

Lyle      The original orange and white trim is easy and looks good. The stencils I do are just office supply type. I do not try and get them down tight to the surface but I do spray straight at them to keep definition. Most of the time I spray one color and move the stencil  slightly for the second color to get a shadow effect. The old Saturn came out very good when I rebuilt it many years ago. I found out that the lettering does not need to be super sharp if using curved lettering.  I used this method on my 19 point nats plane back in 1988. Some of the stencils I draw my self.
 My Jamison from 1995 and a 2003 Juno done the same way

[Tom Niebuhr]

Lyle,
Just want to inform you that I still do custom vinyl and vinyl masks

[EddyR]

Looking at the Saturn I now remember I had a program on my computer 10 years ago that was for card and  poster making and I did the fancy stencils with it.
Wish I still had the program. I was very labor intensive cutting them out.
Ed