Free Flight Sport - 2011/05

May 2011 123
[[email protected]]
Free Flight Sport Gene Smith
Also included in this column:
• Tissue over Mylar
• Lynne Fehr MiG-15
• Easy Built Smoothie kit
• CB Models Yardstick kit
• Guillow’s Series 900 Mustang
• Yahoo! Free Flight CookUp
• Flying Aces Club Newsletter
One design at the Nats
Above: Using Mylar as the primary
covering material on his Senator allowed
Craig Limber to place an intricate design
of chalked tissue over it. Limber photo.
Left: This is some innovative thinking.
The DT position protects the Senator’s
stabilizer on landing. Limber photo.
Lynn Fehr built his beautiful MiG-15 from an Easy Built Models kit.
Fehr photo.
David Scigliano worked wonders with a Guillow’s Series 900
Mustang kit. Scigliano photo.
NOW IS THE time to get your 1/2A Viking
finished and trimmed for the Nats in
Muncie, Indiana. Don’t forget the event for
past 1/2A One Designs on Tuesday July 19.
Get out your Mini Pearl, Starduster X,
Bounty Hunter, or Country Boy, and put it
in the air. Remember that it must use either
a Nostalgia-legal engine or a Cox TD .049
or .051.
As my good friend, Karl Gies, has been
doing, Craig Limber has been using Esaki
tissue over 1/4 mil Mylar for almost all of
his models. He has taken advantage of this
Mylar base to apply beautiful intricate
designs to his airplanes.
One thing Craig is doing differently is
using Future floor polish instead of dope to
stick on the tissue. A few years ago Future
was being touted on several FF blogs. I
hadn’t heard much about it recently, until
Craig mentioned that he was using it.
He said that the smell of dope was really
getting to him, so he started looking for
alternatives. The Future is working out for
him.
It goes on easily, is water-based, and
allows the tissue to go around moderate
compound curves. The tissue grows roughly
3% as it is applied, so Craig keeps that in
mind as he tries to match up edges.
He experimented with domestic tissue
because it’s available in many colors.
However, he found that it doesn’t work well
in this application; it falls apart while being
applied.
The good news is that since Craig heard
about coloring Esaki tissue with chalk, he
has been able to create any color tissue he
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124 MODEL AVIATION
propeller in a consistent manner and it
looks kind of cool.
Since losing his previous Senator when
the stabilizer failed to drop down on DT,
Craig fabricated a spring system that has
been more reliable. He made use of an idea
from Bernard Guest, who is one of his
modeling compatriots in Calgary, Alberta,
Canada.
Bernard suggested having the stabilizer
swing 225° to DT position, so that it won’t
be first to hit the ground when it comes
down. Craig was skeptical at first, but he
found that it works well.
Lynn Fehr built a beautiful MiG-15 jet
from the Easy Built Models kit. He plans
to fly it with either a Jetex 50 or a Rapier
L-3 motor. Unfortunately neither is
currently in production.
Lynn sealed the silver tissue covering
with two coats of clear nitrate dope diluted
by half. The model’s landing gear plugs in
and rotates 90° to lock in place. He also
crafted a set of landing gear doors that
plug in for flying and a cockpit interior to
enhance the scale appearance.
On the topic of Easy Built Models, its
laser-cut Smoothie kit is a winner. I
recently completed mine and found that
the wood and laser cutting were
The author’s Easy Built Models Smoothie strikes a pose after the
big snowstorm last February.
Matthew Smith packs the winds into his Yardstick built from a CB
Model Designs laser-cut kit.
wants. Applying chalk also helps make the
color opaque.
Not having to deal with the dope smell
has allowed Craig to get ambitious with his
coloring schemes. The Mylar/tissue
covering is not too heavy, either. His
Senator weighs 56 grams minus rubber.
One of the key tricks Craig has learned
while experimenting with this technique is
to go over the results with a hot iron, to melt
the Future. It sticks the tissue well enough
that it’s hard to pull it off without ripping
the Mylar.
So far nothing he has tried has done
better. All of the airplanes he covered using
dope to adhere the tissue have since
delaminated.
The hot iron also pulls out any wrinkles
that might appear as the tissue shrinks
slightly when it dries. Then Craig gives his
models a final coat of Krylon UV spray, to
protect the colors from sunlight.
Each of his Senators uses a 13-inch
laminated balsa propeller with 12 strands
of 1/8-inch Tan Super Sport that weigh
approximately 30 grams. He got his first
model up to only 800 turns before losing it
to a DT failure.
