Furstup (oz12873)

About this Plan

Furstup. Simple beginner's rubber model.

Quote: "Excellent beginner's rubber-powered free flight model. Designed for the first timer, we believe it will get him headed in the right direction to achieve the finest type of flying. Furstup, by Donald Brown.

I have long been interested in helping beginners in model building, so last year when I was given the opportunity to teach a class of 10 boys for the Summer Youth Activities Program at Yokota Air Base in Japan, I designed Furstup. An easy to build, strong and a reasonably good flyer. The boys could choose four different airplanes from these plans by building the wings with dihedral or turned-up tips 'a la Jodel' and have single or twin rudder. This helped boost interest in building from one basic design quite a bit. Unfortunately, due to class time limitations only a few models were completed during the time allotted and none flown although several were flown after the classes were over.

Construction follows normal practice for sheet models with a few little of my own. Build the noseblock first. Glue the 1 / 16th sheet doublers to the fuselage sides, pin the sides to the noseblock, (don't glue it), then align the rear ends of the fuselage and glue them. This method makes for straighter fuselages, especially with beginners. Glue and pin the formers in place, (laminate and glue landing gear wire to former 2), and fit top and bottom nose doubler between fuselage sides, glue and pin them (to the fuselage sides only!), before removing the noseblock and applying sheeting to the top and bottom of the fuselage.

Wing construction proceeds with cutting leading edge sheet to size, (note side view), and gluing down to wing ribs. After the leading edge is dry, bevel where the trailing edge sheet will overlap and glue trailing edge in place packing up the trailing edge 1/16 at the wing tips, (the shape of the wing automatically allows for washout). The finished wing is strong and warp free. NOTE: 1/8th sheet is used for rib 'A' at dihedral breaks and 'B' tip ribs are 1 / 16th sheet.

Careful sanding, (especially on the rear of the fuselage), will provide a light model which will of course fly better than a heavy one especially on rubber power. I used three coats of clear dope and a little colored dope trim on my model and it came out a shade over 3 oz. My models were flown with a free-wheeling 8 in plastic prop, however a folding prop, (see SIG for a real nice imported balsa folders), will help performance if you want to go to the extra trouble of making one.

Trimming Furstup for flight is easy. Model should balance at or slightly ahead of the apex of the triangular wing rib. Start test flights with 75 to 100 turns increasing to maximum in easy stages. Both of my models had a tendency to power stall but trimmed right out with a little downthrust. If you are flying in a really limited area tighten up the turn, (to the left), a little bit. The turn will get pretty tight before the model will fall off on a wing.

Furstup won't win any contests but you can put a lot of air miles on it. Let us know how you like this one. PS Try Cox .010 power, it's a hot one!"

Furstup, MAN, November 1966,

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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