I had this modified Novi 4 with a drastic V tail almost ready to fly for the 1973 season in primer stage...(thanks to Big Arts input) that I had hoped would be an outstanding looking V TAIL MODEL.
However just a weeks before the 73 nats...this young man destroyed his Nats stunter and needed a QUICK REPLACEMENT MODEL and knowing that I had this Novi almost ready for a finish and that my wind tunnel tests were running waaaaaay behind schedule....it was my idea that he and his dad take this model...PUT ON A QUICK FINISH, in order that he still could attend the nats.
Fortunately or unfortunately...I couldn't convince them to LEAVE THE V TAIL ALONE....but instead here is the modified V tail.
History with this model proved that this stab as shown made a really good flying model that earned him a win at the nats.
Although I never was in love with a yaller and green finish paint scheme...at least I was pleased at just how nice the paint project turned out...and better yet...left the body mounted landing gear which I thought also would help CLEAN up the dirty air...around those beautiful aerodynamically clean clean Eliptical wing platforms that just SCREAM TO REMAIN CLEAN and landing gear free. (I still think that although wing mounted gears look sooo cooooool that those fairing attached landing gears in the wings...CAN BE A MAJOR SOURCE OF ALIGNMENT TROUBLES that are soooo hard to correct. I was always fussing with those wing mounted landing gear farings that seem to "re-adjust or unjust themselves...especially on hard landings.
For example if one or both wheel farings are out of alignment...even slightly....weird wing wobblees' seem to appear out of "thin or thick air?"
So keep in mind...make sure those farings on wing mounted gears remain small as possible ins size or more importantly... in alignment with the air flow.
After hitting a tar strip at the Spokane Internats...I broke one landing gear fairing....I THEN POPPED OFF THE OTHER ONE...
I WAS BLOWN AWAY just how much flying that Avenger without the landing gear fairings...just how much smoooooooooooother that model flew through the squares.
 
I GOTTA STAY OFF THE STARBUCKS COFFEE THAT IS FREE TODAY ON VOTING DAY!!
[move]SO WITH THAT...GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!! BUT STAY OFF THE FREEBEE JAVA HIT!!!

Shultzie
Greetings out to Gig Hahbah!

Boy you SHOOOOORE know how to pull MY chain!  Darned interesting history on the Novi 4V.  I also agree that fuse gear is cleaner than wing mount, but wing gear LOOKS meaner.

So you gonna make us wait for a V (or droop) tailed Avenger???

Dennis...
Speaking of CHAIN PULLIN'.....From the first time that I met BIG ART and spent those daze-days and nights in that BIG OLATHA HANGER AT THE 68 NATS..with Art, friends and family.
THE ADAMISIN TABLE...WAS LIKE THE PIED' PIPER'S AREA OF THE WEEK. Everyone of the truly addicted stunt grunt community gathered like FLIES ON A DEAD HORSE...(or for a better or bitter expression..BEES ON A HONEY BUCKET...ugh...
anyhoo...you get the message?
Bottom line: I HOLD THE ADAMISIN CLAN....quite responsible for FUELING MY ADDICTION to CLPA. As you know...over the years soooooooooo many people, places, things, situations also help fuel that same FIRE THAT BURNS inside our demented stunt addicted souls.

Speaking of V tailed stunters...(YES, I agree that nuttin looks MEANER than wing mounted landing gears) but from the very first time that I saw one of those amazing Russian stunters with only ONE LANDING WHEEL...mounted deep inside the body near the C.G. point....with only two wing tip skids...
(which now with the new technology of ding-skuff resistant products that are being used on the expensive new cars...
I now invision only one carefully mounted MAIN SINGLE BODY MOUNTED WHEEL. Naturally two smaller wheel or wheels....mounted  on the tips of those drooping inboard and outboard wing.

 (of course that outboard wheel location just maybe... needs that extra beefing,)

 however perhaps just simply  a "replaceable tip weight box" that also doubles as a wing tip weight, just might save the day...
ALSO this new  AVENGER or SEAHAWKER etc....DEMANDS to also have that BIG V TAIL...WITH NOT ONE BUT TWO fuselage fairings that flow to both right and left portions of those V tails...
Hummm?
Years ago...after experiencing just how smooth and predictable flying  that old BIG IRON combat model seem to fly and just how well it would grooooove' and straight line track on the level laps...so much so, I was able to watch the other flyers combat model.
TRUTH IS...
I COULD FEEL EXACTLY WHERE MY MODEL WAS...AS IT SEEM TO FOLLOW MY HANDLE POSITION?
They say (who are THEY..THAT SPEED KILLS) especially for stunt...but DOES IT?

