Rough Man-Win Trainers

bakergw Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:51 pm

Goodaye All,

I have built and flown some of the coroplast Man-Win trainers and was quite impressed with them. I did end up customising the design to suit my needs, but the original design is a fantastic design and I would never have come up with such a great and simple and cheap design that works! cheers

So please, my customisation is in no way intended as criticism of the original and freely available design.

I wanted to be able to fly the plane on 42 or even 52 foot lines and my first build of one I built pretty much to the plans albeit very rough and ready, as is my way. Lol. It is shown in the photo below painted in red. It flew well, but tended to float a lot, and was difficult to hand launch with a surestart unmuffled and 6 x 4 prop at 25% nitro. Rightly or wrongly we hand launch by just letting go of the plane. I started flying again about a year ago with an old racing friend and we hadnt flown for over 40 something years. Lol Old Bugger

We used to always fly combat wings such as the Dominator and Warlord and they always launched that way fine.

I cut down the size of the Man-win quite a bit as shown in the photo and it just flys beautifully out of the hands of the launcher. Pulls really well on 42 foot lines and flys quite quickly and responds really nicely. Lots of technical issues with my build, I know, like tank on wrong side, but pressure fixes that. Very nose heavy and when the engine stops it heads for the ground like a dive bomber Laughing

and it is just a flat slab. Oh well, they are easy to make and I will sort that out. Definately easy build and fun to fly depending on what you are looking for in flying etc.

Take it easy. :-)

Cheers,
Gary

**Cribbs74** Sun Mar 07, 2021 2:10 pm

Hey Gary,

Sounds like you are having fun. Your tank mounting does go against conventional wisdom. However the side you mounted the tank on is fine. A more centralized mounting directly behind the engine mount might work better. If it was me though, and because it’s a slab wing I would just build a shelf off the wing to bring the tank closer to the NV. It certainly won’t help with the nose heavy situation and to be honest, because it’s a trainer it was probably designed nose heavy. This could however, alleviate some weight as you most likely could remove the muffler and pressure apparatus.

You didn’t ask for suggestions, just couldn’t help myself...

Imagine how nose heavy it would be with an 8cc stunt tanked bee engine!

bakergw Sun Mar 07, 2021 2:24 pm

You post, you ask for suggestions, part of the territory :-). Nothing sends me crazy at work as an engineer than no suggestions from anyone. Who knows they might be good. Lol. The only thing Im always right about, is that Im not always right. lol!

Cheers,
Gary

aspeed Sun Mar 07, 2021 10:13 pm

I made something similar probably just before the Manwin. Used an old TD, but now it has a Norvel. Goes pretty fast, no glide at all, and mushy loops. 42 ft lines. That was around the early 1990s. Made one for a .15 too. Worked well, stopped flying it after a while. Based the shape on an F2D, but cut it with tin snips to more of a Jr. Satan. There was an old combat model from
maybe the 1960s called the Bamboozle that used cardboard for the wing and a bamboo fuselage that I kind of copied. As soon as I saw coroplast, I had to use that stuff.
No paint.

bakergw Sun Mar 07, 2021 11:31 pm

nice weekend plane! just my type of plane. Laughing

Hearing yours doesnt glide either makes me feel a bit better about mine. :-)
Im thinking of moving the engine right back into one of them to try and balance it up a bit better. Probably make no difference as the thing is just a flat sheet with an engine, elevator and lines. Im sure I have seen photos of your plane, or maybe its predecessor in the outerzone plans section.

Cheers,
Gary

aspeed Mon Mar 08, 2021 9:41 am

I would balance it for flight, not glide. Even the electric flat foamies don't glide at all. There is an airfoil, it's just that it is a really poor one. They are pretty light and can take a rough landing.