82 M ODEL AVIATION
oNe oF the benefits of writing this column is the new friends I
get to make. Most are in the form of pen pals. It sure is great to be
able to correspond with and talk to others who share a common
interest. Once in awhile someone who lives in my general area
will check in and say hello. Even better is when an opportunity
comes along to get together and share some airspace in my
favorite small-field venue: my back yard.
During the summer flying season I had the pleasure of such a
meeting and flying session. After a few telephone calls to make
contact, Don Lincoln, his father Howard, and Mark Mullins joined
me for a nice Sunday afternoon of small-field flying.
I have included a few pictures of the event as a reminder of the
summer flying season. One of the photos shows Howard with a
Sig Rascal he built for Don from the kit version of the model.
Howard is a longtime modeler, and his building skills are
displayed in the electric-powered Rascal.
Howard also brought his plans-built, glow-powered model of
the old Guillow’s Trixter Beam. (Remember that glow-powered
models are welcome in this column.) A picture shows Mark
holding the model before flight. Howard powered it with an O.S.
.15 engine. He added elevator and throttle to the old singlechannel,
rudder-only design and demonstrated what a great smallfield
flyer it can be.
As I have mentioned before, many early designs make
excellent small-field flyers. Modern equipment makes the addition
of elevator, aileron, and throttle control easy. These extra control
functions let the classic designs shine and allow them to be flown
in confined spaces quite comfortably.
ron Fikes is a new friend who lives in Palo Alto, California. He
is an innovative guy whose work shows up periodically in the
print media as well as electronic media (Internet). I shared one of
Ron’s models—the nanoGnat—with you in the September
column. It provided a great deal of performance on a brushless
electric motor.
Based on the nanoGnat’s good performance, Ron built a larger
version that also uses brushless power; shown in the pictures is his
Hover Fly. The name says it all in terms of this model’s
Paul Bradley
S m a l l - F i e l d F l y i n g
32238 Spinnaker Run, Magnolia TX 77354; E-mail: [email protected]
Howard Lincoln built this Sig Rascal for his son Don. Howard
and Don joined the author for a backyard-flying session.
Mark Mullins holds a plans-built Guillow’s Trixter Beam that
Howard Lincoln constructed. It has an O.S. .15 for power.
Ron Fikes liked his nanoGnat so well he built a larger version
that gets its name from something it does well: Hover Fly.
The Hover Fly does its thing. It has an Astro brushless 020 power
package, a 35-inch wingspan, and an 18-ounce flying weight.
January 2003 83
performance, with its Astro brushless 020 power package. The
Hover Fly has a 35-inch wingspan with a flying weight of 18
ounces. Energy is provided by seven 500AR cells.
“With the Astro motor and 3.3:1 gearbox, it will hover
beautifully and loves slow flight, but will move right out at full
throttle,” said Ron.
Nice work!
While admiring the lines of the Sig Rascal that Howard Lincoln
built, I want to explore this model’s design heritage. As you can
see in the photo, the Rascal is a graceful, nice-looking airplane.
You might think this is a modern design since the Sig kit is fairly
new, but it is based on an old TopFlite Free Flight (FF) model by
noted designer Carl Goldberg that goes back to the late 1940s or
early 1950s. The old TopFlite FF kit was part of its Jigtime series
of rubber-powered models that were guaranteed to fly.
The Rascal 18, as it was known, had sheet-balsa construction
and sported a wingspan just less than 18 inches. A unique feature
of these sheet-balsa kits was that all die-cut parts were fully
colored. All the builder had to do was punch out the parts and
assemble the model. No painting or other form of marking was
necessary.
These kits were aimed at the young, beginning builder. In the
early 1950s that was me, and the TopFlite Rascal 18 was a
principal reason why I fell in love with model aviation. The
Rascal 18 holds a special place in my modeling memory.
Fortunately, through the modern wonders of the Internet we
have access to a great time machine called eBay. This auction site
offers for sale almost anything from the past that you can
imagine. Thanks to my brother Ralph’s watchful eye, we found a
pristine TopFlite Rascal 18 kit that was being offered to the
highest bidder.
