Sig Komander

What is there to say about the Sig Komander?  I guess it came on the scene around 1974, just after the Kadet Mk.1.  It was supposed to be an aileron trainer, whereas the Kadet was 3 channel, but eventually had an aileron version as well.  Once the Kadet Mk.II came out with ailerons, the Komander was called an "Intermediate" trainer.  I remember in the early '90s, I had only been instructing for maybe 3 years or so and nobody wanted to teach a particular student with a Komander.  They all cautioned him that it really wasn't a trainer and he should try something slower.  He insisted and so I volunteered to be his instructor.  This airplane really grew on me and helped me to develop a flying technique and method of teaching that I have used ever since.  That student got his wings with only one minor landing incident ( the plane was back out the next day ).  That was the only Komander I have ever seen and unfortunately, it has now been discontinued and is an endangered species.  I'm on a mission to find a kit and document the design, so it may be re-created by anyone with an interest.  Claude McCullough really designed a great looking sport model, with unique but attractive lines and proportions.

So far, I've collected the instructions for the Mk.1 and Mk.II, as well as the partial plan for the Mk.II, which shows the full fuselage top view and the side view, only to the back of the wing.  There are some full size templates in the instruction booklet.  I have confirmed that the airfoil was a NACA 2414 with +0.5 deg incidence.  1 degree of washout was built into the foam cores ( the trailing edge was up 1/8" at the wingtip ).  The stabilizer was set to 0 incidence.  Dihedral is 2-1/4" under each wing tip ( approximately 4 degrees ).

For the Mk.1, the CG was 2" from the LE at the tip to start, moving back to about 2-1/2" for deliberate snap rolls and spins.  Recommended control movements were 1/2" for rudder, 3/8" for elevator and 1/8" to 3/16" for ailerons.

The Mk.2 was different, with a recommended CG of 1-3/4" to start, moving back to 2-1/4" for full aerobatics.  The control throws were recommended as 7/16" for elevator, 5/16" for aileron and 5/8" for rudder.

The main differences between the Mk.I and Mk.II were in the fuselage structure.  In the original model, the firewall was two pieces of 1/8" ply laminated together.  The fuselage top and bottom were 3/32" balsa ( also the sides? ).  In the Mk.II, the fuselage sides, top and bottom are 1/8" balsa, while forward fuselage bottom is 1/8" ply and the firewall is two pieces of 3/32" ply.  The forward fuselage is doubled inside with 1/8" ply, as opposed to 1/4" balsa in the Mk.I.  With the Mk.I, the wing was bolted on with either 1 or 2 dowels or rubber bands, while the Mk.II is bolted on with two forward dowel pins.  The Mk.II used easy hinges for the control surfaces, whereas the Mk.I used nylon ( poly hinges ).  The metal landing gear straps were replaced with nylon in the Mk.II.

Other details of the design include landing gear covers made from 0.030" plastic, 3/4" triangle stock to reinforce the firewall and tail surfaces ( fin and stab ) made from 1/4" balsa sheet.  The rudder has an 8.5 degree forward rake to it, with the hinge line measuring exactly 7-1/4".  The stabilizer spans 22" and is made up of two sheets glued together.  The forward sheet is tapered to a chord of 5-1/4" at the fuselage.  The elevator and rudder are made of 1/4" x 2" elevator/aileron stock.

The airplane was flown with a 0.40, 0.45 and 0.50 sized engines.  Anything greater than a 0.50, they recommended installing a spar in the foam wing.  The instructions show the installation of a Fox 0.45.  There was no right or down thrust built in.

Bill of Materials

Replacement foam wings from Eureka Aircraft ( part# W790 )
Cowl from Fiberglass Specialties ( part# SK-23 )
Canopy from Park Flyer Plastics

1/16 x 3 x 36 ( 14 ) balsa wing sheeting ( SIGB143 )
1/4 x 3/4 x 36 ( 2 ) balsa leading edge ( SIGB034 )
1/4 x 1/2 x 36 ( 2 ) balsa trailing edge ( SIGB033 )
1/4 x 1 x 36 ( 2 ) aileron stock ( SIGB441 )
1 x 1-1/4" x 8 ( 2 ) balsa block wing tips, available as 1" x 3" x 12" ( 1 ) block ( SIGB307 )
1/4 x 2" x 36" elevator and rudder ( SIGB443 )
1/8" x 12" x 12" lite ply hatch parts and fuselage bottom ( SIGPW064 )
3/32" x 12" x 12" plywood fuselage formers ( SIGPW010 )

