112 MODEL AVIATION
[[email protected]]
Free Flight Sport Gene Smith
Also included in this
column:
• Three brothers enjoy
FF together
• Dohrm Crawford’s
Spacer
• More shop tips
• Paul’s MiG-15 Catapult
Glider
• Karl Gies’s Pepper
• Dime Scale Lysander
• Texas Timers
• Sources on the Web
Nats One Design category
This relatively obscure Comet Pepper is one of Karl Gies’s latest
projects. Gies photo.
Paul Grabski has a new model for Jet Catapult Scale: a great-flying
MiG-15. It is modeled after a version that a Russian Lt. Col. piloted
during the Korean War. Grabski photo.
Dohrm Crawford with his nice Spacer. He has found Nostalgia Gas
to be a great way to get back into power FF. Crawford photo.
The cool dudes in the shades are the Connor boys: the newest
members of the Pensacola Free Flight Team. White photo.
YOU STILL HAVE time to build a Country Boy for this year’s
One Design event at the Nats. Don’t forget the One Design
Combo on Tuesday for prior .049 One Designs.
Encouraged by their father, three brothers developed an interest in
building and flying FF models. Dennis made a Guillow’s Javelin, a
club member gave West a Straight-Up Catapult Glider, and Will
constructed a Campbell’s Souper 30.
All of the boys are members of the AMA and the Pensacola Free
Flight Team (PFFT). Despite having seen their first FF model just
last fall, the boys have proven to be fast learners.
They built the two larger aircraft on their own and have been at
the flying field at every opportunity. Their photo was taken after a
day of flying, during which all three models were trimmed and flew
well.
With this pace of progress, the “older boys” in the club will soon
have serious competition.
Dohrm Crawford has been enjoying a return to FF, beginning
with Gliders and continuing with Nostalgia gas-power models.
His latest Gas model is a Class B Spacer he built from an old
Campbell’s kit. A note on the box read that it was the first
07sig4_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/25/10 2:16 PM Page 112
production kit and was dated November
17, 1983.
Dohrm made an extra wooden spacer to
move the Spacer’s engine forward, for CG
purposes. He also had to add a couple
ounces of lead to get the weight up to 30
ounces.
The model is powered by a reworked
Veco .29. Bob Mattes did the engine work
with his usual excellence. According to
Dohrm, the power plant is slightly over the
hill, but that isn’t necessarily bad on a
Spacer. He says that it moves out!
Trimming was coming along well last
fall, when Dohrm had a propeller vs. finger
episode that delayed final trimming until this
past spring. He is also looking forward to
campaigning his Hoosier Hotshot and his
150% T-Bird this year.
Rudy Kluiber saw my mention of using
Titebond, and he sent some additional tips that
work with either Titebond or Elmer’s glue.
Rudy saves bottle tops from soft drinks,
milk jugs, and other small food containers.
He pours the glue into the bottle top and
does the dip-the-crosspiece-or-rib-in-theglue
routine. By having the adhesive in a
small container, Rudy can thin it with water
if needed.
He also keeps the black plastic food trays
that many heat-and-serve dishes come in.
They’re great in which to keep small bits
when working on engines, timers, or
anything that has little pieces that usually
end up on the floor. The black color of the
trays makes it easy to find the tiny parts.
Rudy is a big fan of the 1/2A One Design
event and has a contest for those models
each year. The 2010 edition is set for Friday
October 1 in Muncie, Indiana. It is part of a
three-day weekend of meets, including the
NOFFA two-day event and the Ted Dock
Memorial FAC (Flying Aces Club) meet.
Paul Grabski sent in a picture of his MiG-
15 Catapult Glider after its trip to the paint
shop. It’s finished in North Korean
markings, which was the only thing Korean
about the original jet.
Paul’s version was modeled after a MiG
that Russian Lt. Col. A.P. Smorchkov
piloted. He is credited with four kills in the
Great Patriotic War and 12 in Korea.
The silver is Krylon matte aluminum
from a spray can. This color contributed less
than 1 gram to the model’s all-up weight of
19.5 grams.
The CG is 44%, and the wing spans 14
inches. Wing incidence is at 0 and the
stabilizer is set at 2.5° negative. The sweptback
wing needed a bit of washout bent into
each tip for good flights.
Paul reported that the MiG’s launch-toglide
transition is fantastic and that he has
been rewarded with some nice 30-second
flights. Now to hunt some thermals!
Karl Gies has been building Comet kits
since he was 9 or 10, and now he is 72. He
never saw the Comet Pepper kit as a kid,
but Lee Campbell and Gene Wallock claim
that it was Air Youth of America model 5.
Comet picked up the design as a kit,
called it the “Pepper,” and priced it at 75¢.
You could buy a Comet Sparky, which had
the same wingspan—32 inches—for 50¢, so
the Pepper kit never took off.
Karl shared a picture of his new Comet
Pepper built from a Bob Holman short kit
and Jim O’Reilly plans. It is covered with
Japanese tissue over 1/4 mil Mylar.
This past winter I decided to build the
Easy Built Models Dime Scale kit of the
Westland Lysander. Many kits of the 1930s,
including this one, left some of the
construction details to the modeler’s
imagination.
The nose section of the fuselage sides is
narrower than the body of the fuselage and
needs to be fixtured appropriately for each
side.
