home aircraft books history links old news quotes soft sounds weather
early electric gliders helicopter indoor technology future
tyro major multi task combat wing
Note: This pic is of something similar - not our actual aircraft
This was actually dad's choice of a suitable trainer aircraft. Designed by David Boddington. A fairly standard high wing rudder elevator thing.
We pretty well followed the kit instructions on this.
I always thought it was ridiculously too strong up front, yet the wing had an
incomplete D box ie. the lower sheeting was missing making it rather weak and
less rigid.
The tailplane was built up and banded on, no doubt to improve crash resistance.
Cavernous interior easily took the Skyleader 3 channel 27M radio.
Throttled OS25 engine fitted on a removeable plate with plenty of right and
down thrust.
I think we finished it in white solarfim on the fuselage, and red on the wings,
although it was a long time ago and I don't have any photos handy.
The mounting of the wire undercarriage was quite neat - using the width of the
fuselage as a torsion spring.
The light wing construction and the open frame fuselage meant a quite low wing
loading.
Later on, I added a payload release feature based on a pin being withdrawn into
the fuselage at full up elevator, releasing a metal ring attached to a rubber
band stretched around the underside.
With that much dihedral, and a correct balance point, it pretty well flew
itself.
Still, it served its purpose, and I spent many hours flying it around the sky
at the Dunchurch field and Warwick racecourse.
I even flew it on the field in front of the school on an open day there.
1 day someone at Warwick suggested I fly it inverted.
I thought he was joking, as the dihedral would make it unstable, and I didn't
think the steering effect of the rudder would work.
Anyway, he demonstrated it to me, and I managed it too.
I added a payload release mechanism and dropped parachutes made from a hanky
with a metal nut suspended on cotton.
We also managed to drop an action man paratrooper, although the weight of this
made take off a bit marginal, especially when you need to avoid full up
elevator (which triggered the release mechanism).
We took it on holiday to East Creech, near Corfe Castle, and flew it
off a slope there, soaring high in the slope lift at tickover.
Eventually it got a bit soggy with exhaust oil, and the wing leading edge
got a bit crunched.
Unfortunately we ignored this and carried on flying.
The wings folded and it plummeted to the ground at Dunchurch.
I always though the wing structure was too weak.
There didn't seem much point in keeping the wreckage, so we whipped the gear
out of it and moved on to other things.