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Miscellaneous
Radio Control Models
These are a few of the models I built many years ago that I actually have photos
of. I don't remember enough about any of these models to actually dedicate
a page to each of them. I have included the few highlights that I do
recall.
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RCM/Bridi Trainer 40 —
1982
MT-40 (Modified Trainer 40) was originally a Bridi Kit that I built when I
was living in San Francisco. The kit
wing was built per the plans with full span strip ailerons. The wing in
the lower photo was scratch built using the original wing ribs as a pattern.
This wing had flaps and barn door ailerons.
The fuselage was fiberglassed and then primed and painted with HobbyPoxy
epoxy enamels. The wing and tail feathers were covered with Monokote.
Unfortunately, this plane died on its maiden flight due to the failure of a
brand new radio. I never even held the sticks. It went down while
the man who was test flying it was trying to regain control.
The factory said they thought the receiver crystal was cracked although they
couldn't tell for certain that it wasn't cracked as a result of the crash.
I never used that radio again and traded it for something that I can't remember
now.
Looking back now, I used a piece of automotive hose to connect a piece of
brass tube to the muffler. The tube was connected to the dural gear using
a spring. The receiver was wrapped in foam and placed above in the
fuselage above the gear.
I do not believe the radio was defective, but that the exhaust setup, and
especially the spring, generated radio noise that resulted in the demise of my
model.
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Spickler Quickie 500 — 1984
Originally this aircraft had an all-white
fuselage. One day a wire on the battery switch broke and the aircraft spun
in from about 200 feet at low throttle. The fuselage was mostly destroyed
from the firewall to the rear of the wing.
Almost the entire nose had to
be rebuilt from scratch because the original parts resembled an accordion and
had to be discarded.
I did not have any white covering left so I used scraps of the trim colors to
recover the repaired areas. She was then christened "Black Hearted" in
honor of my cat, Catherine who had a little black heart on her chest and, as is
the nature of cats, was quite mischievous.
The aircraft was a good flying aircraft and I had a
lot of hours on it. It was eventually destroyed by movers.
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Turbo Turtle — mid 1980's
This aircraft was a whimsical design that came about when I started wondering what would happen if someone made a
flying mini-van. It exemplifies what happens when I make it up as I go along. The tail boom was a left
over part from my Mantis helicopter.
The wing came from an Bridi/RCM kit that I do not remember the name of. I was chided a lot at the field about
the upside down rudder, but the design gave it good rudder control all the way to touch down.
The fuselage and empennage were fiberglassed, primed and painted. The wing was covered in SolarTex and painted.
As odd as it may look, it was a good flyer. Yet another aircraft that was destroyed by movers.
I happen to have a leftover tail boom from my
Raptor 30 and am considering building something
similar to this plane.
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 Flying Wing — mid 1980's
I always wanted a flying wing, so I gathered what information I could and set out to
design one. About all I can say is that it flew. It did not fly well, but it
did roll like crazy. My buddy Keith built a mixing board and soldered it into my
transmitter so I could avoid a mechanical mixer for the elevons.
It was a sluggish flyer and would yaw back and forth annoyingly throughout
each flight. Maybe
the rudder wasn't big enough. All I really learned was that I did not know enough
about flying wings to design one. I eventually just tossed this one out.
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 Midwest Lil Stik — mid 1980's
This aircraft was my "every day" model for a couple seasons. She had a
lot of hours on her being powered by an O.S. .28 engine. To the best of my
recollection, it never crashed and never had any serious problems. My Lil
Stik was eventually retired looking very weary.
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 Midwest Sweet 'n Low Stik — 1984
This was my first low-winger. I can not say much about the plane because I
did not have it for very long. It suffered catastrophic elevator flutter after just
a handful of flights and was declared dead on impact.
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 Spawn of Satan — Mid 1980's
To be honest, I never named this model but the
above name describes it pretty well. This was supposed to be a small,
over-powered hot-rod. It did not work out that way. It was the most
vicious airplane I have ever flown and a dismal failure as a design.
Specifically, any time the throttle was reduced
below about 1/2 it would snap roll wickedly at the slightest provocation.
Standard landing procedure was to fly it over some tall weeds and snap roll it
in. After several changes to the CG and other modifications, the airplane
was stripped of the engine, radio equipment and hardware and then with all the
respect it was due, was jumped up and down upon several times and disposed of. Plans will not be made available for this little winner. |
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 Stinky — 1982-2002
Stinky was converted from a Craft-Aire Piece 'O Cake (now kitted by
DynaFlight). The wingspan was shortened to around
42" and the fuselage was trimmed accordingly. The tail surfaces were also
reduced in area. Essentially, I wanted this aircraft to fulfill two purposes.
The first being an aircraft that was light and slow enough that no impact with the ground
would ever destroy it — an every day type of aircraft. Secondly, whenever I take a
non-flyer friend to the field, I want to be able to give them the opportunity to try it
without risking an aircraft I spent six months building.
Stinky was so easy to fly
that it is perfect for this purpose.
She was still airworthy when put into government storage prior to my being
stationed in Germany. By the time I got her back she was completely
destroyed.
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Copyright © 2002 Paul K. Johnson |
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