Focal Point
Waco YMF-5D ARF
Jay Wiley (Brunswick, Maine; email: jaywiley6@gmail.com) powers his Great Planes Waco YMF-5D ARF with a Saito 125 four-stroke engine and JR Sport servos. He controls the aircraft with a Spektrum DX7 radio and receiver. Jay added flying wires, upper wing center-section fuel caps, and vents, as well as a dummy radial engine.
The photo was taken at the 2017 Owls Head Transportation Museum Model Festival in Owls Head, Maine. It was used to advertise the following day’s show. Jay stated that the museum had recently acquired the full-scale YMF-5 for its collection.
Gypsy and Sierra Sun
Lanny Shorts (Truckee, California; email: ldshorts@att.net) submitted a photo of himself and two of his Control Line Stunt models. The Red Gypsy is a Jim Silhavy-designed Brodak kit. The model is Classic legal and powered by an E-flite 25. To be Classic legal, an aircraft must have been designed, published, or kitted before December 31, 1969. Lanny’s other model is his original design called Sierra Sun. Powered by an O.S. 46VF engine on a tuned pipe, he flies it in Precision Aerobatics.
The photo was taken from the back of Lanny’s home at an elevation of 6,000 feet. At the time this photo was taken, he noted that they had just finished one of the snowiest winters in many years.
Miss Vintage
Miss Vintage was a winter project for Calvin C. Brooks (Charlotte, North Carolina; email: brookscalvin72@yahoo.com) and took five months to build from Radio Control Modeler (RCM) plans number 644. Designed by George F. Jennings, it was featured as an RCM construction project in 1978.
Calvin chose to build this model from plans because of its flat bottom airfoil and vintage looks, stating that it has “an Eindecker appeal.” He planned to power it with an O.S. Max .32 engine and control it using a 2.4 GHz-converted Futaba T7CAP transmitter and an FrSky receiver.
The 59-inch wingspan model is built from balsa, spruce, and Sig Lite Ply, and covered with transparent yellow MonoKote, with Behr latex paint and Minwax walnut stain.
Sterling Rimfire
James Ramsey (Westborough, Massachusetts; email: jramsey@hotmail.com) converted his Sterling Rimfire to electric power and standard landing gear from a tail-dragger configuration.
Using a RimFire .25 motor for the 56-inch wingspan aircraft, James controls it with a Futaba T6EX FASST radio system. “The model flew perfect right off the building board and needed only one click of down-trim,” he wrote. “It flies equally well whether right-side-up or inverted.”
“I bought the kit in the ’70s and had it in storage until 2014, when I was able to find time to build it.” James flies it off grass at the Central Massachusetts Radio Control Modelers’ flying field in Northborough.
Ercoupe 415-C
The Pat Tittle-designed Ercoupe 415-C that Bill Bayer (Wichita, Kansas; bbayer007@cox.net) submitted is a three-channel stick-and-tissue aircraft that is 35 inches long with a 60-inch wingspan. Bill powers it with an AXi 2808 motor and 1,350 mAh 3S LiPo battery. Control is with a Hitec Focus radio.
Covered in Coverite MicroLite, the old kit version of the Ercoupe was completed with a built-up cowl and canopy, but Bill planned to build another Ercoupe using a blown canopy and cowl for easier access to the motor and battery. He also planned the upper cowl and the wing is attached by a rubber band. “[I] wish I had beefed up the landing gear attach points too, to handle the Kansas wind,” Bill said.
Bandit
Rick Peck’s (Camillus, New York; email: rpeckr@gmail.com) Bandit is a 33-inch wingspan Indoor Pattern/F3P airplane that is 39 inches long. The all-up weight, including a 250 mAh 2S LiPo battery, is 95 grams, which Rick noted is “about twice as heavy as modern competition F3P planes, but I love it!”
Rick’s plans for the aircraft can be found in the Indoor Pattern/F3P section of the RCGroups forum website. He prepared the plans by dividing the drawing into sections so that his local library’s laser cutter could handle it. The sections were glued together and covered with .002-thick Mylar. The elevator and rudder are pull-pull systems with Kevlar thread.
The drive is a coaxial, contra-rotating, geared system that drives two 11 x 3.8 propellers and uses both gears and a pulley drive with an O-ring as the belt. Rick designed, modeled, and 3-D printed the contra-drive at home, using ideas based on a do-it-yourself contra thread on RCGroups.
