Control Line Beginners Training
Training is available Monday nights during the summer months from approx 5:30p.m. till dark (weather dependent - up to 20kph wind max!) at the Centennial Park Flying Circles. All (young and not so) are welcome to participate by grabbing the handle on one of our 1/2A training airplanes. An experienced member will help you (in the circle) for your first few attempts. Bring out that old plane that's been hanging in the rafters of your garage, if you have one. We can help you get it fired up, and back up in the air where it belongs!
Pictured above at a training session at Centennial Park are L to R - Dominik Malukiewicz, Janek Zalewski helps Beniamin Kozlowski on one of his first flights, and Mateusz Bienczyk
Simple 1/2 A MAN-WIN TRAINER
By Chris Brownhill
The credit for this model must go to Kevin
Lusk of the “Perfect Circle Flying Club” in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
I do not know if he is the designer of the “Man Win”, or not, but he
kindly brought this model to my attention last spring during some E-mail
correspondence we were having.
Well, then Kevin was good enough to send
me by Purolator an example of the finished airplane.
Upon examining it, it became very obvious to me that nothing could be
stronger or easier to build than this little model!
I was absolutely stunned by its simplicity, and its sheer practicality,
for it seemed to be almost crash proof.
The main material for the model is a piece of 3/16” (approx.) Coreplast , a sort of corrugated plastic sheet which is often used for election and advertising signs.
The motor mount can be made of either
heavy tinplate, or 1/32” aluminum sheet, then drilled for whatever 1/2A engine
you intend to use. (An engine that
uses an integral tank with firewall mount would be the most convenient.)
The motor mount is attached to the
airplane with 4-40 nuts and bolts, which would probably benefit from an
application of “Loctite”, or some similar sealant. (Please note that the
rather large amount of side-thrust shown on the drawing is absolutely necessary,
and I would not recommend changing it at all!)
The leadout guide is adjustable (made
from a piece of scrap Coreplast) using the openings in the corrugations through
which either Dacron or .008 steel lines can pass through.
(Having flown the model, I think that it will handle up to 35 feet of
line without too much trouble. However,
this will also depend on the power output of the engine that you are intending
to use.)
The bellcrank is a standard ½ A type (either metal or nylon would be OK) which you can purchase from most hobby stores, along with a suitable small control horn. You then connect the bellcrank to the horn via a pushrod made of .049 piano wire.
One of the most important features on
the model is not at all visible, and that is a piece of 1/8” diameter hardwood
dowel, or carbon fibre rod, that runs span-wise down one of the openings in the
Coreplast corrugations, about one third back from the leading edge.
Another important operation is to cover the leading and wing tips with ½” duct tape, or something similar, as this greatly strengthens the wing during the inevitable crash!
The next small detail is the
hinging of the elevator. This is
accomplished by cutting one of the corrugations half way through just where the
cutaway of the elevator appears at the trailing edge of the wing.
The resulting hinge should easily last as long as the model.
So there you have it: a model that can
be easily built in an evening. It requires no painting, and should be pretty
much fuel proof.
So, why not make up a half-dozen of these things as a club project, and introduce some young folks to model flying. The cost will be much less than the balsa wood required by conventional designs, and you will never probably ever find anything else so durable.
The Perfect Circle Club have developed some junior events for this design, such as a modified form of Mouse Race, and, of course, Combat! These events would be a “hoot” if you just went to the trouble of getting a few kids together to try them!
I will close by thanking Janek Zalewski for making the sketch of the “Man Win” for this article. His ability with graphics software far exceeds mine, and I am grateful for his assistance with this project.
The plans attached have been vectorized and inserted into a PDF document at full size. The page size will be 27" x 21". You can print the document at full size on your Laser printer, or inkjet printer on the "tile pages setting" and you should output about 8 pages and just tape them together. There is nothing very critical about these plans. (May, 1, 2010).
Free Flight Blatter 40 plans
