Golden Oldie 320 (oz14228)

 

Golden Oldie 320 (oz14228) by Eric Lister 1977 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

Golden Oldie. Radio control trainer model. Wingspan 48 in, wing area 320 sq in, for Enya .10 engine.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 3/12/2022: Added article, thanks to dfritzke.

Quote: "Golden Oldie. Stability, performance, appearance; three wingspans, for R/C or free flight. By Eric Lister.

If you're looking for a ship that goes together easily, flies almost hands-off, is strong as a Sherman tank, makes a good R/C trainer and a grand fun-flyer plus has all the stability, performance and appearance of an old timer, the 'Golden Oldie' is for you. This ship has been built and flown in both R/C and free flight in 32 inch, 48 inch and 72 inch spans. The subject of this article is the 48 in span R/C version.

The rest of this article explains how the ship was designed and built and what the flying experience has been with it (all good). For those of you out there who want to get started, the specs above give you a pretty good idea of what she's capable of the materials as per the plans run around $10-15 plus engine, radio and covering; so get your plans and get going. If you genuinely want the "Golden Oldie" as a trainer for a youngster, stick with the .10 OS Max. After possibly 50 flights you might get a bit more adventurous and try a .15. For really high rate of climb, max speed of around 60 MPH and much more flying skill required on the part of the pilot, try a Fox .19.


Design: The design of the Golden Oldie goes back a few years, when I had several successful sailplane designs under my belt but wanted to get back into power with something that apparently wasn't being offered any more. What I wanted was a ship of basically stick construction, high wing and the very gentle flying characteristics of the old-timer free flight models, but modified to serve as both an R/C trainer for power flight and as a general all around fun-type flyer.

What I saw in the hobby shops, at the time was pattern ships (definitely not for the beginner in R/C power) and things called trainers that had all the eye appeal of a cigar box. Maybe I didn't look far enough, but what I did do was to design a new ship that used modern aerodynamics, looked like an old timer, and turned out to be one of the most pleasing airplanes I've ever flown.

A typical flight consists of getting it up, either by taxiing or hand launch, trimming it for a gentle climbing turn, and then just taking your hands off the controls and letting her fly till she runs ourt of fuel and glides in a few minutes later. During powered flight or the glide she can be looped, spiral dived or make high G pullouts, all with ease.

The actual technical design that resulted in a ship with these flying qualities came about as follows: To get good stability and stall recovery, the ship was designed to have a horizontal stab that was reasonably large (25% of wing area), a stab moment arm of almost three wing chord lengths, and a center of gravity that was no further , aft than mid chord.

The net result was that the Golden Oldie has a pitch stability about equal to the lower limit for a good sailplane. To permit turns that had some roll automatically built in, on a rudder control ship with no ailerons, the total wing tip elevation was set at about 6.5° per panel. A typical free flight ship might have, used around 10-12°, but since this would make the ship roll too much with rudder control, it was dropped to 6.5° for all R/C versions.

The ship has never been made with ailerons, but if it were, the right dihedral would be about 3° total tip elevation. The rudder was sized to a little under 7% of wing area with only about 20% of it being the movable part.

The rudder was made intentionally large to overcome fuselage hi-wing mount destabilizing effects and to give it some natural tendency to keep her nose into the wind. The moving portion was kept small to keep beginners from overcontrolling. The wing airfoil was selected for its ease of construction characteristics that go with a flat-bottomed section.

Aerodynamically, the airfoil derives from the Eppler 387 section which is a soaring airfoil. The modification I introduced was to reduce the camber from almost 6% to 4% and to thicken it up to 10%. The camber reduction to 4% made the section hold its low drag characteristics through a broader range of angles of attack, which in actual practice means moving the elevator control gives you a very broad change in flight speed without very gross changes in dive or climb angle. To make the ship dive requires pushing the stick to the outer band of its deflection range..."

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Golden Oldie 320 (oz14228) by Eric Lister 1977 - model pic

Datafile:
  • (oz14228)
    Golden Oldie 320
    by Eric Lister
    from RC Sportsman
    May 1977 
    48in span
    IC R/C Cabin
    clean :)
    all formers complete :)
    got article :)
  • Submitted: 10/11/2022
    Filesize: 672KB
    Format: • PDFbitmap
    Credit*: dfritzke
    Downloads: 568

Golden Oldie 320 (oz14228) by Eric Lister 1977 - pic 003.jpg
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Golden Oldie 320 (oz14228) by Eric Lister 1977 - pic 004.jpg
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