3" main wheels ( 2 )
2-1/4" nose wheel ( 1 )
Nose Gear ( SIGSH603 )
3/8 x 3/4 x 6" ( 2 ) landing gear blocks, 5/32" groove ( SIGSH125 )
Landing gear retaining straps ( SIGSH131 )
2-1/4" spinner ( Goldberg )
Sullivan 10 oz RST fuel tank ( S428 )
Sig Poly Hinges ( SIGSH543 ) or Easy hinges ( SIGSH710 )
Strip Aileron Horn Set ( SIGSH594 )

Top Flite Sea Fury

This "Gold Edition" kit came on the market around 2001.  At least, that's the copyright date on the instruction manual.  A year or two later, I bought a kit.  It is modeled after an airplane ( WM483 ) that was sold to Iraq.  It would eventually find itself back in the USA, where it was restored and flown in 1993.  In 1998-99, it flew in the Reno air races, with Canadian markings and the race number 74, presumably representing the 74 Sea Furies that served in the Royal Canadian Navy.  From 2000, it wore the number 117.

The Top Flite kit was designed by Mike Cross and is about 1/7 scale, with a wingspan of 66".  It was discontinued by Top Flite sometime around 2012, as far as I know.  I bought a Saito 1.80 for it, as well as the Century Jet scale gear.  Since the Corsair was about 12 lbs, I figured this one would be 13-14 or so.  They never come out as light as specified on the box ( 10-12 lbs )!  The real Sea Fury had a power loading of 5 lbs per horsepower and I wanted the same with the model.  The Saito was rated at 2.8 hp.  Top Flite recommends a 1.20 FS, which would give scale like vertical performance for a 'light' model.  As it turned out, I needed the 1.80 for a Great Planes Giles 202 that I bought to replace a Hangar-9 Cap 232.  I'm now looking for an RCV 130 CD for the Sea Fury.  How scale is this Sea Fury?

Willis Nye drawings appeared in Jan/Feb 1963 issues of Model Airplane News.

Also, some CG data for the real airplane, from the Air Ministry Publication.

The model uses the Selig S8036 airfoil at the root and the S8037 at the tip, with +1 incidence.  The stab is at 0, while the engine has 2 deg right and 2 deg down thrust.  Here's a stupid question...

Why not use scale incidence angles and set the down thrust to 0.5 degree ?  The wing is still +1 to the stabilizer.

The model CG is 4 to 4-5/8" back from the leading edge at the center, with 4-3/8 being the recommended starting point.

Control Throws for the Real Airplane

I plan on using "scale" control throws, so aileron high rate is revised to 5/8" up, 3/4" down ( this is probably the only airplane I've seen that has more down travel than up! ).  Elevator would be 7/8" up and 7/16" down, rudder is 1-7/8" left and right.  I would set aileron low rates to 60% to give a realistic rate of roll, given the 'faster than scale' airspeed.  Likewise, the turning/looping circle is going to be much smaller than scale, so the elevator low rate will be set to 35-40%.  The real airplane only had ground adjustable aileron trim tabs.  There were four flap positions, UP, TAKEOFF, MAX LIFT and DOWN ( corresponding to 80 degrees! ).

The test flight will check trim effectiveness, stability, slow flight and stalling and will go something like this,

1.  Takeoff at full throttle, flaps up, holding about 1/3 up elevator.  The airplane will be climbed at a shallow angle to gain speed for maneuvering.  If the elevator is not in trim and I have to hold a lot of "up", the gear will be retracted.  On the other hand, if it wants to climb excessively, I will not retract the gear until the elevator is trimmed.  This is because the nose will probably pitch up further due to lack of drag and slight aft movement of the CG.

2.  The airplane leveled off and trimmed at 2/3 throttle, followed immediately by a "clean" stall test.  Effect of landing gear on trim, followed by flaps.  Then, a stall test in the landing configuration.  This is not so much to see how the plane behaves, but to see how much elevator is 'useful' before a stall occurs.  This way, if a quick landing needs to be made, I will know not to exceed the critical angle, since about 1/3 of the useful elevator throw is held during the approach to control the speed and the rest is used in the flare and hold off.  In the real airplane, full flaps were not to be used in a power off landing because the drag and sink rate were very high.

