Latest plane. Finished yesterday, maidened today

So, since the Delta Park fly-in was today, I needed a new plane to fly there.  I decided I wanted to do a PeeWee powered plane, so I dug around for designs for the .020.  I settled on the Little Gem from the June 1961 issue of Model Airplane News.  It had a few unique things about it that made it my choice for the next building project:

1) It was old Vintage.
2) It had an offset fuselage.
3) It had a diamond airfoil.
4) It wouldn't take up too much of my on hand balsa.
5) I could fly it all day on two ounces of fuel.


As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the "kit" I cut out from my wood supply.  I was almost finished with the wing before I remembered to get the camera:



And gluing on the leading and trailing sheet.  Diamond airfoils were a fad for a while back then.  I don't know that they had any flying advantage, but I wanted to try building one as I figured it'd be easy to build the wing flat on the board with the straight angles, instead of a curved airfoil that would need a jig to build.



The wing, minus the center section, and the rest of the "kit".



Mounting the bellcrank.  The plans call for an aluminum sheet bellcrank, but I find that it's easier for me to just cut one out of 1/16 ply and put a layer of thin CA over it to harden it.  I've done this with two other planes, as it's cheaper for me to use my scrap ply than the $2.00 Goldberg bellcranks from Cox International (sorry Bernie).  I just trade an hour of fabrication for the $2.00 for the plastic ones.  I guess my time is pretty cheap.  Time will tell if they last.



The parts covered and ready for final assembly.



And assembled, waiting for the motor.  I had to test run the motor and get it tweaked in before mounting.



With the motor mounted.  This is my $6.00 eBay PeeWee.



The plane ready to fly weighs 2.25 ounces, or for our friends across the pond, 64 grams.



At first, I was a little worried that it'd be really squirrely, since the bellcrank holes are only about 1 1/8" apart.  But, it was okay after I got a toss from Duke's eldest son.  But, on 18' lines, this thing was FAST! I tried counting, and it seemed like I was doing about 2.5 second laps.  this was with the standard 4.5x2 Cox prop.  The MAN article says to use the 3 bladed prop if using a stooge for great verticals and for speed.  I don't even want to know how fast this thing would be on the 3 bladed prop.

The Vintage Mark