SE5 (oz12669)

About this Plan

SE5. Rubber peanut scale model WWI fighter biplane.

Quote: "Sometimes we tend to overlook the obvious, and what could be 'obviouser' as a choice for the most appealing and nostalgic scale biplane of all times? Still managing to be a little different, it's the SE5 model, no 'A'.

There have been a lot of models of the SE5A, but not too many models of the SE5. The SE5 is a little simpler than its later version, and makes up into a very nice Peanut Scale. It has plenty of dihedral, lots of wing area because of being a biplane, and good nose and tail lengths considering that it is a World War One aircraft.

The model is fairly simple for a biplane, so the discussion that follows will just touch on the more difficult features. The aft end of the fuselage sides are constructed with a slot for the horizontal tail. Note that this slot is wider at the front than at the extreme aft end where it is only deep enough for the tail. The extra room at the front of the tail slot allows you to shim the tail leading edge up or down as required for flight trim,

Mounting the wings is perhaps the most difficult task. There are four cabane struts to support the center-section of the top wing. The forward pair are vertical in the side view and the aft pair are hiding behind the rear wing struts. Cut out a little of the top fuselage sheet covering so the cabane struts can be cemented in place on top of the upper longerons. It may help to make a jig block to hold the top of the cabane struts while they dry. This can be done by taking a piece of 1/8 sheet balsa the size of the center section and cutting a tight notch at each location for the top of a cabane strut. Push the top of the struts into these notches and then cement their bottoms in place on the longerons. This jig block is easier to locate than the whole top wing. It can be twisted and nudged into perfect positioning before the cement dries. When the bottoms of the struts are firmly in place and the cement is really dry, pull the jig block off the top and cement the top wing in place.

Note that the bottom wing has two center section ribs. These are supposed to just fit on each side of the fuselage. The top spar is removed between them and of course there is no covering on the top between them. The bottom wing is simply cemented on the bottom of the fuselage.

Check the wings before all the cement is dry to see that they are parallel when you look down on them from above..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5; Peanut scale model by Walt Mooney from the March, 1974 issue of Model Builder. This is a minor redraw of the original with the following modifications: the ribs have been resized to align with the leading and trailing edges of the wing, the spar has been re-positioned to coincide with the ribs, the horizontal stabilizer has been equalized, the positions of the wing struts have been marked (a notation to this effect has been made on the plan) and several spelling corrections have been made. I'm not providing a transcript, this time, since the majority of the article isn't concerned with the construction of the model. Regards, "

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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