3.  The airplane cleaned up and flying at about 3/4 throttle, the rates switched to low.  A couple of 'scale' aileron rolls and a 'big' loop ( the low elevator rate should not allow a loop any smaller than scale ).  Also, the low elevator rate should avoid the possibility of a stall/snap while maneuvering.  Switch back to high rates for landing.

Planned colour scheme is the same as this guy ( Royal Netherlands )!  I know, being Canadian, I should do a Canadian scheme, but they're boring!  Besides, I like the "sky type S" colour better than the "light grey" that the Canadians used.

Royal B-25

It was the summer of 1993 and I was working part time in a hobby shop, before going to university in the fall.  A guy came into the shop wanting to sell this B-25, with OS 48 FS ( I'm a sucker for scale models and 4-strokes ), so I bought it.  I was flying the Corsair and a Sig Citabria at the time, so this would be a new adventure in multi-engine flying.  The test flight was successful, but could have easily gone bad.  During the flight, one engine stopped.  It was only because of being the only airplane in the air that I noticed a change in the sound.  There was absolutely no change in trim, no tendency to roll at all.  A close visual inspection was required to tell which engine had stopped.  The landing was uneventful, but during the post flight inspection, one of the solder joints had failed and so only one aileron was working.  As well, one flap was close to failure.  Still, that B-25 gave no indication that anything was awry.  The reason being that the engines had significant side thrust.  The left engine was 1 deg of left thrust, while the right engine was about 5 degrees of right thrust.  On top of that, each vertical stabilizer was toed in about 4 degrees.  Still, an engine failure at low speed was dangerous.  It was rebuilt at least once.  I liked the aluminum cowls.  The airplane weighed in about 14 lbs ( the plans say 8-9 ) and with the engines rated for 0.8 hp, it had a realistic power loading.

This was a flight after a rebuild, I believe, probably summer of 1994 at Virgil

Years later, around 2007, I taught a 78 year old to fly.  His favorite airplane was the B-25.  I wish I still had this model as I would have let him fly it on a buddy box.  During that winter, he passed away from complications due to pneumonia, I think it was.  I have the plans, so maybe I'll build another one.  It will be modified to be more true to scale.  From what I understand, the plastic and cowls are still available from Fiberglass Specialties and possibly elsewhere.

Top Flite Corsair

Designed by Hal Parenti, the 60 size Corsair was new, back in 1979.  The TV show, "Baa Baa Black Sheep" had been on the air for a couple of seasons, so it was a good time to make a scale R/C model.  All of their previous kits were USAAF types ( P-39, P-40, P-47, P51 ).  Hal would follow the Corsair with models of the Bearcat and Zero.

The markings for this kit were for the famous #86 of Gregory "Pappy" Boyington.  He never flew this airplane in combat.  The photo session was staged.  There is also photo evidence that the name on the side was "Lucybelle" and not "Lulubelle".

Also, the Bureau Number of 18086 is probably wrong and should be 13086, since the former airplane went to the British.  The latter was a Goodyear built example.

In any case, I flew the Gold Edition ( David J. Ribbe ), which came out in 1991 or so.

It was a good introduction and prepared me to fly the larger Typhoon model, later on.  It was powered originally by an OS 91FS, turning a 16 x 6 Master Airscrew propeller and using 15% Cool Power fuel.  This was the best combo for the 12 lbs airplane.  Later, I would put a 1.20 in it and then it had a realistic power loading ( 6 lbs per hp ).  It was covered with 21st Century fabric ( dark blue ) and white Monokote.  The Intermediate Blue was from a spray can of flat primer from Canadian Tire.  I had custom built a full cockpit, using photos taken from the Corsair that was at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  I also tried using white glue to make rivets.  I remember measuring the plans and comparing to Paul Matt drawings and finding the outline to be quite accurate.  The airfoil was even right, albeit a little bit thicker.

The landing gear was problematic.  The recommended Robarts had problems with the rotating mechanism, being geared, it would skip a tooth and the wheel would rotate, causing a nose over.  We solved that by switching to the Century Jet, but the torque links on those eventually worked loose and wheels would toe in, causing nose overs.  That was fixed with JB Weld and so long as I made soft landings, it was ok.  The top of the rudder got broken many times!

