This is a subject that interests me as it comes up pretty regularly and I have been wanting to post this before.. The history of the Banshee and how it came to be has been posted many times, but a quick review is, that after the unexpected success of the SIG Chipmunk, Glenn SIG assigned a task to Mike Stott to come up with a quick building profile model that had the same flying characteristics as the Chipmunk, so flyers could use it for practice and not risk their contest Chipmunks. This was kind of what Glenn thought drove the sales of the Nobler and the Flight Streak, and he wanted to match that. The Banshee was designed with the nose length it had to accommodate the Fox .35 Stunt, which was the predominant stunt engine at that time and probably the lightest engine in it's class. The Nobler was designed with the Fox .35 in mind also, although George used other engines also. As time went on, and the lower classes of stunt began to fill up at contests, the modifications mentioned here began to show up. I was coming up the stunt ranks about that time and remember it well, and another model and modification was the Magician. It was popular to move the horizontal stab and elevator all the way back to the rear of the fuselage. and to opt for flaps. But the Banshee mods are the ones that are the best known, I think.
Guess what world famous, highly revered, nationally and internationally known model, multi time NATS and World Champion, has the same nose measurement and pretty close to the same tail moment measurement? I do a lot of reading of model magazines, and have no memory of anyone pushing to shorten the nose on this design, and it has had just about every power plant configuration in it that you could think of, ranging from the Veco .19, and I believe someone brought one to the NATS with a PA.61 in it? Lots of use of the ST.46, LA.46 and numerous different .40s of all brands. Sure, there are some other physical differences between the two airplanes, but the close similarities makes me wonder if Mike made it that close on purpose, and not exact, so it couldn't be said he was plagiarizing anything. I haven't measured up the rest of the two airplanes to see how they compare elsewhere, but when it comes to shortening the nose of the Nobler, I think you will have a hard time getting a large enough fuel tank in it for anything other than the Veco .19!! The two ARFs that I have been fooling around with ended up with custom built tanks that I wish I could have gotten another 1/2 to 3/4 ounce capacity in and still be able to get them in and out of the airplane!. I just thought I would point this out as a point of history, if for no other reason. I know I have seen guys cut the nose off their Banshee fuselages and then have to work to add useful nose weight to get their model to balance.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Topic: sig banshee measurements (Read 2064 times)