Dream Stik (oz14397)

About this Plan

Dream Stik. Radio control sport model for electric power.

Quote: "About two years ago, I began to see small electric RC airplanes at the field. I was as impressed as everyone else: they’re simple to build and fly slowly, they don’t make a mess, and you don’t need a large field in which to fly them.

To get started in this hobby, I purchased three radically different ARF micro flyers: the Jonny Bee from Northeast Sailplane Products, the Skooter from Hobby Lobby and the WattAge Lite Stik. Their flight characteristics differ. I particularly like the Lite Stik; it flies well and is very simple to build and maintain.

After flying these planes, I began to visualize a design of my own. I wanted it to be like the Lite Stik in simplicity. I felt it should be slow enough to fly indoors but have sufficient power to fly outdoors. I wanted it to thermal, and I hoped to make it prettier than the Lite Stik; that is, I wanted to cover up all the components in a clean fuselage compartment so that it more closely resembled a 'normal' RC airplane. I wanted to be able to install fresh batteries without disassembling the machine. And because I wanted to try different batteries, I needed to be able to easily change them and then find the new center of gravity (CG), without repositioning the wings or other components. And I wanted it to be made out of balsa.

Construction Materials: The entire project was built from balsa, largely 1/16 and 1/8 sheet. I cut my own sticks from these, but you may wish to buy ready-made sticks for the leading and trailing edges, in addition to the sheet. I covered the airplane (only one surface) with Litespan. You can buy the main 3/32 x 5/16 in fuselage stick ready-made in spruce or balsa, but the balsa is lighter. When I built the main fuselage stick, I laminated the balsa for strength.

Building the Model: Begin by making the fuselage with a balsa stick. Laminate it with thin strips for strength so that you can cram the end of the stick into the mount of the GWS DX-C motor (just as you can with the Lite Stik). The finished main stick should be tight when you push the stick into the GWS mount.

Next, starting at a point 1-1/2 inches from one end, saw diagonally to the tip end. Turn over the sawed-off piece, and glue it firmly to the bottom so that the end is straight and the front end slopes down 5 degrees. Put this assembly aside.

Make one cabin bottom and two cabin sides. Add the formers by gluing them to the top of the cabin bottom piece, as indicated. Add the balsa servo mounts and cut out the holes for the Hitec HS-55 servos. Open the pair of matching holes forward of the rear former (this is where the servo wires will emerge from the bottom and be connected to the receiver, which is held by the rear former). The receiver wire will exit rearward from the smaller hole. Draw a centerline on the bottom of the cabin base to indicate where to glue the main fuselage stick..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

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