One day, I tried a 13.8 x 10 4-blade APC prop, which proved too much for the engine and it quit.  The dead stick landing was one of those where there was no energy left to flare and it pancaked in a carrier landing style.  The wheels, with no give, splayed out and that was the end of that.  The airframe was sold to a club member, as I didn't want to buy a third set of retracts for it.  But, it flew for a good 10 years or so.

With the 1.20 FS, a 14 x 10 APC worked really well.  I recall one flight where I almost lost it.  It still had the 90 installed and I went to do a hammerhead with the flaps down.  At the top, it started torque rolling and fell into an inverted spin.  It would not recover, no matter what I did with the controls.  I had to think quickly and finally retracted the flaps, upon which it instantly recovered.  Lesson learned!  It never liked cross winds and it had a yaw oscillation, as most Corsairs do.

There was another episode where I was attempting to show someone how easy it was to fly, when it suddenly started gyrating all over the place, clearly radio interference.  I knew that the onboard glow connector had come off the plug and was striking the cylinder head, causing the problem.  As soon as I throttled back, it came under control.  The landing was uneventful, but I had to find a better way to crimp the wire onto the plug.

Pica 1/5 Spitfire IX

Back in 1987, a club member had the Byron P-51D Mustang, which he let me fly a few circuits as a 14 year old.  I was hooked!

Peter Hildebrandt's Byron Mustang and Bob Parkinson Hornet at Welland, 1989

 So, in 1989, when Pica came out with their 1/5 Spitfire, I wanted it bad!

Around 1991, my dad and I went to the local hobby shop to buy the kit, but it was sold.  The owner said he could order another one, but my dad said something like, "I'm not leaving without an airplane", so we ended up with the new Top Flite Gold Edition Corsair kit instead.

It would be many years later, 2006 at the Toledo Show, when I would find a then discontinued 1/5 Pica Spitfire kit!  The guy had a table in the swap shop and as I was walking by, I glanced and saw a bunch of kits, all Pica.  I kept walking, then something made me turn back and look to see what was under the Cessna 182.  There it was, calling me!  He wanted $170 for it, so I went to the nearest ABM and the rest is history.  I got one of the early ones with the wrong CG on the plans, but thankfully, I was aware of that potential problem.

The reason that the CG was wrong is because of bad landing gear design.  It sweeps forward as it extends, but on this kit, with short struts, the pivot point is too far aft.  With the correct length strut ( I ordered from Shinden Machine with wheels from Glennis ), one must cut away the bottom spar.  I decided this wasn't going to affect structural strength, because the rails are hardwood and the spars are balsa wood.  The wing ribs ( 1/8 plywood! ) in which the rails are attached are reinforced with plywood doublers.  In effect, the hardwood rails are in themselves, spars.  Also, the wing is set at 0 incidence, whereas the real airplane had +2 positive at the wing root.  This would further move the gear forward.  I modified the structure accordingly.  I couldn't get a full 2 degrees out of it ( without major mods ), but 1.5 is close enough.  With these modifications, the CG can be placed a good 1 inch further forward, where it should be.

Then, there was the issue of a powerplant.  If there's one thing I can't stand, it's cylinders and spark plug leads sticking out of a huge hole cut into the cowl!  I almost went with the MVVS 58LC ( liquid cooled ), until I realized that it too would be sticking out of the cowl anyway.  So, I ended up choosing the Moki 360 inline twin as the most compact solution and with plenty of power.  Cooling still might be an issue but with proper baffeling and minimal cheater holes, it should be ok.  The propeller is a Zinger 4 blade, 20 x 8-14.

Hostetler Liberty Sport

I like engines as much as airplanes and so a few years ago, I decided that the OS Pegasus FF-320 should be in my collection, only I needed a subject airplane.  Years ago, I had test flown a Sig Liberty Sport for a club member and it became my favorite biplane of all time, just for styling.  So, I ordered Hostetler's 1/4 scale plans and after studying them, I decided that the Pegasus would fit nicely in the cowl with the firewall moved aft a little bit.  But, other things bothered me about the design.  It was anything but "Super Scale".  The top wing was clipped by about 7 inches and ailerons were added where there shouldn't be any.  The airfoil section was wrong and I didn't like aspects of the fuselage construction either, so it became another project that needs a re-design.  There was an article in June 1981 Scale R/C,

Hostetler Liberty Sport

Telemaster 40

It was 1986 and a buddy had found the skeleton of a Telemaster in somebody's garbage.  I bought it from him for $20.  My dad finished it and it became my first tail dragger.  It was covered yellow, like this one.