The Lysander’s wings were built
separately and butt-joined to the cabin
frame. That left no place to attach the
window material. I solved that by adding a
strip of 1/32 x 3/32 balsa above and below the
top cabin frame piece.
To facilitate the attachment of each
wing, I added a strip of 1/32 x 1/8 balsa to the
inside of the first wing rib (which was a
piece of 1/16 square) to make a “platform.”
Then I bent four short lengths of .012 wire
into an “L” shape.
I pushed two of the wire lengths through
the edge of each wing from inside out and
glued it to the platform and first rib. This
gave each wing two pins sticking out of the
first rib.
I stuck those pins into the cabin frame
where the wing was mounted. Not only did
this help hold the wing in place during
assembly, but it also greatly strengthened
the wing/fuselage joint.
I attached the first wing using the top
cabin frame as a guide for incidence. For
dihedral I used a right-angle triangle to
adjust the inboard wing panel at a right
angle to the side of the fuselage. The
outboard wing panel provided enough
dihedral.
Once I was satisfied with the wing
incidence and dihedral, I glued the first
wing in place. Then I trial-fit the second
wing. Again, I set the dihedral with the
triangle.
I carefully compared the second wing’s
incidence with that of the first wing, to
ensure that they were identical. I set the
wing incidence by adjusting the position of
the wing pins in the cabin frame.
The wheel pants and strut covers had to
be in place before adding the wing struts. I
fine-tuned the struts for length and position,
to be certain that the proper dihedral and
incidence were maintained.
At first I tried to assemble the struts as a
unit and then glue them in place. I found it
better to glue each strut into place
individually. This made it easier to maintain
wing alignment.
The cabin glazing was done using
cellophane that I saved from some
July 2010 113
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07sig4_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/25/10 2:16 PM Page 113
packaging. I tried attaching the material
with contact cement—a technique that I
learned from Orv Ulm and wrote about in
a prior column.
I painted the cabin frame “Interior
Green.” Then I brushed a thin layer of
contact cement onto the area to be
covered. When it was dry to the touch, I
positioned the cellophane and used a trim
iron to activate the adhesive. It did a great
job of attaching the cellophane to the
framework.
The covering was Easy Built Models
green tissue. I employed a brown marking
pen to add the camouflage pattern. A light
spray of Krylon Crystal Clear sealed the
tissue.
The carved-balsa propeller is 6 inches
in diameter and 7.25 inches in pitch.
Many FF fliers have purchased the remote
114 MODEL AVIATION
DT unit from Ken Baur. The question is
how to use it in conjunction with a Texas
Timers unit for a “belt and suspenders”
approach to DT our models.
Graham Selick of Georgia answered
that question with a setup that can be
retrofitted to a current model or installed
in a new one. There are more pictures on
the Texas Timers Web site under “Helpful
Hints.” See the source section at the end of
the article for the address.
I have rediscovered the Hobby
Specialties Web site. It is a source for
spoked wheels and inexpensive viscous
timers. The company has added a couple
of new items, such as carved-balsa
propellers and a small balsa stripper.
An unlikely place to find excellent FF
builds and information is online at
RCGroups! If you visit the Web site, scroll
down to “Aircraft—Exotic and Special
Interest,” and then select “Free Flight.”
There you can find several interesting
threads with great pictures and tips related
to stick-and-tissue modeling. I was
especially interested in the thread about
the Comet Dauntless kit. The
workmanship and pictures of the model
were excellent.
If you wish you could build stick-andtissue
models similar to those you see in
Fly’n D Ranch 1st Annual
4th of July Celebration
New Private Property • R/C Resort in Glen Rose, TX.
3 live bands per night through the 4th (12 bands total).
Registration $40 (1st day), $20 (each added day)
includes nightly live entertainment.
N/C for coolers for pilots who are AMA members.
B.Y.O. chair, blanket, sunscreen, etc.
Flying Giants own TexasPyro will shoot the fi reworks show
on the 3rd.
Golf cart rentals, chuck wagon on site with
breakfast all 5 days.
Cabins, Campers, Golf Carts on site to rent.
Full RV Hook Up’s $50/night • Dry RV’s $20/night •
Dry tent $15/night
Gates open June 30th 8:00am.
Call 817-262-1813 to make reservations.
http://www.theflflfl yndranch.com
this column, an excellent resource for
construction tips is the Pensacola Free
Flight Team’s Web site. It is maintained
by George White. Simply click on articles
to start reading.
If you have built basic stick-and-tissue
models and would like to try your skills on
an FF Rubber Scale aircraft, check out
plans and a step-by-step tutorial for a
Comper Swift build at Mike Stuart’s
fabulous Web site. The address is in the
“Sources” section. MA
Sources:
Nats
(765) 287-1256
www.modelaircraft.org/events/nats.aspx
Pensacola Free Flight Team
www.pensacolafreeflight.org
Guillow’s
(781) 245-5255
www.guillow.com
Easy Built Models
(334) 358-5184
www.easybuiltmodels.com
Texas Timers
http://texastimers.com
Hobby Specialties
(423) 282-6423
www.hobbyspecialties.com
RCGroups
www.rcgroups.com
Mike Stuart’s Comper Swift build:
www.ffscale.co.uk/comper.htm
PAT. PENDING
www.advancesolarllc.com
Stay Charged with
Aircraft Solar
Battery Chargers
07sig4_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/25/10 2:16 PM Page 114
