Wight Maiden (oz10077)

About this Plan

Wight Maiden. A 58in aerobatic sport model for .40 four-stroke or .25 two-stroke engines, with 3/4 channel radio.

Quote: "Enjoy Keith Humber's 58 in span sports aerobat.

Wight Maiden was designed and built as an experiment to establish what power and performance I could get from the O.S.40 Surpass four-stroke before I flew my Jodel 117. I used my old Kema 90 (oz10082) acrobatic glider wing cut down in span from 66in to 58in. I did initially try the full span wing with, I must confess, rather mixed results. At 66in the wing proved too flexible with quite an adverse roll/yaw action. (I was really trying for a powered acrobatic sailplane styled aeroplane).

So anyway it was out with the knife and remove 4in from each tip. This proved just right. The 40 Surpass has plenty of power for this sized aeroplane with a sparkling performance at full chat. The model will climb vertically with about three vertical rolls thrown in. But the surprising thing is she will also manoeuvre pretty well on quite low throttle settings - almost as good as the fun flyers and looks a lot better, or at least I think so!

Get building. Constructionally the model is simplicity itself based on 1/8 in basic sheet fuselage sides with sheet stringered rear fuselage turtle deck. All the formers on my model were cut from 1/8 in ply. You could use 1/8 balsa for F3 - F7, but with small cross section formers like these the weight difference between ply and balsa is negligible. However, the strength gain is vastly improved with ply. The fuselage is framed up on the engine bearers F1/F2, ie quite conventionally.

The undercarriage mounting blocks are notched on the end to give some support to any backward stress on heavy landings, i.e. the fuselage side butts against the notched block. Fuselage sides are doubled with 1mm ply. The tail group is medium 1/4in sheet reinforced with 1mm ply saddles at the horns.

The wing ribs are cut using the sandwich method from 1/16in sheet balsa. You may have to trim them to fit slightly (the edges do tend to chamfer a bit with this procedure). Ribs are framed up on 3/8 x 1/8 in spruce main spars (top and bottom), 1/16 in sheets 'D' box leading edge with 3/8 in sheet leading edge, spar, ditto 3/8in trailing edge with 1/16 boxing..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 22/05/2018: added article, thanks to RFJ.

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