AMA Plans Service - Stephens Akro - 2009/09
A vintage Giant Scale aerobat
Clayton Stephens designed the Akro in the late 1960s to challenge the Pitts in competition flying. The airplane did well; Leo Loudenslager later modified it into what became known as the "Laser."
The Akro is often overlooked as a modeling subject. At the time Dick Sarpolus's set of plans was printed, only one other RC design of this full-scale airplane had been published.
The 90-inch-wingspan Stephens Akro uses conventional construction, with a balsa-and-plywood fuselage, foam-core wing and tail surfaces, and a wing tube. The model was powered by an Air Hobbies Sachs 3.2 engine and weighed 19.75 pounds, with a wing area of slightly more than 1,300 square inches.
Dick noted that the Akro was great for sport flying but excelled in aerobatics, including:
- lomcevaks
- tailslides
- humpty bumps
- snaps
Pilots looking for a Giant Scale project that is both easy to build and fly should consider this design.
The Stephens Akro was featured in a construction article in the November 1996 issue of Model Aviation. Members can access the magazine's digital archives on the Academy's website to read more.
The model's AMA Plans Service listing is 822E, available for $30 plus shipping and handling. See page 175 or go to www.modelaircraft.org/plans.aspx for ordering information.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