HEY JIVE COMBAT TEAM...PHIL-HOWARD??? U COMBAT KINGS..WHO NOW FLY AWESOME STUNT PLANES AND PATTERNS...ANY THOUGHTS HERE?

 Also many of you have heard me rant about that one test flight on Bobby B's HUMMMMMBUGGA' at the same 68 nats, after the all the flying was over... and just how many of us who had the pleasure or trust to fly that little .19 powered Baron's bomber..actually felt that same sense of "ONE-NESS"...THAT STRANGE FEELING YOU GET WHEN THAT STUNT MODEL ACTUALLY SEEMS LIKE AN EXACT EXTENTION OF YOUR ARM...instead of a wobbling, boucing, hunting....over and understeering piece of FLIPPITY FLAPPIN FLAPPED OVER WEIGHT PIGGYLET OF A STUNT MACHINE...THAT SEEMS HELL BENT ON DOING ITS OWN THING...INSTEAD OF WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO...
WHICH IS TO FOLLOW THE WISHES OF ITS PILOT!!!
Although in those daze...jet styles and scale stunters, where just beginning to GET UNDER THE SKINS of the traditionalistical NOBERLITE'S?  How weirdly strange it was to see a long line of stunters in the contest staging areas...that now contained TWO RADICALLY DIFFERENT DESIGNS..
AL RABE'S BEAUTIFUL TALL STATELY BEARCAT AND MUSTANG..AND BARON'S teenie .19 powered COMBAT APPEARING HUMMMMMBUGGA' HUMBUG? 
Truth is...many flyers were almost alarmed  and down right UPSET to see just how beautifully these two models performed.
Why?

Sorry for the caps...but over the years...NO MATTER WHAT CLPA plane we fly...it still always comes down to that battle of HUMAN BEING...V/S that stunt model out their on the end of those 60 to 70 feet of steel cable?

Sorry for the rant.... (too much java again this morning after staying up waaaaaay to late to watch OBAMA SEIZE THE RULE N' REINS as our beloved country SEIZES the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Not only to our United States, but also to our fellow human kind throughout our tattered world.

THEIR MUST BE A BETTA WAY??

and speaking of keeping an eye ope, watch for a new Avenger to appear on the horizon next year too!

Thanks Dennis...
Yes!
That was one of the models that was getting LOTS OF GOSH'S N' GANDERS' at the Adamisin bench.
After seeing that model...as well as seeing those Russian single wheel body mounted landing gear models, I have always wanted to work with that platform.  I think Art was on the right path by using two wheels...(ala' B-52 style...but one had to be extremely careful...to make sure that the placement was in just the right spot. Anyone who has seen the real B-52 take-off knows that all too well...how it races down the runway...until the wings give enough lift and then that INFAMOUS  SUDDENT HOP INTO THE AIR. Anyone who has had the opportunity to experience what that would FEEL like to the pilot n' crews knows that TUMMY IN YOUR BUTT sydrome...that has over the years caused many a 'bladder or butt release (if you weren't ready for it.
When I first started at the wind tunnell waaaaaaaaaaay back in the 70's, the first wind tunnel test I was assigned too....was take off and landing attitude tests with the test bed flutter model that was redesigned to carry "gattling-gun like" clusters of wing mounted ALCM nuke and regular missles. Those were the kind that were jettisoned off the underside of the wings.
The C-G tests were made due to the rather noticable shift away from center...SO YOU CAN JUST IMAGINE HOW EXICTING a take off in that in line landing gear might become IF THE C-G center of lift was not in alignment with the main landing gears???
What a BUNNY HOP into the air that would be....
After some pretty exciting flutter and take off tests...the PODS that carried the ALCM had to be shifted to a more aft position...(which again made for some pretty interesting revamps to the B-52s CG locations.
Another long driviled story...
Back to Art beautiful model...Sadly I didn't get to see his flight that day at the 68 Nats.
The Russian stunters...according to Bob Gialdini...that used a single main wheel and a tail wheel with music wire skids on the wing tips...MADE FOR SOME PRETTY FUNNY SCRAPIN'-FINGA NAILS ON A BLACKBOARD SYDROME SOUNDS...as those tips rattled and scraped on the tarmac runways.
However other models with tip wheels would often experience annoying flutter...however using press fit replaceable tough tygon tubing run strip...seem to all but eliminate the noise. With that....
SIMPLY A RUB STRIP OF REPLACEABLE TYGON could be used as wing tip skid pads with good success?
Art was certainly WAAAAAAAAAY ahead of his time...HE WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT AERODYNAMICAL ENGINEERIN'WIZZZARDSKI'

