Farman Moustique (oz15806)

 

Farman Moustique (oz15806) by Bill Burkinshaw 1995 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

Farman Moustique. Radio control scale model. Wingspan 50 in.

Quote: "Colourful 1930's monoplane for 3 function RC and 20 size engines. Farman Moustique, by Bill Burkinshaw.

Although for many modellers the biplane conveys all the atmosphere of the golden years of aviation, for me the double wing has always brought with it misgivings. Perhaps the thought of double the wing ribs, maybe the aggravation of making struts and bracing. I don't know, but my forays into building biplanes have been very limited.

I have to confess to being captivated by early monoplanes however. Here I am on firmer ground when I attempt to analyse the appeal. Firstly the pioneer monoplane man had to brave prejudice, after all, he was the one going out on a limb in the first place. Secondly whilst his logical mind had drawn him to the conclusion that one wing was best but his technical mind said: hey, watch out, there are problems ahead. The reaction to convention and the determination to beat the technical difficulties said something about the monoplane men that definitely appeals to me - and there is only one wing to make.

Having said all that, Henri Farman, designer of the F-450 Moustique got round to this 1930's after already having served a lengthy apprenticeship with biplane designs. The Moustique, or Mosquito, was not an all-new design, it was based on an earlier machine built and flown in the late 1920's though still exhibiting many of the features that draw me to early monoplanes - one wing, relatively simple bracing, and a cabane arrangement that can be easily rendered for a simple RC model. Other machines that spring to mind of similar simplicity and elegance include the Eastbourne, Blackburn, Bristol, Morane Saulnler and Fokker Eindekker the latter being a prototype that I modelled several years ago in EIV form.

I first saw a three view of this aircraft in a book by Bill Hannan 'Peanuts & Pistachios', a source book for indoor free-flight scale modelling. Very little information is available in English although at least one example exists in Le Musee de L'Air in Paris. My simple model is based entirely on the Hannan book drawing and cannot be said to be a highly detailed or supremely accurate model. It is a colourful, atmospheric sport scale model of modest size that can give sport, flying pleasure of a scale nature.

Construction is not difficult, well within the reach of the moderately experience modeller. The full-size incorporated quite generous dihedral so, although they could be fitted, the inset ailerons used were not deemed necessary for this little model which uses classically simple REM controls.

Simple but realistic: The full-size aircraft has a relatively long nose, this variant being named 'Long Nose' and the structure of the model was devised with this in mind. I dispensed with ply for nose doublers in favour of lighter 1.5 mm balsa laid on the basic 2.5 mm sides on the diagonal. Additional 4.5 mm square longerons and undercarriage reactor blocks are added to the sides before framing up with the two centre section formers F4 and F7. At this stage I usually sheet the underside of the parallel section of the fuselage as I find it helps to hold everything true and avoids the banana effect. Once this is done, the front and rear can be pulled in to fit formers F1 to F3 and F9 and 10.

The top nose decking is planked with 3 mm balsa following fitting of the 3 mm Liteply spine and doublers and is sanded down to around 2.5 mm after the wing top decking is fitted. If the 2.5 mm sheet for the rear decking is chosen carefully, it can be wrapped around in a single piece. I managed this securing it with strips of masking tape rather than pins. All the tail surfaces are shaped from 6 mm balsa. Don't worry about weight, nor are there lightening holes, remember that long nose. I added dummy ribs to the surfaces to simulate the structure of the full-size. These are very simply produced by laying down 3 layers of masking tape onto something fairly smooth and shiny, then cutting into 3 mm strips and sticking down. A narrow strip of balsa added to tailplane and rudder hinge lines completes the illusion. At this stage I inserted short lengths of 6 mm dowel through tailplane and fin for rigging attachment points.

Scalloped edges: Scalloped trailing edges were such a noticeable feature of many early aircraft that it is a pity not to make some attempt to reproduce them without the rather odd effect that is created simply by cutting chunks out of the trailing edge of conventionally built wings. If you do do this, the trailing edge at the deepest point of the scallop will be thicker than at the rib point and this does not look nice. The flat bottomed wing section makes construction simple, spars are located in principle in the same place as on the full-size, the rear spar forming an aileron spar with rigging top and bottom bracing both spars. The spars are flush with the surface of the balsa ribs and the 0.8 mm ply cap strips are added over the top creating the impression of an inset spar.

The structural trailing edge of the wing is 6 mm square spruce with a hard 1.5 mm width strip added before cap stripping so that when the 1.5 mm false trailing edge is scalloped, it has a constant thickness. Take a look at the section on the plan, you will straight away see how it is done.

Vertical scraps of 6 mm square spruce are drilled to take the rigging attachment points. I used lengths of 8 BA studding as the thickness of the wing is greater than the longest 8 BA bolts that I could find..."

Farman Moustique from R/C Scale Aircraft, December 1995.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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Farman Moustique (oz15806) by Bill Burkinshaw 1995 - model pic

Datafile:
  • (oz15806)
    Farman Moustique
    by Bill Burkinshaw
    from Radio Control Scale Aircraft
    December 1995 
    50in span
    Scale IC R/C Civil
    clean :)
    all formers complete :)
    got article :)
  • Submitted: 14/01/2025
    Filesize: 1219KB
    Format: • PDFbitmap
    Credit*: Circlip, RFJ
    Downloads: 336

ScaleType:
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    see Wikipedia | search Outerzone
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    ScaleType: This (oz15806) is a scale plan. Where possible we link scale plans to Wikipedia, using a text string called ScaleType.

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