Firecracker (oz10090)

About this Plan

Firecracker. Control line team racer. For McCoy .29 engine.

Quote: "FIRECRACKER by Dick Ealy. Winner of the 1938 Greve Trophy Race and one of the hottest planes of the era, the Firecracker has beautiful but simple lines for a team racer. Our test model won against F.A.S.T. members, then took Southern Cal. Plymouth meet. Flies like crazy.

Firecracker is a semi-scale team racer design adapted from the 1938 Greve Trophy winner, one of the hottest speed ships in that era. The Keith Rider Firecracker flown by Tony Le Vier, now chief test pilot at Lockheed, averaged 250.886 mph, beating such greats as Art Chester in the Goon, Joe Jacobson in Eightbalt and Earl Ortman in Jack-Rabbit.

The beautiful but rather simple lines of the big ship make for simple slab side construction. By reinforcing the forward portion of fuselage with plywood doublers we get a sturdy design able to withstand lots of abuse and chalk up flight after flight. This is one of the secrets of speed craft - having it hold together so that the propeller and fuel combination delivering the maximum speed can be found.

In order to find out if our original plan was practical, one of the younger members of the F.A.S.T. club built the first ship. Paul Peszynski, a sophomore in Glendale High, had been building models about a year and a half including several not too successful team racers. It seemed they just were not rugged enough. Upon completing the Firecracker, the model flew well right from the start. With Dad acting as mechanic, the father and son team squeezed more and more mph out of the ship, winning their first trophies in competition against the older and more exper-ienced F.A.S.T. club members. The climax was their victory in the Southern California Plymouth meet. A good ship and a good crew!

Construction. Make fuselage as shown in steps one, two, three, and four. First, hardwood motor mounts are cemented to the plywood side doublers. Use Weldwood glue for all joints forward of bulkhead D. Next cement plywood doublers to sheet balsa sides. Place side panels upside down on work table and add bulkheads B and C. Hard-wood crosspieces are cemented at A and C.

Trim balsa sides to plywood contour where top of wing will ride. In the last step, pull sides together after beveling the inner side, and cement. Add lower bulkhead sections at D, E, and F, then cement upper formers in place at these sta-tions. Omit stringers until tail is mounted. Cement ply-wood bottom in place. Install plywood baffle behind en-gine between crosspieces A and floor at B..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article.

Corrections?

Did we get something wrong with these details about this plan (especially the datafile)? That happens sometimes. You can help us fix it.
Add a correction