AMA Plans Service Showcase — VariEze (2012/12)
Burt Rutan’s homebuilt design takes on new life
David Heckman had been flying RC for eight years when he began building and flying rubber-powered free-flight (FF) models. He wanted to scratch-build his third FF airplane and settled on the VariEze, designed by Burt Rutan, for its box fuselage with a swept wing that eliminates the need for dihedral.
David found that making a kit was the easiest way to construct the VariEze. He cut out a template and rubber-cemented it to heavy paper, taped the plans to a building board, covered them with plastic wrap for protection, and pinned the parts on top of the plastic.
Construction details and materials:
- Canard: built from 1/16" sheet balsa or plywood.
- Winglets: 1/16" square balsa.
- Fuselage: box cross-section; two fuselage sides built from 1/16" square balsa sticks.
- Wing: built in right and left sections; 1/16" square balsa for the spar and leading edge, 1/8" x 1/16" balsa for the trailing edge.
- Landing gear: made from 1/32" diameter wire. Nose gear may be omitted if desired, since the full-scale VariEze had retractable nose gear.
- Propeller: Peck-Polymers 4 3/4" propeller installed to run in reverse and trimmed to 4". David warned that a larger propeller can create torque sufficient to induce barrel rolls.
- Engine housings and intake: formed from paper and painted to keep weight down. Main landing gear wire was also covered with paper to save weight.
- Covering: Japanese tissue attached with white glue instead of dope to reduce weight.
The model is a pusher, so launching was fairly normal. "I hope that anyone who tries to build the VariEze enjoys it as much as I have," he wrote.
VariEze was featured in the August 2002 issue of Model Aviation as AMA Plans Service listing 934 and is available for $5 plus shipping and handling. AMA members can access the magazine’s digital library on the Academy’s website to read more about it. See page 155 or go to www.modelaircraft.org/plans.aspx for ordering information.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