THANKS FOR MEMORIES AND THOSE GREAT PHOTOS...

Thanks Shulzie,,

as for the ribs,,,
Yes, I wonder if the designer had a contract with the balsa suplier or something, there is a  LOT of ribs,, one inch centers,, thank the lucky stars for laser cutting!!! Or he just liked cutting ribs?
FWIW the wing as it sits lacking flaps and tips is 8.5 oz with the controls, so on target so far,,,

After 34 years....This last weekend at "The Narrows" my dreams of a V TAIL FINALLY ARE ABOUT TO COME TRUE!
Redesigned custom by AN INSTANT IMPACT!

Don,
jeez by the sounds of it you were picking up splinters and shards of shatterd hopes and dreams! heck that looks like a weekends work to put back together,,

Yeh..
All I really need to do....is get another canopy.....actually the cowling is just skuffed pretty badly...the stab is pretty much toast...but that also could be "re=assembled or a quicky cut out of a new stab would be better..to keep the weight in check. (actually the other day...the Chippy seemed a tad too nose heavy anyway...but that nose is longer than a standard Chipmunk, but again, so is the flap hinge line to elevator hinge line.
  Thankfully the elevators weren't damaged....so with that in mind..
MARK...RIGHT ON!!!!YES! I agree...it seem like a waste of time to do any serious revampin and finishing. I just need to get this piece of Super Buffalo Chips' back in the air as a eye to muscle retraining thing-thang~

I have NEVER CRIED OVER SPILT MILK OR BROKEN STUNT MACHINES....even after all these years...I still believe that we should build these things to fly...and not to pamper n'cuttle-coddle. Ever since reading an article...and building that stunt model...called "THE ZILTCH EXPENDABLE"
I too...ALWAYS tried to keep that same mind set that if we are going to bring any award hardware home...we too should ALWAYS attempt fly the stunt pattern everytime as close to the book as possible, even in practice and never eva' fly without a goal in  mind.
(Tim Dunlop alway encouraged me and others to KEEP A FLIGHT LOG BOOK..recording all the good, the bad, and even the humbling UGLY'S LIKE MY LAST WEEK END'S FEEEASSSCO! 

 Few souls have ever won many contests...flying conservative...(even in practice--but also like Leo said...PRACTICING WITH A PLANE THAT YOU KNOW JUST ISN'T TRIMMED RIGHT...IS JUST PRACTICING MISTAKES!

Thanks Mark....

After I got back from goin' toda'dump....I had a message from Ben Madsen...RAZZIN-N-JAZZIN me something about needing to go back to "THE DOODY SCHOOL OF STUNT" for more  rehab n'  training exercises.
 
I then called Lynn Howard Doody...my mentor, my confidunta'olddo stuntmaster trainer and he could hardly stop laughin...since our beloved brotha-Pete, our Petersonski' had told Ben about my hard inverted landing and before the day was out...Ben had spread the word that the old 34 year old SupaChip  finally bit the tarmac

Lynn also...suggested that I just get out the expoxy...mix up a big batch of mirco ballons and start slattern' the goo...forget making a new stab..just add a couple of J-3ish' stab struts underneath the old Chippers stab...and just go out there and get back onto the stuntcyle again.

Then later...if I can't stand looking at that mess...perhaps then..and only then...GIVE SIGAFOOSKI  A CALL AND HAVE THEM 2 DAY AIRMAIL A NEW CANOPY AND COWLING...