Loening M-8 (oz13116)

About this Plan

Loening M-8. Free flight scale model, for .049 power. 1969 Nats winner. Scale is 1/12.

Quote: "First place in Free Flight Scale at the 1969 Nationals proved this machine a wise choice by our author; conservative design of the full scale airplane resulted in fine flying characteristics, nice appearance, relatively easy construction. Loening M-8, by Tom Stark.

The Loening M-8 was described by Grover Loening as 'nearer to being inspired than anything I ever did.' While its pot-bellied appearance may be anything but inspired by today's standards, when it was designed, over fifty years ago, it represented quite an advancement over the biplanes that dominated that era. It pioneered the strut braced high wing configuration and the use of lifting struts that characterized so many commercial airplanes a few years later - including Lindberg's Ryan NYP.

The M-8 was designed near the close of World War I and grew out of America's desire to contribute first line fighting airplanes to the war. The American aircraft industry had not been able to develop and build combat airplanes and our pilots flew French and British designs in combat. The two place Bristol fighter served as the model for the M-8 but was a model in capability and characteristics only, since the M-8 had another requirement - ease of rapid manufacture. In this it succeeded very well, having only one fifth the number of fittings and requiring only one fourth the manufacturing time as the Bristol. In addition it weighed 500 pounds less than the Bristol while carrying the same military load but at a speed 30 miles an hour faster.

By the time the prototype was flying, the Armistice was signed and plans to build 5,000 Loening M-8's were dropped. Two were built for the Army and a handful for the Navy. They served as engine test beds, racing planes and general research vehicles. In December, 1918, one broke the world's altitude record for carrying one and two passengers.

The M-8 was my back-up choice for free flight scale for the 1969 Nationals. It has such good proportions for free flight that very little risk of not flying well was associated with it. My first choice was a Messerschmitt Bf109 which flew in prototype form but was too critical to adjust for contest work. My second choice, a Burgess Dunne flying wing, was stable but had almost insurmountable structural problems. By the time my first two choices proved poor, time was as short and the more conservative M-8 was built. Even though it was a conservative choice, a small sheet balsa prototype was built first to check such things as spiral stability, tail size, and CG location.

The first few test flights told me I had the right airplane. It was light yet rugged, had ample power and was stable. In addition it had the sort of homely but appealing appearance that is good in scale competition. Before the Nationals it had been flown about 25 times with only minor dents and punctures in the covering. At the Nationals this practice and inherent good airplane characteristics paid off with three official flights in three attempts; a fourth flight was unnecessary. The final result was first place. The M-8 lasted one more flight, its longest, at the Cleveland Junior Air Races where at the end of a too long engine run it caught a thermal and was lost.

The model shown on the plans contains some scale detail improvements over the original and represents my new Loening. The differences are small so the plans can quite appropriately be called those of the NATS winning airplane.

Before getting into construction details some general notes about the model are in order. It was built to one inch equals one foot scale. The original was powered by a Cox Babe Bee .049 but any .049 will do. The plans show a firewall location for the Babe Bee but beam mounts can easily be substituted to accommodate other engines.

Construction is primarily spruce since the covering is translucent and spruce was necessary to keep the wood sizes near scale. In spite of the spruce it is a very light airplane, weighing only twelve to fourteen ounces. At this weight, the full power of the engine is too much for realistic flight and it must be throttled back to about 50% power..."

Loening M-8, MAN, September 1970.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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