It flew for probably 5 years or so before it was modified into a twin trainer ( on floats ), with OS 25s in the wings.  Finally, it was retired and scrapped.  It didn't owe us anything!  All these years later, I've decided to build another one.  I obtained a Merco 35, new in the box and an 11x6 Tornado propeller, as per the plans.  I ordered the wood direct from Sig and will scratch build it from a copy of the original plans.

I haven't decided on a colour scheme yet, although I'm leaning towards a "flag" theme.  Maybe Union Jack on the bottom and German on the top ( Red, Gold, Black ), since the Merco is an English engine and the airplane was of German design.  I'll have some left over covering from the Freshman.

Top Flite Freshman

The Freshman was designed by Dan Santich.  I know this from an article in the November 1978 issue of RCM, where he had his Magnum 40 design published.

Magnum 40 construction article

For more info, see his AMA bio

Dan Santich AMA biography

As a 12 year old, this was the first RC airplane I ever got to take the controls of and so it has some sentimental value.  The kit came onto the market in 1977 and was discontinued, probably around the time of the aquisition of Top-Flite by Hobbico in 1990 and the Gold Edition lineup, where the Sierra trainer was introduced.  Thus, it has become an endangered species.  The plans are available from Top-Flite or the AMA plans service.  However, without the fuselage formers and other details, it is impossible to build an accurate model.  I didn’t want to see this airplane become lost to history, so I found a “new in box” kit to take measurements from and document the pieces missing from the plans.  I figure this kit has traveled at least 7000 km, having gone from the factory in Chicago to Phoenix, AZ, on to Texas and finally arriving at my door, here in Canada.

There seemed to be two trains of thought when it came to learning to fly.  The first was to basically take a free flight airplane and give it some measure of control.  These types of airplanes were your high wing, lots of dihedral, flat bottom airfoil types, like the Sig Kadet ( or even the Cub ) and Goldberg Skylane ( the Eagle was not yet available ).  Then, there was the other idea, where you take a pattern type airplane, which goes and stays where you put it, so the pilot isn’t fighting the stability, especially in wind.  Airplanes like the Goldberg Falcon, Ugly Stik, Sig Komander or Top Flite’s own Tauri trainer would fall into this category.  As long as they fly slowly and the controls aren’t too sensitive, they should make fine trainers.  The Freshman was probably designed to replace the aging Tauri.  It’s interesting how Sig’s Kavalier was introduced around the same time as the Freshman and bears a very strong resemblance to the old Tauri trainer !  As I write this, you can still buy a Kavalier kit from Sig!

Let’s get on with the design.  It strongly resembles the Tipsy Nipper, a full size homebuilt airplane that was designed to be easy to build, maintain and fly.

Mr. Santich also seemed to be influenced by the Boeing P-26 for the rear cockpit area and overall colour scheme.

He was in the USAF after all and would publish ¼ scale P-26 plans a few years later ( Sep 1982, Model Airplane News ).  Perhaps, he already had it in mind when designing the Freshman.

Wing

The wing is rectangular with airfoil shaped, block wingtips.  It measures 48” x 10-3/8”, including the ¾” ailerons ( +/- 3/8”, 30 degrees ) and wingtips.  There are two spars ( ¼ x ½ balsa ), centered at 3.5” from the leading edge, in the top and bottom of the 3/32” balsa ribs.  The ribs start 2” from the centerline, with 2-29/32” space between ribs, except for the last bay, which is 2-13/16”.  The tips add another 2” to the span.  The center section is sheeted with 3/32” balsa out to the first ribs, top and bottom.  The thick airfoil is a NACA 1417 with the last 1/8” rounded off.  If you build from a kit, the substantial leading edge is pre-shaped with a ½” x ¼” span-wise groove, where the ribs notch into it.

Tail

The tail surfaces are 3/16” balsa sheet.  The horizontal tail is of constant chord and measures 5-1/4” x 18”, including the 1-1/4” elevator, with 3/8” travel ( 17.5 degrees ).  The tail moment is 22”.  The fin leading edge sweeps back 24 degrees to a height of 6-5/32” above the stabilizer, where the chord is 3-7/16”, including the rudder, which is 1-1/8” at this point.  Total rudder area is approximately 11 sq in.  The hinge line extends down to the bottom of the fuselage 7-7/8”.  The rudder moves ½” either way.

