Samurai (oz12547)

About this Plan

Samurai. Control line combat model. Wingspan 38 in, wing area 277 sq in.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the word Samurai was used to describe the Japanese aristocratic warrior caste prior to the 1700's. The Samurai were a group of fellows who studied and became experts in the martial arts. The name Samurai is well suited to the model which competes in the martial arts event of aircraft modeling.

Samurai is designed for international competition and will hopefully find its way to many foreign combat arenas. I trust that all the readers of this article are aware of the fact that FAI combat now has World Championship status. This is due to the great effort put forth by the Miniature Aircraft Combat Association (MACA) and its President, Gary Frost, This will be the first year combat has ever been flown for a World Championship title. FAI combat is the international class of combat that is dominant throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and in Canada. The United States' Fast and Slow combat events are virtually unflown in other parts of the world.

SAMURAI PROJECT HISTORY As many of you familiar with combat already know, I, along with Edmond L Bridant, had in 1974, designed Midwest's FAI combat kit Firefly (oz9347). An article on this design was published in Aero Modeller in May of 1975. The Firefly is an exceptionally good flying aircraft that has been quite successful, however, it could be better if it were to lose some weight. For this reason, I decided to start fresh with a totally different design. The Samurai, when compared to the Firefly, uses 2 less wing ribs and 2 outer center section ribs that are 3/32 rather than 1/8. The trailing edge is 1-1/4 inches wide tapering to 3/4 at the wingtips, instead of a straight 1-1/2 inch piece. Spars on the Samurai are 3/16 square spruce instead of 1/4 x 3/16 balsa.

The leading edge sheeting is 2 inches wide in an effort to conserve on expensive balsa. The center section is only 4 inches wide, compared to 6 inches on the Firefly. The wing-tips are 2-piece units with lightening holes rather than solid 3/32 pieces. I have also done away with the cardboard bladder tank tube and re-placed it with a bladder compartment sealed off from the rest of the wing by means of vertical webbing. It is fuel-proofed with slow-curing epoxy resin. The bellcrank mount is interlocked with the lower spar and motor mounts. It has been reduced to the smallest possible size in a weight saving effort. The motor mounts are shorter than on Firefly and do not use the familiar balsa nacelle fairing. The motor mounts are strengthened by means of two 3/32 plywood doublers and two 3/16 dowels. The whole motor mount area gets a coating of Petit Formula II Hobbypoxy, both for structural integrity and fuel-proofing.

I decided to use a mono-boom tail section rather than the familiar twin or tri-boom sections. My first prototype Samurai used a mono-boom made of 1/2 inch balsa with 1/16 plywood laminated on both sides. Prototypes No. 4 and 5 used 1/4 inch balsa laminated on both sides with 1/4 inch basswood. The latter units give more strength and a little more tailweight for a more responsive aircraft.

Flying Tiger members Gary Kearns, Paul Klahn, Glenn Williams and Jo-Hsu Wu all built several prototypes each, some with twin-boom tail sections, different wing-tips, and some with upright motor mounts for use with the Cox Conquest 15. I found that a piece of aluminum from a beverage can about 1 to 1-1/2 inch square in size, mounted against the leading edge, is enough to protect the leading edge from burning due to the heat of the rear exhaust.

The models fly better with the motor mounted sidewinder style. The upright ver-sions tended to come in on the lines during the launch, and again during the landings. There is also the possibility that you could damage the motor during an inverted landing, especially on a poor landing surface such as the 1977 Nats combat field. For Western Associated Modelers (WAM) competition, Gary Kearns and Glenn Williams built Samurai with exhaust manifolds running through the wing. It works, but it takes time to build the aircraft in this fashion. Paul Klahn built his first two Samurai with twin-booms and different wingtips..."

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