The black and white plane is Mike Greb's Strega w/landing gear. The black and blue plane is, as Louis says, Brent Rogillio's plane. He and I have been working on a design for a stunt trainer. We have been experimenting with different tail/nose moments, airfoils, and engine pkgs. It has an exposed control system like the JJ/Jim Pearson U-KEYS. The similarity ends there. This design has longer tail/nose moments, much thicker airfoil, and greater stab area. The wing area is right at 500sq.in. Shortly after Steve got this pic, it met it's demise. We will freeze our experiment when we get'em flying a little better. We are using cedar/light ply/maple for the fuse, double continuous span basswood spars in a foam wing, which we cut ourselves, with thanks to the helpful tips of Phil Cartier and Cris Rigotti. The stab/elev. is made with 1/4" light-light balsa. Currently all up weight minus fuel is 34-1/2 to 35-1/2 Oz's. w/Fox 35 w/Tongue muffler with the (3) built so far. We like the the over and under spar system we use. The wings do not appear to mangle as bad as the dowel system in the crashes we have experienced so far. Yep! we're not proud- we put'em in the ground as fast as we launch'em!! That's the reason we need a quick build, quick repair, very economical, good flying stunt trainer. We gonna call it the MENTOR, or maybe MANGLED MENTOR, even MENTOR for DUMMIES, or simply DUMTOR, or DUMTORUS, or even borrow a little from Brad W.- T-DUMTORUS, or .........!!!@@#@^&*&^&**^%)(*%#@!! little plane. If interested we will post in the build section our continuing adventures in ODDDUMSY. CHER!
Doug