Power

The plans call for a 0.29 – 0.40 engine.  The model I flew back in 1985 was powered by an OS 40.  There is no right thrust and 1 degree of down thrust ( the wing and horizontal stabilizer are at 0, as far as I can tell ).

Landing gear

The wheelbase is 9-1/4” with the main wheels ( 2” diameter ) located 1-3/8” behind the empty CG, which is exactly 3" behind the leading edge ( 28.9% chord ).  Plans call for a 1-3/4” nose wheel.  Ground clearance for a 9” propeller is 1-1/2” ( or 1” for a 10” propeller ).  The ground angle for tail clearance is about 12 degrees.  There was a revision issued with the kit, where the landing gear is modified to give an extra 1" ground clearance with 2-1/4" wheels all the way around.  The main wheel track is about 14.5".

Construction

Mine isn't finished yet, but you can check out the RCM review, from March 1978 here,


I'm planning on covering it like the box, except using Cream Monokote instead of white, for that vintage look.  The red will be a Metallic Red, along with Insignia Blue.

Sullivan Special

Although, I had taken the sticks of the Freshman for a few minutes, it had crashed before I got to fly it again.  Because I needed a trainer, my dad replaced it with a Cessna 152 from a Pilot kit.

The test flight didn't go well.  It may have been over-powered with an OS 0.40, causing an over-sensitive elevator and the plane snapped and spun into the ground at the bottom of a loop.  That was replaced with a Pilot J-3 Cub ( powered by the OS 25 that was in the Eaglet 50 ), which was so snakey, it ground looped and cartwheeled before it ever got off the ground.  We figured it wouldn't be a very good trainer.

So, my dad built a Frankenstein trainer, using the tail from the Freshman and the wing from the Cub, but making it a low wing airplane with tricycle landing gear.  I remember the local hobby shop owner giving us the main landing gear from a Goldberg Sky Tiger kit.  The nose wheel was a heavy duty, double strut design.  Dad wasn't messing around anymore!  The fuselage was a custom job, joining everything together.  We called it the "Sullivan Special" ( SS ).  My grandfather used to race cars in the 1930s and he had a car called the "Sullivan Special", so there was a connection there.

A picture from the Virgil days, probably summer, 1986.  The SS is in the background with a Sig Mustang 450.  A Goldberg Falcon 56 Mk.II in the foreground, owned by George "POPS" Sheridan

I started flying it in the winter of 1986, finally getting my wings on Sunday, April 13.  I had tried on the Saturday, but the instructors wanted to see some consistency.  The only one who had ever seen me fly was my dad.  I continued to fly it for that summer and then moved on to the Telemaster and then a Sig 1/6 Cub ( clipped wing ).  The engine ( Saito 45 ) came out of the SS for the Sig Cub and I remember my dad asking me, "You aren't gonna fly that any more, are you?", referring to the SS sitting on the basement floor, engineless.  "Nah", I replied and it was scrapped.

A closer view of the SS.  It may be the ugliest airplane ever built, but it did the job.  The Cub wing was replaced at some point with this rectangular wing.  I don't remember why.

I wish now, that I had kept it.  Since I have a Freshman, a Saito 45 and the plans for the Pilot J-3, I can build the wing and tail.

With a couple of old photographs to go on, the fuselage can be reproduced with reasonable accuracy, and voila, my replica trainer!  The wings were covered with yellow Solartex and the fuselage was red Monokote.  Since I was in Air Cadets at the time, I think I will choose the scheme of the CT-134 that the RCAF was using for primary training.

Hawker Typhoon

Photo taken June 23, 2002 at the Welland Fun Fly

This plane was acquired from Don Prentice ( hence DGP on the side of the plane! ).  It was 1/6 scale ( 83" wingspan ) and was powered by a Quadra 50, turning a Zinger 20 x 8-14 propeller.  As I recall, we only got about 5700 rpm out of this prop, but it was the best one we tried.  It weighed some 25 lbs and flew quite scale like.  To my knowledge, it never flew while Don had it.  I recall flying it at the *old* Kitchener field, probably in 1996 or 1997.  On a seemingly soft landing, the gear went through the top of the wing!  So, the structure was reinforced.  It finally met its demise on one hot, humid day.  Our field was about 500 ft long with tall trees at one end and a river at the other.  The takeoff was uphill and the plane didn't want to takeoff, so I aborted.  As soon as the throttle was cut, it lifted off and so the power was quickly applied again, only there was insufficient room to clear the trees and it clipped a tree and spun in on the climbout.  I suppose it could have been repaired, but it never was.  Of course, Don witnessed the incident.

