Tony (oz10339)

About this Plan

Tony. WWII profile semi-scale stunt RC glider. Slope soarer. Wingspan 49 in, wing area 525 sq in. For 2 channels.

Quote: "Smooth in the lift, precise in the maneuvers, it also exudes those all-important impression points. This Tony is a soaring version of a CL stunter. Tony, by Paul Denson.

It must be that old 'Yankee Ingenuity' that prompts a model builder to attempt something new. There seems to be no other reason why this whole thing transpired. A U-control plane flying in the lift at Torrey Pines Gliderport? Absurd!

We have heard guys brag about our cliff. They say that you can fly golf balls at Torrey if you could find small enough servos. So why not a CL model for slope soaring? The first attempt along these lines was Midwest's profile Messerschmitt (oz7264), closely followed by another plane from the same line, the Bell King Cobra (oz7013). A few weeks later, the third plane, a beautiful, well-detailed profile Mustang (oz7079), made its appearance. They flew - in fact they flew like nothing else at the cliff. Try a Vertical Eight, starting at the bottom, with a Cirrus. Try a Four-Point Roll with any glider. With three channels, the King Cobra can knife edge in a moderate breeze. These planes can fly inverted indefinitely. No problem with turns, since it uses no rudder in the turns.

These stunts really happen regularly, and it is beautiful seeing two WWII combatants having a dogfight, just like they did back in the '40s over the Channel. You feel as though you are standing on the White Cliffs of Dover, watching a Mustang on the tail of a Messerschmitt. These two guys are having a ball, using maneuvers designed by WWI Aces to get the Red Baron off their tail. To see one of these profile jobs flying among the Windfrees (oz1637), Cirruses (oz8532) and other soaring type planes makes the soaring giants look unreal. These are real looking airplanes.

We decided, rather than using one of Midwest's kits for this article, to select a design of our own. We thought of you purists, who absolutely refuse to build a kit. We further decided to keep the design along WWII standards. So we looked for a plane equipped with an inline engine and found the Tony. The Tony is similar enough to most profile kits that you can follow our building instructions to modify any of them.

For those of you who are not as fortunate as we to have the perpetual lift of Torrey Pines, we have had a ball flying the Tony in a small park (the high school athletic field) using a hi-start. The venerable Editor of this magazine suggested to the authors that we might try catapult launching. We discussed this at great length with a number of the Torrey Pines Gulls members; our final conclusion was, if he wanted a plane catapulted, he would build it and we would be glad to try the catapult launch from behind a three-foot-thick concrete bunker. These planes fly exactly like their full-scale counterparts..."

Tony, American Aircraft Modeler, January 1975.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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