Re: The Griffinized Banshee

[Mike Griffin]

Seeing the recent thread on the Fancherized Twister Redux jogged my memory on something.  About 3 years ago I decided to modify the old standard Banshee to hopefully enhance the design and make is easier to balance.  The standard complaint about this model was that the nose was to long and builders were either cutting the nose off shorter or, an my opinion a better option, moving the wing forward in the fuselage.   So, I decided to modify the position of the wing by moving it forward in the fuselage by 1 1/2 inches thereby eliminating the need for the builder to do so.  While I was at it, I sheeted the leading edge and added capstrips.  Other than that, it is the same Banshee as always. The model flies great by the way.

Anyway, I shamelessly pagerized the "ized" terminaology and called it the Griffinized Banshee.  I could only hope there would be as many Griffinized Banshees built as the Fancherized Twisters.  In my dreams.  LOL.  Forgive me Ted. 

Check the classifieds as I am running a little special on the kit again if you want to pick one up.

Here is the PDF of the plan.

Mike

[Jim Mynes]

How does it differ from Jack Sheeks’ modifications which resulted in the Banshee, aka Mr. Ugly?

[Mike Griffin]

How does it differ from Jack Sheeks’ modifications which resulted in the Banshee, aka Mr. Ugly?

Hi Jim,

I researched the mods that Jack made to the Banshee and if I understood it correctly, Jack took 3/4 of an inch off the nose and changed the size of the stab as well as cutting a notch in the flap.  He also did so other mods to the nose where the motor mounts went.

My modifications were different in the respect that I moved the wing forward 1 1/2" rather than cutting the nose off.  I left the stab and elevator as it was on the original but I did sheet the leading edge, the trailing edge and used cap strips thereby eliminating the need for a bunch of half ribs and making the wing stronger and hopefully making the model fly better.

Mike

[Mike Griffin]

Stab/elevator is the same size?

Yes, I did not change any of the tail feathers at all.

Mike

[Ted Fancher]

"snip"

Anyway, I shamelessly pagerized the "ized" terminaology and called it the Griffinized Banshee.  I could only hope there would be as many Griffinized Banshees built as the Fancherized Twisters.  In my dreams.  LOL.  Forgive me Ted. 

"snip

OK Mike,  You're forgiven.  Actually, the original from the columns had no name.  The only  thing I'm certain of about "Fancherized" is that the name didn't come from my mom!

Ted

p.s. The mods look good to me.  We flew a lot of Banshees back when Dave Fitz was a little guy.  He flew one at the first Nats he ever flew in as a chubby little Junior back in 1975 IIRC.  I think we were still using OS .35S power at the time but we (members of the San Francisco O49ers MAC--with a bunch of Jrs and Srs) later discovered the joy of flying them with Veco 19BBs and 10X4 props in Class A Stunt which was one of three classes of stunt at the many, many annual WAM contests held in Northern California for many years (started before AMA as I understand it!).  Not certain but when we went to the smaller engines was probably when we started whacking the nose off to push the lighter engines back.  They were killers with the little engine and the flat pitch prop spinning in a rich two cycle and much more consistent than with the 2/4 stroking .35s everyone seemed to think was the minimum cubic inches you could use on a "big" profile like that.

Just to prove we weren't as smart then as we think we are now we didn't have the brains to translate the high RPM low pitch concept to our "super" stunters for many, many years during the ST .46 and .60 eras.