Hey Bill, Great Minds think alike see my post in the scale stunt thread.
I also upped the ante by asking about Keiths wonderful 46-size Focke Wulf.
Hey Bill do you agree that you would also love to have plans for these 2 great airplanes. They would make great PAMPA plans.
I have seen both of these planes fly and they were both impressive in the air and flew great patterns and of course having Keith at the handle didn't hurt.
When discussions of great 1970's airplanes come up these 2 great airplanes seem to have been underappreciated or forgotten.  I am not surprised that Dennis's photo has sparked new interest in Keith's "Eagle" because it is a striking design and deserves the attention. Bravo Keith!

                                                                       Pat Robinson

                                                                   

Hi Bill,
I sorry I don't have a picture of Keith's Focke Wulf but like I said in the other thread if you have a copy of Harry Higley's book "There Are No Secrets" page 20, picture-72 you will get a look at this beautifully detailed airplane.

I believe Keith flew the Focke Wulf after he flew the "Eagle".

                                                       Pat Robinson
 
                                                                                                             
                                                             

Hi Bill,
I sorry I don't have a picture of Keith's Focke Wulf but like I said in the other thread if you have a copy of Harry Higley's book "There Are No Secrets" page 20, picture-72 you will get a look at this beautifully detailed airplane.

I believe Keith flew the Focke Wulf after he flew the "Eagle".

                                                       Pat Robinson
 
                                                                                                             
                                                             

Although you might have seen this photo I took of Keith FW...but here goes again.

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

Keith has spoken!

All I'll add is that the Eagle guided by Keith's steady hand, sure drew nice pictures in the sky.  Note the rear exhaust 40 some 25 years before they became "normal".  I never saw a picture of the bird that really conveyed just how exquisite are the contour & "flow" of the all those shapes coming together.

I hope the plans get published.  ALSO, from what Keith said, if I can raid Big Art's & Archie's basements I MIGHT get a head-start on getting the first one built! 

 

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the reply.  I *think* the Eagle would be a good starting point for a Semi Scale Cosmic Wind.  It would take some redrawing, but I don't think it would be to awful hard.  Lowering the stab c/l would be the most noticeable change.  I just have always had a fascination with the Little Toni for years and years..........

Bill <><

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the reply.  I *think* the Eagle would be a good starting point for a Semi Scale Cosmic Wind.  It would take some redrawing, but I don't think it would be to awful hard.  Lowering the stab c/l would be the most noticeable change.  I just have always had a fascination with the Little Toni for years and years..........

Bill <><

Bill,

Thanks for the interest in this Little Mike (nee Continental Eagle).  The eagle was designed with the influence of the Little Mike.  There a a number of really great looking Continental/Goodyear/Formula One racers.  To me some of the most attractive were/are the Little Mike, the Shoestring and the Cosmic Wind/Minnow/Little Toni series.  Your comments about making some changes to my Little Mike excursion to make it look like a Cosmic Wind is interesting.  The original Cosmic Wind and its two sister ships had a low wing, "standard" position for the horizontal tail and different configurations for the canopy including a bubble canopy for the Little Toni and an early version of the Cosmic Wind and then a faired aft turtle deck behind the canopy.  The Little Mike is a mid-wing, the horizontal tail is mounted well up on the vertical tail and  has a fairing/turtle deck behind the canopy.  In my opinion, it would be about as easy to start with a clean piece of paper to do a Cosmic Wind rather than modify my Little Mike drawings. 

Now, there was a major modification to the original Cosmic Wind Minnow where the airplaned was stretched and the wing was moved up to a mid-wing position and had essentially a bubble canopy.  I played around with some sketches of this for a while.  Its lines are quite attractive and in fact, not as "chunky" as the Little Mike.  However, I liked the ideas of the higher tail on  the little mike where the revised Cosmic Wind/Minnow had almost a zero-zero-zero set up with the engine, wing and horizontal tail.  So I just stretched everything on the Little Mike, used the high tail, used a fairly high aspect ratio wing (by CL stunt standards) with a slight LE sweep, painted it blue and white with gold pin striping  and called it the Continental Eagle.  Again, if you are after the "appearance" of the modified Cosmic Wind Minnow, I would recommend a clean sheet of paper to start with.  You might want to take some "design cues" from the Eagle, but to even make the Minnow to "look right" as a stunt ship and to get the "right numbers",  you would want to do some adjusting on some moments, measurements and shapes.

It would be fun if we could get together to work on this.  I think I still have the sketches I played with on this from the mid 70's.

Keith Trostle

Here's the mid-wing Cosmic Wind Keith mentioned.  ALSO Great planes(?) makes a RC ARF of both the low wing Little Toni and the mid wing Cosmic Wind - so you can compare the pix.