Typhoon Video Compilation

I found the airplane to be quite mushy on the elevator, especially during landing.  I don't know if the prop drag combined with the split flaps just blanketed the elevator, or what, but it took quite a bit of practice to get the speed just right with just the right anticipation for the flare, as there was a significant delay and then the tendency was to over do it.  But, as you can see in the above video, it had very gentle stall characteristics with no snap rolling tendency.  I think it was built from Claud Baskin plans ( Imp Scale ).

RAF Liberator

My dad built the Palmer 1/12 Liberator from scratch.  He thought the structure was going to be weak and so he beefed it up.  The built up wings were replaced with foam cores.  It weighed in at 28 lbs and was powered by four OS 52 four strokes.  At the time, this was a new engine.  It had a twin needle carb, instead of the air bleed system on the 48, which it replaced.  It was built as a tribute to my dad's uncle, Bob McClelland, who served in 120 squadron, RAF Coastal Command in Iceland.  We took it down to Schenctady, NY in 1997, where it won the "best bomber" award.

I think they felt sorry for us, because we drove for 5-6 hrs to get there only to find out we had to make pylon turns to stay within their designated flying area.  I wanted to fly it scale and so they told me to land because I didn't want to rip the wings off.

Here's the only flying footage I have,

It was flown with two radios.  The pilot had all the main flying controls, while the co-pilot operated the onboard glow, landing gear and outer throttles.  This way, if any engine quit, we could throttle back the opposite engine and still have two engines running.  The plane would maintain height on two engines.  The large fowler flaps were very effective, especially with power on.  Our procedure was this,

Engines set for 8300 rpm on ground ( slightly rich ), idle at 2500 with glow, 3000 without ( the engines were inverted ).  The pilot would set flaps to about 1/3 down.  At the start of the takeoff roll, it was important for the nose wheel to stay in contact with the ground, in case the engines weren't perfectly synchronized.  Then, with a little forward speed, the rudders became effective and you could take the weight off the nose wheel with about 1/2 up elevator.  The plane would take off when it was ready.  The landing gear was retracted, followed by the flaps.  Once at height, the outer throttles were brought back to about 1/2 and remained there until landing.  The pilot then climbed or descended with the inner throttles.  The glow was usually turned off at this point.  Before landing, the glow was turned back on, the landing gear and flaps were lowered and the outer throttles were brought back to about 1/4.  Once a landing was assured, the outer engines were brought to idle, while the power remained on the inboard engines until touchdown, to provide extra lift over the wing, flaps and tail.  It had no brakes, so it wanted to keep rolling after touchdown.  The outer engines were then stopped and the plane taxied on the inboard engines.

Twin Otter

My dad converted the Telemaster into a twin trainer with a pair of OS 25 FP engines in the wings.  This was in preparation for the Twin Otter he was building from Model Builder plans ( July 1976 ).  The engines from the B-25 ( OS 48FS ) went into the Twin Otter.  As I recall, it weighed in at 15 pounds, or about a pound heavier than the B-25.  It flew well enough and seemed to have a realistic power loading.  All I remember is that it would bounce around quite a bit in wind, due to the high aspect ratio wing.  The flap arrangement wasn't built according to the plans.  Instead of having slotted fowler flaps with drooping ailerons, they were just plain flaps and the ailerons didn't droop.  As a result, the airplane tended to pitch up violently with flaps.  One had to use the left thumb on the elevator trim while trying to hold attitude with the right thumb.  Also, the airfoil was a thin symmetrical section and not ideal for STOL characteristics.  It was done in Air Transit livery.

This was a service that flew between Ottawa ( Rockcliffe ) and Montreal ( Victoria STOLport on the site of Expo '67 ).  My dad tells a story of when he and my mother went to visit my Grandmother in Ottawa.  The Twin Otter had such a steep approach angle, my mom thought the plane was going to crash.  She had been a flight attendant for Trans-Canada airlines flying on the DC-3, Northstar, Viscount, Vanguard, Super Constellation and DC-8.

All I have is an old video, flying at the Woodlawn field in Welland ( which is now a Walmart )