To Dennis, and Pat, and Bill and Don:
Thanks for all of the words and interest in those airplane I had in the mid 70's. This includes the Little Mike which I called the Continental Eagle and the Focke Wulf 190D that was built several years after the Focke Wulf Ta 152 that has been discussed here on these boards.
The Eagle (nee Little Mike) is the one that Dennis showed in another post and I hope to have copied here. If I could figure out how to post my pictures on this board, I will attach some more shots of that airplane. I still have it hanging in my shop and it is still in a flyable condition. It was an excursion for a high aspect ratio wing, and fairly short coupled fuselage. The wing had a double taper where the Little Mike/Ginny had a straight leading edge. The wing and tail are fully sheeted. Fuselage is planked. The cheek cowls were functional as they directed air into the engine compartment and over the muffler which was enclosed behind the engine inside the cowl. Span is a little over 60 inches and the area is less than 650 sq in. The horizontal tail was mounted well above the fuselage on the vertical tail to represent the Little Mike/Ginny configuration. The airplane was heavy, but I do not remember the number.
The power was a one-of-a-kind rear exhaust 40. (There is a long story about that one. In fact, after the shaft of that engine broke, the remains were given (loaned) years ago to a guy by the name of Big Art who I think Dennis knows very well. I do not know if Art still has that thing, but it would be nice to know if it is still around.) The muffler on that engine worked very well in that it did muffle the engine and actually increased the engine speed when it was attached to the engine. (That muffler has been copied on several occasions and is another story in itself.) The airplane flew. Let us say it was respectable. I had some success with it in the early-mid 70's when I lived in Ohio. It qualified for the finals at the 72 Chicago Nats and placed 10th. That Nats should also be familiar to Dennis since that is when he walked off with the Walker Cup as the National Champion, (outscoring Al Rabe who was the Open National Champion).
The paint scheme does not show well in the photo, but it was similar to the Little Mike which was blue with white trim and gold pinstriping between the blue and white.
The airplane was underpowered for its weight and had too high of a wing loading. It was not particularly good at flying in the wind which is a problem with many stunt ships with a higher than "normal" aspect ratio. I do not think the short moments were a problem. It had plenty of flap and tail area.
I used a movable rudder in the fashion of the Rabe rudder concept. However, the linkage/pushrod to operate the rudder was taken from the transfer bellcrank inside the rear of the fuselage beneath the horizontal tail. I was able to employ any number of rudder movements with that arrangement.
I had made arrangements with American Aircraft Modeler (or maybe later with Model Aviation) to publish a construction article for this airplane. I completed a set of plans, inked and on mylar, which I still have. Those plans were modified from the original somewhat to use less wood without sacrificing structural integrity. I started writing the article, but withdrew from completing the project as I was not entirely satisfied with the airplane. It was competitive, but I was concerned that the people who might be interested in building this thing might have even more of a weight problem than I had. With the power plants then available, I just did not think it would be very successfull and I did not want to represent something that might not be a truly competitive design for top levels of competition. I did start on a second version, hoping to keep the weight down and was planning on using the ST 46. I completed the entire tail section, but did not get any further with it because I was then into the Focke Wulf 190 D that has been mentioned here. (That Fw 190 D was inspired by the Rabe "school" of semi-scale stunt ships, but was not yet in the class of the true Rabe super semi-scale stunt ships (SSSSS's)). That tail section for the second Little Mike might still exist and Dennis Adamisin just might be able to find out something about it as it was shipped to a guy by the name of Archie sometime in the mid or late 70's.
Anyway, I have plans and will be more than glad to make them available to whoever would be interested. I have even talked to Tom McClain about the possibility of having them appear in Stunt News.
Again, I appreciate the interest shown in this model.
Keith Trostle
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4743.0;attach=11755