Keith, I don't think I have ever seen that XF-11 before!! I don't think you published plans r article or anything but I don't even remember seeing it in any of the magazine coverages. The XF-12 is in equal awesomeness!! But I like the XF-11 better. I think one of the Moon brothers did a stunt model of it, which is interesting, but would loose a little character to me with out that sexy high aspect ration wing!
How did it fly?
Dan McEntee
Dan,
Thanks for the note. Plans for either model have not been published. The Brodak magazine sometimes had some coverage of the Tucson 1/2A multi-engine profile scale contests. A picture of one of these (different years) might have been published or in the Model Aviation Scale column.
Both models flew but had a bit of a wing loading problem. A little bit of whipping helped. The XF-12 first flight was a bit tail heavy and was a challenge. A piece lead in the nose wheel well helped that. Landings (no throttles) downwind with an engine or some engines out worked out OK.
With these two models, the XF-11 model looks better than the XF-12 because its paint and finish is more realistic than the XF-12. The Hughes XF-11 was painted a light gray, I have the FS number used by Hughes, and the panel lines were filled in so no panel lines were needed on the model. Plus at this scale the Hughes is more realistic as the nose nacelle at 1" wide is almost scale and the rear portion of the booms aft of the wing are scale width and within the 1" max allowed by the rules. On the XF-12 and its natural aluminum skin, I did not attempt to show panel lines (ran out of time), so lost a bit on realism and the aluminum Klass Kote did not turn out well. Though the four nacelles were scale (also within the profile limits), the full size aircraft had a round fuselage cross section, so the 3" deep fuselage with its 1" width on the model, part of the appearance of the full scale aircraft was lost.
The Steve Moon Moon XF-11, done as a profile, (Flying Models June, 2007) was a very attractive model. Because of the relatively low aspect ratio needed for a stunt design, the model misses somewhat the overall appearance of the full size aircraft. This is one design which does not lend itself well to capturing the appearance of the full size aircraft when done as a stunt design with a "reasonable" aspect ratio suitable for CL Stunt. Nevertheless, Steve Moon did a very nice job in capturing the appearance of the real aircraft.
Keith