Author: Sal Calvagna
Edition: Model Aviation - 2010/11
Page Numbers: 116,117,118
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Radio Control Giants — Sal Calvagna [[email protected]]

Sopwith Tabloid — Ed Hirschfeld

I thoroughly enjoy receiving e-mail from readers, especially when they share helpful information. For the August issue I wrote a simple piece about how to paint a canopy frame that included photos to go along with the few steps involved.

The responses I received were positive; however, Tom Solinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Tony Albence of the Delaware R/C Club offered an additional helpful hint: paint the canopy interior color on the outside first. Tom says this is typical on plastic models. Tony suggested applying a first coat of zinc-chromate green (or blue for Japanese aircraft) and then painting the exterior color over it to achieve a more scale appearance. Thank you, gentlemen, for reading the RC Giants column and for your assistance.

Ed Hirschfeld's Selden, Long Island, workshop rarely lies dormant. His latest project is a 1/4-scale Sopwith Tabloid built from enlarged Ziroli/Polapink plans. It spans 77 inches and is powered by a Zenoah G-23 gas engine. The model was designed and assembled using standard stick-built construction methods from balsa, light plywood, and aircraft-grade plywood. The Tabloid is covered with Solartex and its all-up weight is 14 pounds.

Ed uses six standard-size/torque servos—two for elevator, two for ailerons, one for rudder, and one for throttle—and control is via a Futaba six-channel FASST radio. The model flies great, and the landing gear skids prevent nose-overs on touchdown.

The full-scale Tabloid was supposedly so named because its small size and performance created such a sensation when it was released. It was one of the first aircraft that the Sopwith Aviation Company built, and it first flew in November 1913. The pilot and passenger sat side by side instead of in the common front-and-rear arrangement. Initially, the little biplane used wing warping instead of ailerons for lateral control. It was powered by an 80-horsepower Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine and reached 92 mph when Harry Hawker flight-tested it at Farnborough, England.

A seaplane version of the Tabloid with a larger engine, the Sopwith Schneider, was flown in April 1914 to win the Schneider Trophy in Monaco. The Schneider Cup was a floatplane competition of pure speed around a triangular course, meant to encourage technical advances in civil aviation. A French Deperdussin won the first Schneider race in 1913 by an average speed of 45 mph. The Tabloid/Schneider won the following year, traveling at a then-blistering 86 mph.

At the outbreak of World War I, Tabloids were used as fast scouts. Some naval types sported a single Lewis machine gun over the top wing. A different version had the Lewis gun mounted on the side of the fuselage, firing through the propeller arc; the blades had deflector plates installed so that bullet strikes would not damage the propeller.

The aircraft made its claim to fame during the war on October 8, 1914. Two Royal Navy Air Service Tabloids made the first raid on German soil, taking off from Antwerp, Belgium. Only one made it to the destination—the German Zeppelin sheds at Düsseldorf—and destroyed Zeppelin Z IX by dropping two 20-pound bombs from a 600-foot altitude. The rapid improvements in aircraft design quickly made the Tabloid obsolete, and it was removed from service in early 1915.

Schweizer 2-33A (model) — Steve Anthony

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Steve Anthony of Babylon, New York, was extraordinarily sincere when he created a 1/4-scale miniature of the Schweizer 2-33A training sailplane, owned by the Long Island Soaring Association at Brookhaven Calabro Airport.

Steve built the model from an Aviation Concepts kit. It spans 153 inches, has a length of 78.5 inches, and has 1,975 square inches of wing area, producing a wing loading of 14 ounces per square foot. A five-channel radio is required, with seven onboard servos for rudder, elevator, ailerons, spoilers, and tow release.

You can purchase the kit all-inclusive or only the plans. The plans comprise 12 pages of detailed drawings, with full-size patterns and a complete bill of materials. You can also buy the plans and assembly manual, which includes outstanding color photos and detail sheets for cockpit components/dash documentation, canopy latch, variometer pitots, steps, tip wheels and skid, tow release, and more.

For more information about this kit, contact Gunny Bumburs or check it out on the Hangtimes Hobbies website. Many thanks to the Long Island Soaring Association members who gave sailplane rides in the Schweizer 2-33A (the full-scale aircraft, not the model). For those in the area interested in full-scale sailplanes, please visit the club's website.

Composite-ARF P-51 Mustang — Don Conradis

Don Conradis of Patchogue, New York, has finished a great-looking 100-inch-wingspan Composite-ARF P-51 Mustang that he built over the course of a year. It is powered by a Desert Aircraft DA-85 gas engine and sports retractable landing gear from Sierra Giant Scale. The design has all surface detail molded into the fiberglass. The model is painted with the Klass Kote epoxy coating system and finished as Major Richard "Bud" Peterson's P-51 of the 357th Fighter Group.

Bud Peterson was a well-respected fighter pilot who scored 15.5 victories during WWII and ended as one of the highest-scoring Mustang aces of the war. For more information about this kit, visit the Composite-ARF website.

Many consider the P-51 to have been the "Cadillac of the sky" during its wartime use, and it is a very popular subject to model. Toward the end of the war in Europe, the P-51 was considered for B-29 bomber protection in the Pacific Theater and was tested as a naval fighter fitted with a tailhook for carrier operations. However, after Iwo Jima was secured and P-51s could escort B-29s all the way to Japan, the naval version was canceled.

The P-51D was the most widely produced model. The P-51H was the final version made: it was lighter, had an enlarged vertical fin, and sported a slightly longer fuselage to reduce yaw. The P-51H featured water injection, which gave it an emergency combat power of more than 2,200 horsepower. This produced a top speed of approximately 487 mph at 25,000 feet, making it one of the fastest propeller aircraft produced. The P-51H and the P-47N were the primary fighters selected for the invasion of Japan. A total of 2,000 P-51Hs were ordered, and 555 had been delivered when the war came to an end.

Next month I will have some exciting Flitfire news resulting from the August 2010 column. All I can tell you right now is that it's a "small world." MA

Sources

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.