Based on a bidding strategy of nostalgia rather than being
vintage kit collectors, we were successful in acquiring this special
part of our early modeling years. We had dual purposes for
obtaining this kit; one was to have an opportunity to revisit a dear,
old friend. The other was to marry this old classic to modern
micro Radio Control (RC) equipment and have a special electricpowered
small-field flyer.
We weren’t about to actually build the kit, so the quest began
to figure out a way to replicate its parts. (Remember that the
original kit had balsa parts with color and markings already
applied to the wood.) A technique I have been using for many
years to apply color and markings to my FF and small-field RC
models is to run tissue paper through a computer ink-jet printer
then apply the printed tissue to the model using that classic
material called clear dope. This process works extremely well and
adds minimal weight to the model.
Ink-jet-printed tissue is fine for many models, but an airplane
the size of the old Rascal 18 is very weight sensitive. Adding
Read about the author’s project to duplicate the old TopFlite
Jigtime Rascal 18 for small-field RC flying.
Michael Rogozinsky with his Hacker J-3 Cub rubber-powered
Free Flight model that has been converted to electric RC.
Bill Wilkens did a nice job of converting a Curtiss SBC-3 rubber
FF kit to an electric-powered RC small-field flyer.
dope on ink-jet-printed tissue would be more weight than I would
want, especially if the model would also be carrying the weight of
micro RC gear and a power plant other than a rubber motor.
While contemplating this dilemma, I had a BFO (Blinding
Flash of the Obvious): Why not get rid of the tissue paper
altogether and print directly on the balsa? This would come closer
to duplicating the original kit parts, and it would not add weight.
The only thing required would be an ink-jet printer that allows
a straight-path paper-feed option and be capable of printing
continuous strips (such as 3 x 36-inch balsa). A number of
printers offer these features. I have a Hewlett-Packard model
1120, which will allow the paper to be fed directly from the back
of the printer so that there is no bending, and it supports banner
printing. It also accepts fairly thick card stock.
Armed with an idea and the tools, I began experimenting.
Early results showed that I could definitely print directly on balsa
sheet stock in thicknesses up to 1⁄20 inch. Not only could the balsa
stock be run through the printer, but the printing was sharp with
good color density—very cool.
Then the real work began: developing the artwork to duplicate
the old TopFlite Rascal 18. Using a scanner and a good vectordrawing
software package over the course of several evenings
resulted in a complete set of computer-drawn parts. The result of
my first printer run is shown in the photo. The computer-printed
balsa sheet is shown next to the original nearly-50-year-old kit
parts.
I am happy with the results and hope to be able to duplicate
other models of the old TopFlite Jigtime
series for electric RC small-field-flyer
conversions. Hopefully the eBay time
machine will offer other kits for this
quest.
I will present the results of the Rascal
18 project in the next column. I ran out of
building/development time before this
column’s submission due date.
my modeling roots are deep in the FF
arena. For this reason I’m always taken
by modelers who convert FF models to
RC small-field flyers. There are many
excellent modern kits to choose from, and
there is a huge array of classic FF designs
from the past that make great small-field
RC conversions. These designs include
Scale models, sport models, and
Duration-type designs. Mix designs for
rubber or engine power with scaling the
size up or down, and you have a dizzying
array of possible candidates for your next
project.
While attending the July 2002 Mid-
America Electric Fly-In, I had the good
fortune to encounter two modelers who
performed the FF to electric-powered RC
small-field flyer conversion trick. Both
models started life as modern rubberpower
kits of Scale models.
In a photo you will see Michael
Rogozinsky of the Toronto, Canada, area
with his Hacker J-3 Cub conversion. This
model is powered by an Astro Firefly
motor geared 4:1 using six 50 mAh cells.
The all-up flying weight is 31⁄2 ounces. It
flies very nicely.
Another photo shows Bill Wilkens of
Bowling Green, Ohio, with his converted
Dumas Curtiss SBC-3. Bill uses the GWS
DX-A (Lite Stik) motor and gear drive to
power the model. He also uses a GWS
three-blade 9 x 7 propeller and eight 270
mAh cells. Total flying weight is 10
ounces. This model flies beautifully. Well
done, gentlemen.
It looks like I have run out of room for
this installment. I do hope everyone is
taking advantage of the building season
so you will have plenty of new projects to
share in these pages with your fellow
readers. MA
