Wickner Wicko (oz12145)

About this Plan

Wickner Wicko. Peanut scale rubber model.

Quote: "The Wicko was a pre-WW II British light plane of simple construction. The fuselage was essentially a plywood box. This makes for a simple model fuselage; except for the nose, the fuselage has a simple, square cross-section. The in-line engine, with its relatively high thrust line, allows a large propeller without having to extend the landing gear beyond the scale size. The high wing allows a stable flying model with only a modest amount of dihedral.

The model uses the old standard construction techniques all over, so we'll not go through a detailed construction article. Somewhat out of ordinary is the fact that the Wicko had streamlined fairings on the roots of the struts, and the landing gear leg fairings were rather thick in cross-section. These details, if you intend to put them on the model, will have to be carved from small blocks of balsa. Douglas elected to omit them, and to use a simple sheet landing gear fairing for simplicity. From the photos, it doesn't seem to hurt the appearance of the model too much.

Douglas used a Sleek Streek propeller that just clears the ground when the model is in the three point position. This is fine for hand launched flights (so far, legal under peanut rules, although the author believes all scale models should be required to ROG), but makes takeoffs a chancy thing. The model flies quite well. Best flight indoors has been an official 58 seconds, with many flights of more than 45 seconds. The model is covered in yellow superfine tissue with red tissue letters, and weighs Y2 ounce without the rubber motor.

Doug used rather light wood in his model, and that is to be recommended if your model is to be flown strictly indoors. However, try to get relatively firm sticks for the longerons. Doug's were a little on the soft side, and you may see in the photos an extra set of fuselage uprights and cross pieces he added after some handling damage to the longerons. The model is drawn with a sheet balsa cowl top wrapped over three formers - if desired, the cowl top can be carved from a solid balsa block and then hollowed out for the motor clearance.

One of the questions that is asked from time to time, and that needs answering in some detail is: Where can I find a three-view of my model? I'll try to cover the answer as well as possible, but of course, it all depends on the airplane being modeled.

If the model is a common production airplane, that had a large production run, or is still in production, writing to the manufacturer will often result in solving the problem. Some of the larger manufacturers have a public relations department which tries to take care of these kinds of questions. However, you are a 'real' scale addict, even these three-views can sometimes be disappointing. Airplanes tend to change after the first three-view is drawn, and it isn't always profitable to bring the drawing up to date.

Three-views have been published from time to time in almost every model and full sized airplane magazine. There are literally dozens of such magazines presently in publication (of which this is one of the best), and there have been literally hundreds printed over the last 60 years. Therefore, a 'used magazine' store can be a gold mine of information (see the Classifieds, Page 71). Unfortunately, you won't usually find a three-view of the particular airplane being researched, but you'll get a lot of other inspiration. Following this ap-proach long enough will result in obtaining a rather good library of designs..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

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