Tupolev Ant-2 (oz11345)

About this Plan

Tupolev Ant-2. Peanut scale rubbber model.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 24/11/2024: Added article, thanks to JeffGreen.

Quote: "Our Pioneer Peanutter takes us on another adventure into the history of aviation. Like many real modelers, Walt enjoys rare designs and the challenge of simulating unusual details. Tupolev Ant-2, by Walt Mooney.

This design is one of the first by the great Soviet aircraft designer, Andrei Tupolev, and first flew early in 1924. It is a very good configuration for Peanut Scale, and although it may not compete with the Fike or the Laceys under the present rules, it did fly straight off the drawing board. Its best official flight to date is 35 seconds, at the last Flightmasters Peanut/Jumbo contest.

The one thing that put me off for quite a while with respect to this model is the fact that the real airplane was built using corrugated metal technology. Simulating such surface contours looked like quite a chore, I recognize that. Fulton Hungerford can do it but I wasn't ready to make his kind of effort. I finally decided to try drawing the corrugations on the tissue paper before covering the model and this system seems to do a relatively good fob You can judge for yourself from the photos.

Only three items during construction of this model are anything but standard techniques, so we'll cover them in detail and assume that the rest can take care of itself. These three are; the wing rib and spar structure, the triangular section fuselage, and the simulation of the sheet metal corrugations.

Let's start with the wing. Rib spacing was selected to match the corrugation pattern, so there are quite a few ribs. Also, the wing taper is irregular. Therefore, there are lots of ribs which are almost the same size. Also, the ribs taper in height in a regular fashion, all of which makes it difficult to draw all the separate ribs and to decide which is which after they are cut out. The following technique is used to make the wing, building it over the plan.

Lay down the trailing edge, tips, and leading edge. Then cut two root ribs out of 1/16 balsa, and twenty six intermediate ribs out of 1/32 sheet, to the size of the root ribs. Install all the ribs, cutting the excess length off the trailing edge of the intermediate ribs. When this assembly is dry, make a sanding block about eight inches long and sand all the intermediate ribs to contour. Don't take any wood off the root or tip rib, but just bring the others down to match the thickness shown in the front view of the wing..."

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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