Piel Emeraude (oz12053)

About this Plan

Piel Emeraude. Radio control scale model. For .45 to .60 engines.

Quote: "Popular French-designed home-built makes an ideal R/C ship capable of AMA pattern maneuvers, including snap-rolls and inverted spins.

After seeing the photos of this beautiful home-built aircraft, we had to duplicate Mr Barton's marvelous ship for R/C. We obtained from Falconair Aircraft Co of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, a descriptive brochure and three-view drawings.

The Emeraude is quite an airplane, having a wing span of 26 ft 4 in, length of 21 ft, and a wing area of only 117 sq ft. It can tote two adults at a maximum speed of 112 mph, or cruise at 103 mph on only 65 hp. Increasing the power to 105 hp jumps the cruise speed to 120 mph and maximum speed increases to 137 mph.

The cost of building a ship at home can be difficult to nail down. Mr Barton man­aged to build his Emeraude, using all new materials except for instruments, wheels and a majored engine, for only $1,223. This is really a lot of airplane for the money! We plan, someday, to begin construction of our own Emeraude, but until then, we will have to enjoy our model.

Since building the ship in 1964, we have enjoyed many many flights. It is an excellent flyer, very stable and will perform the complete '68 AMA pattern (including snap rolls and inverted spins) maneuvers. And you wouldn't believe the ground handling; takeoffs and landing have to be seen to be believed with these old-fashioned bicycle landing gears.

Wings: Construction is straight-forward and should present no problem. While the wing appears difficult to build because of its elliptical shape, it is, in reality, a straight wing with only the outboard portion, incorporating the ailerons, being elliptical. We chose the full-depth spar with interlocking ribs as the most practical method of obtaining the elliptical wing shape and to provide the, correct spar profile in the outboard section of the wing.

Begin construction of the wing by pin­ning the inboard trailing edge Sheet to the flat building board. The main spar with the ribs keyed loosely in place is then placed on 3/8 square spacer blocks (you'll see the reason for this when you pin the ribs down to the bottom trailing edge sheet). With the loose assembly in place, key the outboard ribs in place and then position the aileron spar so that all ribs are in line. With this spar pinned and blocked in place, the ribs can be disassembled and, reassembled with glue. After the glue has taken its permanent set, the leading edge, nose sheeting and trailing edge sheeting can be installed. Add the rib cap strips and, when the assembly has cured, lift the panel and add the landing gear blocks, lower nose sheeting, and lower cap strips.

Repeat this for the opposite panel and you are ready for wing joining. Sand the skin sheeting at the roots to the dihedral angle shown and butt glue the two panels together. Take all the time you need at this point and make absolutely sure that the two panels are perfectly mated. If you do this right, you will have a wonderful flyer. Do it wrong and you'll have a dog! Assuming you have done it right and your glue has set, paint a 2 in-wide strip of resin around the center-section joint, press a strip of glass cloth into the resin, and finish off your basic wing structure with a final coat of resin over the cloth.

The ailerons are built now and can be either built-up as shown, or hogged out of soft 3/4 in sheet stock.

Fuselage: It is rather straight-forward and should present no problems. Start by making two complete side assemblies; don't forget, one right-hand and one left-hand. These consist of the 3/32 side sheets, the ply wing opening doubler, the vertical 1/8 x 3/8 stiffeners and the stringers. After these have been finished, gently crack the 3/32 sheet at the forward edge of the ply doubler as shown in the top view; this will make things a little easier later on..."

Update 02/04/2020: Added article, thanks to RFJ.

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