Lawn Ranger (oz14743)

 

Lawn Ranger (oz14743) by John Stroud 1982 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

Lawn Ranger. Control line profile trainer model.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "Hi, Steve and Mary. Good morning. How are you? I hope all are fine. Some days ago, I bought one back issue of Aeromodeller magazine, the issue of June of 1982. This magazine published, as centerfold, the plan of 'Lawn Ranger', a little C/L model: with 12in wingspan, and powered by a .020 Cox Pee Wee. Since I love that kind of models, I want to share it with the Outerzone community, so I've scanned both plan and construction article, and also I include the vectorized version of the plan, in PDF format and both CAD formats: DWG and DXF, as usual. Happy summer. And greetings, from your friend, Valeria367"

Quote: "John Stroud designed this model for fun flying in the garden. It can be built from one sheet of 3mm balsa, plus a few odds and ends. Lawn Ranger.

The seed for Lawn Ranger was sown at the '81 Model Engineer Exhibition. A young man who had just bought a Humming Bird .03 glow engine, asked me if I would think about designing a suitable control line model Later in the year one of the boys to whom I had given the Testor Ready-to-Fly C/L models told me he was flying his in the garden. The seed germinated when I stepped out my own fairly small front garden and realised that if I took in the path and flower beds as well as the lawn I could fly on 3 metre lines. Out came my old PeeVVee and Lawn Ranger was born and finally christened by my son with a name which is so corny it's good. By using chuck glider technology, building time is less than an hour excluding drying time. Materials can consist of just one sheet of 3mm balsa and a few odds and ends.

Construction: Select a medium-hard sheet of balsa and lightly mark out on it all the balsa components required. It should be fairly easy to get them all out of a standard 3in. sheet, The shapes can be transferred by laying the plan over the wood and tracing with carbon paper or pricking through with a pin. The exact outlines of the components do not matter very much providing they look right. What is important is that the engine, wing and tailplane line up correctly. Careful checking with a ruler will show up any innacuracy, Cut out all the balsa components, glue the two sides of the fuselage together and leave them under some weights to dry. Sew t he elevator onto the tailplane as shown and glue and pin the


fin in place with the amount of offset shown. Cut out the line guide and bellcrank mounting plates from 1.5mm ply and the engine bulkhead from 3mm ply, Drill the engine bulkhead to suit your engine and bolt them together. Very carefully epoxy the nuts to the back of the bulkhead making sure the epoxy does not get onto the threads. If the threads are lightly greased the job is made easier. When the epoxy is set, trim the bolts to length. Make two saw cuts in the inboard wing andglue in the line guide. I made the wing tip weight from two 2in. nails with the heads removed which I epoxied in place and then filed to shape. Trim the fuselage to shape and glue on the tailplane, wing, cockpit and engine bulkhead fairings.

When the assembly is dry, sand to final shape and round off the edges of the wing, tail and fin. Drill four blind holes in the engine bulkhead fairing to recess for the nuts and then sand it very carefully to mount the engine with no up or down thrust and about 2° of right side thrust. Bend up the wires for the control system and install as shown, I used a commercial horn and link and a bicycle spoke for the push-pull rod. In this way it is possible to make up the control system without soldering. If you have trouble bending up neat little 'zig-zags' try the method I have just started to use. It is much easier, especially with the heavier wire gauges which seem to defeat my long nose pliers.

Covering: As a practice exercise for myself I covered the prototype with iron-on film. It worked out very well although I imagine most modellers will use a more conventional method After removing the control system, make good any mistakes with filler and sand to a smooth finish cover the entire model with lightweight modelspan either by doping it on or, as I prefer, by putting it on with wallpaper paste. Build up the finish with several coats of dope mixed with talcum powder, sanding between each coal. Finally paint with coloured paint of your choice. Finally add a good coat of fuel proofer and when that is dry, re-install the engine and control system.

Flying: Check that the balance point is as shown on the plan and add ballast to adjust if necessary. Although I dislike nylon cord lines, for the shorter lengths up to say 6 metres, they are quite sensible and acceptable for non-aerobatic models Lawn Ranger will fly on lines between 3 and 6 metres although with the motor 'on song', the 3s are a bit too short.

Choose a calm day for your test flights and remember that these tiny engines usually need fuel with at least 15% nitro for satisfactory running. They use so little even 25% nitro does not work out very expensive. My PeeWee powered model is surprisingly lively in the air and fun to fly. (It has made me think a lighter version might do some basic aerobatics). Launches with neutral controls can be achieved with the launcher standing still If your circle is a tight fit on the lawn, remember to mark the centre so that you know exactly where to stand.

Finally a word of warning. Flying in your front garden will no doubt amuse the folks next door at first. Before you do it persistently, make sure you are not converting them to the 'stamp out model flying' brigade. There are enough recruits without our help."

Supplementary file notes

Article.
Vector plan tracing.

CAD file

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Lawn Ranger (oz14743) by John Stroud 1982 - model pic

Datafile:
  • (oz14743)
    Lawn Ranger
    by John Stroud
    from Aeromodeller
    June 1982 
    12in span
    IC C/L
    clean :)
    all formers complete :)
    got article :)
  • Submitted: 02/08/2023
    Filesize: 103KB
    Format: • PDFbitmap • PDFvector • CADfile
    Credit*: Valeria367
    Downloads: 298

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  • Lawn Ranger (oz14743)
  • Plan File Filesize: 103KB Filename: Lawn_Ranger_oz14743.pdf
  • Supplement Filesize: 140KB Filename: Lawn_Ranger_oz14743_article.pdf
  • Supplement Filesize: 183KB Filename: Lawn_Ranger_oz14743_vector.pdf
  • CAD Zip Filesize: 72KB Filename: Lawn_Ranger_oz14743_cad.zip
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Notes

* Credit field

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Scaling

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