Saturday, October 8, 2016

P.E. Norman's Fokker DR-1 Flies Again


FOKKER DR-1



The DR-1 was scratch built in the mid 1960's from Aero-Modeler  plans designed for free flight by the famous British Aero Modeler *P.E. Norman;  it was controlled by using a unique pendulum arrangement to stabilize the model in the pitch mode. The design featured a flyaway wing components to limit damage in a rough landing; of which I am sure there were many. This particular model retained many of these damage tolerant features as well as adding 3 channel radio control. The model was flown successfully using an Enya 19 RC engine in it.'s early days. After all these years of storage in my hanger, the model has been updated by adding ailerons using 90 g micro servos mounted in each wing, installing a micro radio and adding an OS 30 Wankle engine up front for power. It was briefly flown in this configuration but was found to be dangerously tail heavy and in desperate of nose weight added.   
Specifications:-
Weight ........4.65 pounds
Wing Span...........40.5 inches
Center of gravity.............2.75 inches aft of upper wing leading edge
Wing stagger ...........3.0 inches
Power .......OS 30 Wankle
Propeller ............10X6 inches    



*The Late Percival Edward "PE" Norman. P.E. as he was called:
His love of scale biplanes was started by his older brothers, both World War I Royal Flying Corps (RFC) pilots. Many of his free-flight scale designs were published in the UK. Among those are the Sopwith Triplane, Gloster Gamecock, the Sopwith Siskin, Hawker Typhoon, Percival Mew Gull, and others. His scale models featured pendulum control in which he was quite expert. All feature extreme knock-apart construction, essential if they were to survive the initial trim flights! Stories abound of PE at Epsom Downs, generally shirtless, with models performing wild aerobatics as he trimmed and tamed them. He took great joy in having several of his scale free-flight models all in the air at once!

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

William's Brothers La Jollita Pylon Racer Kit





SPAN 45 INCHES
LENGTH 41 INCHES
AREA 460 SQ. INCHES
ENGINE 25-40

The La Jollita was a first of it kind. It's a "Rare large scale Pylon Racer for the Miniature Goodyear Event or sport flying". The kit Contains select balsa and plywood, 29 hi-impact plastic parts, hi-impact cheek cowls and wheel pants, preformed metal landing gear, all hardware, clear scale canopy and more. Very high quality kit.

The sun came out here yesterday afternoon and I took the opportunity to go to the field with some of my electric planes;I flew the Beaver, Lightening and a Williams Brothers' Pylon racer that I made when I was 31 years old (46 years ago), while living in St. Louis when I worked with McDonnell Aircraft. I kept it all those years and recently restored and converted it from glow to electric power witch in itself was no easy matter. You can't imagine what a thrill it was for me to see her perform yesterday, ripping around the field doing those bank and yank Pylon turns for 5 minutes plus the perfect roll on landing to finish off. I hope she will survive so I can get more experience flying her. The next time I will try to have a flash card in my GoPro so that I will have a record to remind me of the experience.