Magnum 60 (oz10492)

About this Plan

Magnum 60. Radio control sport aerobatic model, for 60 power.

Quote: "With the great performance of Dan Santich's Magnum 40 (RCM Plan #745), Serge wanted a larger version. At 61% increase, the '60' will do it all. Magnum 60, by Serge Pierre.

Back in late 1978, at the end of my second year of flying, I was looking forward, as most northerners do, to my third winter building season. At the time I must have had three or four kits under my belt, and the time when a good day of flying was one on which I brought back my plane in one piece, was mostly behind me. I felt I was ready to tackle something new and different from the basic trainers. The November '78 issue of RCM really struck a chord with its construction article on the Magnum 40 (oz6790) by Dan Santich. It was something new in the sense of building from plans and different from the conventional style of the basic trainers. Now, there was a plane from which emanated energy, spirit, sparkle and flash; in a word, it had 'Pizazz.'

To fly the Magnum 40 was really a great thrill! Although at slow speed it was a real pussycat, honest and predictable, but when you pushed the action lever you had better know what you were doing to stay on top of that terrific 'hot dogger.' I must confess that at times during the first few flights, with the throttle at full bore, I sailed into troubled waters, led by the speed and responsiveness of the Magnum 40. That plane had the greatest speed differential capability of anything I had seen. It was a real kick to literally burn up the sky with high speed passes, snaps, loops, etc and then throttle back and tool around at an almost walking pace. It was everything Dan had said and more.

As is most often the case, the Magnum 40 was re-kitted as a result of a sudden and crushing encounter with some basic laws of physics. After a bonfire, I went back to other projects that were on the building board, not to think again of the Magnum 40 until the day I saw a picture of a Magnum 90 in RCM. This picture brought back pleasant and nostalgic memories, and the idea of a new challenge. Since the Magnum 40 was a real barrel of fun; how about a bigger barrel? I present to you, for your enjoyment, the Magnum 60.

The Magnum 60 is, for the most part, a 61% blown-up version of the little brother, adjusted to take in account the usual wood sizes available on the market. You may ask yourself, why a 61% enlargement rather than a 50%, 60% or whatever? The answer is quite simple. Since I did not want to mess around with the original 'coke bottle' wing airfoil of the Magnum 40, I took the wing template to the office enlarging copier machine. A check of the print against a 10 in square reference grid indicated an enlargement of exactly 61% with height and width increased by a factor of 1.27.

Being by nature a heavy handed builder, with all of my planes coming out tail heavy, I took the opportunity of this new design to slightly increase the nose moment for easier balancing. The slightly longer nose had the side benefit of allowing enough space to completely enclose a 13 oz Kraft fuel tank forward of the wing, rather than protruding into the wing and radio compartment, as was the case with the Magnum 40. This greatly simplified the construction of the wing center section. The increased height of the fuselage section also allowed the modification of the aileron linkage system, for which I substituted torque rods in place of the bellcranks originally found in the Magnum 40.

The Magnum 60 with a Super Tiger Blue Head saddled up front, is about the size of a turn around job and on straight FAI fuel, looks about as fast. For those 'serious and dedicated' fliers, the Magnum 60 is a very stable platform from which to execute your dream choreography of aerial ballet. It is also an ideal subject for the now established trend toward the 4-stroke engines with a 90 or a 120 in its large engine section.

For the 80% Sunday fliers of the modeling fraternity, the Magnum 60 is nowhere close to a trainer in design or performance, but rather a highly predictable sport aerobatic airplane with the best overall combination of flying characteristics of any plane I have flown. Hot doggers beware - the Magnum 60 with a Schnuerle ported 61, can literally bore a hole in the sky. Also, from my personal experience, the Magnum 60 is a crowd pleases and an eye catcher.

Construction. The use of Hot Stuff or equivalent is highly recommended throughout the construction as it greatly accelerates the building procedure; it is also almost essential to use on the wing capstrips since the reflex of the airfoil will want to let the capstrips lift up..."

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