The black lines on Craig’s propeller are
felt-tip-pen ink. Before laminating the
propeller blank, he colors the blanks with a
Sharpie. He finds that it helps carve the
excellent, as were the plans.
The included markings sped up the
finishing process. Many of the fuselage
formers looked similar, so patterns (not full
scale) were included so you could organize
them before assembly.
My model almost flew “off the board” but
did need a bit of extra right thrust and
downthrust. Don’t they all?
You might not have heard of CB Model
Designs, but I can tell you that owner/operator
Clint Brooks sells a quality product. My
grandson, Matthew, built his Yardstick kit and
was quite pleased with the result.
The laser cutting and balsa were first-rate.
A complete hardware package and detailed
instructions were included. The DT setup for a
viscous timer was shown on the plans, so my
grandson didn’t have to engineer his own.
Matthew’s model flew very well.
Clint also kits his Boomer MIKE P-30,
which won that event at the last two US FF
Champs. The design has other wins to its
credit. There is also a Curtiss P-40Q scale
model kit in the works, which should be
available by the time you read this.
You might recall David Scigliano’s beautiful
Comet Curtiss Robin build from the January
column. Scigs has done it again with his version
of the Guillow’s Series 900 Mustang kit.
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May 2011 125
Consisting primarily of warbird models,
the 900 series is a favorite of mine. The kits
are quick to build, capture the essence of the
full-scale aircraft, and are relatively easy to
trim for flight.
The airplanes are a nice size, with 17- to
18-inch wingspans. And unlike in some of the
other Guillow’s kits, the wood is usually light.
The structure is basic stick-and-tissue, with
1/20 balsa fuselage sides.
Scigs normally uses paint to create a silver
finish, but he used this project to experiment
with tissue. He selected Easy Built Models
silver tissue, because it weighs essentially the
same as Esaki tissue and is close to a quarter
of the cost.
Scigs said that the Easy Built tissue went
on easily and shrank well. In fact, he found it
necessary to seal the edges of the seams with
Testors Wood Cement, to prevent the tissue
from pulling away when shrinking. He
brushed on two coats of thinned Aero Gloss
dope to seal the tissue.
If you think you might like to try stick-andtissue
construction, I strongly recommend the
Yahoo! Groups Free Flight CookUp. This
blog, which John Ernst has run for many
years, is now ably moderated by FAC
member Doug Beardsworth, who is full of
useful information about both building and
flying these models.
Members of the blog vote on projects they
would like to do as an online group build.
That way, they can compare problems
encountered and solutions devised on similar
models.
As I write this, there is a Guillow’s 900-
series kit CookUp underway. It will be
finished by the time you read this, but all the
information about the build will be saved in
the archives.
The Flying Aces Club (FAC) is the place
to be if you are interested in FF Scale or
small FF Duration models. Do not be
intimidated by the flawless aircraft you see
in FAC Nats coverage.
You do not have to be an experienced
modeler to enjoy FAC. I have found the
members to be helpful to all, beginners
included.
Ross Mayo, commander in chief of the
FAC, has worked very hard to keep the
organization in proper order since the
passing of long-standing commander in
chief Lin Reichel. One of the strong points
of the organization has been its bimonthly
newsletter—Flying Aces Club News—which
Lin ably produced for many years with his
wife, Juanita, and other valued volunteers.
Rich Weber, a longtime modeler and
FAC member, is now editing the newsletter,
which features several model plans sets in
every issue. If his first effort is any
indication, Flying Aces Club News is in
capable hands.
The FAC had no formal Web site until
this year. Thanks to David Mitchell’s hard
work, now it has one that contains contest
rules and membership information.
No computer? Become a member of the
FAC by sending $18 to Rich Weber. If you
live in the Denver, Colorado, area, check out
the big WESTFAC III contest that will be
held there June 22-25. MA
Sources:
Easy Built Models
(334) 358-5184
www.easybuiltmodels.com
CB Model Designs
Box 50018
Long Beach CA 90815
www.cbmodeldesigns.com
Guillow’s
(781) 245-5255
www.guillow.com
Yahoo! Groups Free Flight CookUp:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ffcookup
Flying Aces Club
www.flyingacesclub.com
Rich Weber
9154 Eldorado Tr.
Strongsville OH 44136
National Free Flight Society
http://freeflight.org
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