Top Dawg-E (oz14687)

About this Plan

Top Dawg-E. Radio control sport model for electric power. Wingspan 37 in, wing area 326 sq in.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "I've long had a soft spot for Ken Willard's Top Dawg (oz901) design. As a youngster, I saw the kit at our local hobby shop, but had neither money nor radio for it until much, much later. By then, the kit was essentially impossible to find.

But, the classic shoulder-winged, sporty racer look stayed with me. Then, I found the model’s plans on the Outerzone web site. Since I’ve developed an allergy to balsa dust, I had to make the model out of foam, or pop anti-histamines by the handful. So, I downloaded the plan, traced most if it into LibreCAD, then started tweaking the design a bit, here and there.

I swapped the fared-in bubble canopy and rubber-banded wings for an open cockpit and nylon bolts. I knew I could fabricate the windscreen from soda bottle plastic, and an open cockpit would make accessing the wing bolts easy (I’ve done the 'bolt from below' route, and didn't like it!).

I changed the airfoil to my usual modified Clark YH, reduced the dihedral, added ailerons, and increased the rudder and elevator areas. As Hallco landing gear is but a memory, I set up to use regular soldered music wire. I also made the fuselage shallower and kept it constant width from the wing trailing edge to the firewall; the former to reduce the pendulum swing of too much weight too low and the latter to simplify building. Then came the internal changes needed to go from wood to papercovered foam.

The Dawg-E has insulation foam (pink and green) for the wing cores and a few internal bits. The rest is all 6mm Model Plane Foam (MPF) or 3mm Dollar Store Foam (DSF).

Ironically, although foam models have far fewer parts than wooden ones, it takes me longer to build with foam than with wood. For one, I can't use even foam-safe CA on foam as (1) the accelerators can melt the foam and (2) it produces inherently weak stress points. So, I use mainly clear Gorilla Glue and a little Foam Cure. Also have to think ahead when laminating foam - it’s air-tight, so evaporating glues can't dry. Please see the accompanying article on papering foam models for more info..."

Supplementary file notes

Article.
Decal (zipfile).
Generic Foam and Paper Construction Notes.
Specification.

CAD file

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