Bonnacon (oz15288)

About this Plan

Bonnacon. Free flight sport twin-boom canard pusher model.

Quote: "BONNACON. Build this delightful model designed by Peter Fisher.

History and development: The Bonnacon is named after a fabulous beast which is also fitted with a four wheel undercarriage and tail assembly! Like this beast, our Bonnacon is very docile, providing that it is kindly treated. The model has ben developed from the series of Griffin free flight canards and is, in fact, mark six.

The mid-engined canard pusher layout has a number of distinct design advantages. As with all canards it is almost stall proof. The mid-engined mounting means that the engine centre line can be arranged to coincide with the line through the centre of gravity of the model, and so the weight of the engine has little bearing on the trim, except that it can vary the wing loading slightly.

The prototype used a Mills .75 with a 7x4 prop and has many hundreds of successful flights to date.

A side advantage of this configuration is that valuable vintage engines can be mounted with absolute safety. Should the builder wish to fit an .049 radially mounted glow engine it is simply a matter of omitting the bearers shown on the plan and fitting a suitably re-inforced firewall made from 1/8 ply. This should be arranged that the prdpeller drive plate is roughly in the position shown on the plan.

Construction: The Mainplane construction is quite straight forward. Pin the 1/8 x 1/8 lower main spars of the centre section to the plan, together with the 3/16 x 1/2 TE. Fit the 1/16 ribs, taking care to cant the root ribs using the dihedral template indicated between the arrows on the bottom of the plan. Fit the 3/16x 3/16 LE and the top main spars.

The outer mainplane wing panels are built similarly to the centre section, except that the ribs are trimmed at the rear ends to fit the notches in the TE. Once again care must be taken to allow for the canting of the root ribs as with the centre section, using the same template. Fit the gussets W8-W13 and assemble the mainplane taking care to check the dihedral is 1.7 inch at each tip.

The inverted gull-hedral foreplane is built in four sections. Construction of each section is similar to that of the mainplane given above, except that great care must be taken to ensure that all the ribs in the centre section are canted using the template enclosing the angle shown on the plan in such a way that the anhedral produced on the centre line of the assembled centre section is 1.3 in (see front elevation drawing). The outer foreplane panels are built similarly, but using the template enclosing the angle alpha on the relevant root ribs to produce 3.3 in dihedral at each foreplane tip.

At this point in the construction it is best to cover the complete units. The prototype used heavyweight tissue and was given two coats of clear dope. Cut the 3/8x 3/8 spruce booms to shape and bind the U/C legs in position using nylon or carpet thread and cement securely. Make sure that the booms are laid out parallel on a suitable block of wood, which runs under the booms, with the legs pointing downwards. Now fit the mainplane in position together with the centre section of the foreplane..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "Hi Mary/Steve, Please see attached a plan and article for the Bonnacon, a 32” free flight Canard. This is a fantastic design by O.F.W. (Peter) Fisher who ran Performance Kits. The article was from Aeromodeller August 1993, but the design dates back to 1973.

The plan for this came from the estate of the late John Kemp, via his friend David Hill. John Kemp was a close friend of the late Peter Fisher and had a number of Peter Fisher’s plans. I have been working with David Hill to get these plans repaired, scanned and cleaned up, so they could be posted on Outerzone.

So much of Peter Fisher’s designs are still hard to find, or simply unavailable, so it will be great to see them on Outerzone. All the best, Mark Robinson"

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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