ARFA Gollywock (oz14979)

 

ARFA Gollywock (oz14979) by Steve Higginson 2013 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

ARFA Gollywock. Rubber sport model. Wingspan 16 in, wing area 35.6 in. Indoor or small field sport stick.

The Gollywock (oz6693) design by Wally Simmers first appeared in 1939. This here is a later redrawn version at half size, in vectorPDF format. Published in Aeromodeller 2013.

Note this plan is available as a free download from the Aeromodeller site (see Datafile).

Update 15/12/2023: Added article, thanks to RFJ.

She may only be a half-size version of the Wally Simmers classic, but there is nothing half-size about her performance. By Steve Higginson

Way back in 1939 when men were aeromodellers and all model aeroplanes were made of wood, paper glue, spit and wire, a young model aviation icon by the name of Wallace Simmers (Wally to everyone) designed and built one of the greatest model flying machines that was ever to grace the skies. He called it the Gollywock and it was the sibling ship of his already famous, 31-1/2 in span Jabberwock (oz2978) named after the awesome character beast from Louis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The Gollywock used the same wing, tailplane, rudder and propellor as the Jabberwock but a new 'stick' fuselage was designed to comply with the current Class 'C' Stick rules. This new fuselage was 2-1/2 in longer and could accommodate a rubber motor some three inches longer. Both the Jabberwock and the Gollywock were very modern designs for the era, sporting polyhedral wings and folding propellors. These features were not seen anywhere other than on the most advanced aeromodels.

The Gollywock was an instant hit, boasting more than 15 trophy wins during the 1940 contest season. Over the years the Gollywock was kitted in at least four different versions by the Midwest Model Supply Company. Each version had its differences and minor changes in design, but all continued to perform to a very high standard. To this day, the Gollywock remains one of the world's most successful flying models ever designed.

Like any aeromodeller worth his or her salt, I have been familiar with the Gollywock and I began a life-long love for this bird at an early age. My first REALLY successful rubber model was a Gollywock and I have built roughly a half-dozen versions over the years. My current modelling predicament had me wanting to build and fly another. But, my flying site is waaayyyy too small for a full-sized Golly. It was not hard to see that once unleashed, the full-Golly would not be in my possession very long. So I thought, why not build a half-sized version?

Which brings us to the subject of this article. The ARFA (halfa or an acronym for Another Really Fine Aeromodel) Gollywock. What put me over the edge about half-size aeromodels came while reading the late, great Walt Mooney's approach to Pistachio Scale models. He postulated that 'If all the structure on the model and covering could be scaled down, the model weight would go down by the cube of the scale factor, while the surface areas would decrease by its square and the wing loadings would decrease.'

Wow! This all meant, in a nutshell, by cutting the size of everything that goes into the model in half, the overall weight would work out to be roughly one-quarter that of the full-size model. I quickly figured that if a 60-gram, full-size Gollywock would weigh as little as 15-grams as a half-size. And I would be able to fly it at my local flying site without fear of losing it! Right?

So, here's what I REALLY found out by doing this. Building the little critter was as simple as the big one ever was. Construction is so straightforward and uncomplicated; I was able to build the framework in about 6 hours. Handling the lighter, smaller lumber was no more difficult than building a Prairie Bird embryo model. In fact it was easier with fewer pieces of balsa.

The fuselage structure is mostly 1/16 square stock and all sheet balsa is 1/32. I build laminated or steam-bent strip wood tips on everything and the process has become second nature to me. Laminated/strip tips are much stronger and in most cases lighter than sectional tips and I like the way they look on the finished model.

Choose you balsa stock carefully and apply basic indoor model methods to your building and this will be a successful modelling endeavour for you. Longerons are stiff and springy 7-pound 1/16 strip and the uprights and spreaders do well as 4/5-pound stock. I use 5-pound 'C' grain 1/32- sheet for all ribs, fillers, rudder and gussets. The nose block is cross-laminated from 5/7-pound 1/16 sheet.

I used Esaki Japanese tissue for its strength and lightweight. Make sure you stick the tissue real good to the undercamber of the wing. Just as with her big sister, this hybrid Clark Y and RAF 32 airfoil works very, very good with the wing loading this little bird works with. If you don't stick the bottom, all that efficiency is diminished considerably...

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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ARFA Gollywock (oz14979) by Steve Higginson 2013 - model pic

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