Quickie (oz11071)

About this Plan

Quickie. Radio control 1/2A sport scale model.

Quote: "Impressed with the looks of the full size homebuilt, the author created this 1/2A powered sport scale model. With much flight testing and improvements, the final version is very realistic and stable in the air. Quickie, by Siegfried Gloeckner.

The full size Quickie is a very small lightweight plane. The wingspan is 16 ft and weighs 240 lbs. (empty). It can carry a load equal to its own weight, resulting in a gross weight of 480 lbs. With an 18 hp two cylinder four stroke engine, it cruises at 121 mph. The range is 570 miles on 5.8 gallons of fuel. It stalls at 53 mph and is acclaimed as a very safe and stable flyer.

The first picture of the Quickie that I saw was in a German aircraft magazine. I was amazed by its appearance and hoped to get more information. Sometime later I bought the March '78 issue of the Aeroplane monthly magazine, with a more detailed article on the plane as well as many photos. I regretted that there was no 3-views. One year later, I finally found another article on the Quickie. with a 3-view in a Flight magazine that I purchased by accident at a railway station bookstore. Now I had what I needed to design a model from scratch.

The Quickie pleased me because of its unusual fuselage shape. its economy, and the ingenious idea to integrate the landing gear into the front wing, reducing weight and drag. At first I built a balsa profile glider in order to research stability. The glider proved the stability of the design. After wondering about what size model should be built, I decided to build it with a slightly smaller span than my 1/2A monoplanes (because it has two wings) and gave it 700rnm (27.5 in) wingspan. This might not seem very scientific, but it was a good solution. The next step was to draw a side and plan view of the intended model. I was upset because of the small wings. Working with low Reynolds numbers, it seemed impossible to me that the wings would give enough lift to fly the model at reasonable speeds. The drawing was put aside and I looked for other planes that might be worthwhile to build.

But I could not forget the Quickie. I re-read the articles on the full size plane, checked the 3-view, and looked at my drawing again and again. I did not want to enlarge it, because that would increase weight and drag, and I did not want to use a larger engine. Two weeks after the first drawings were done, things went quickly. The wing chord was increased slightly so as not to disturb the airplane's appearance, and a light building structure was worked out. One problem was to find a canopy to match. The rear part of the canopy of the Graupner Cumulus sailplane was the solution. I'm sure there are many others than can be modified and used.

Three weeks later the plane was ready. A serious problem was the CG location. It was not mentioned in the 3-view, so I used the CG of the hand launch glider. This was to give me some very exciting moments in the first flight..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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