Blackburn 1912 Monoplane (oz15821)

 

Blackburn 1912 Monoplane (oz15821) by Alex Whittaker 2002 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

Blackburn 1912 Monoplane. Radio control scale model. Wingspan 56 in, for .40 4-stroke engine and 3 functions.

Quote: "Blackburn Monoplane. Alex Whittaker returns to the days of pioneering aviation with his 1912 time machine.

To my eyes, Edwardian design has always combined elegance and practicality. Take the Blackburn 1912 monoplane, for instance. For all that its name suggests Northern qualities of dependability and industriousness, its refined and stylish lines evoke memories of a confident and outward-looking England in which the gentleman aviator enjoyed the brief Edwardian summer before the Great War brought an end to the era. The 1912 is equally refined aerodynamically, too: she’s a fully formed and practical monoplane, built at a time when her contemporaries were still braced and be-strutted biplanes. No doubt the Blackburn’s English designers were influenced by the efficiency and simplicity of the earlier Bleriot, but beyond this the 1912 remains idiosyncratically English.

Scale Character: Built for an OS .52 Surpass four-stroke engine, my prototype 1912 weighs 4-1/2 lbs ready to fly (of which, one whole pound is the undercarriage), but with a 43 inch fuselage, a span of 56 in and an 11 in chord, she offers quite a bit of surface area to the air - much like the original. Although this is a sports-scale model, her proportions are as close to the full-size aircraft as I could manage, and I think she’s turned out looking fairly authentic.

Being flown on her rudder, elevator and throttle means that, as well as period looks, the Blackburn has an authentic feel, too. Nevertheless, this nostalgia has its drawbacks: the aerofoil section is very slim, for example, and the model’s balsa-and-ply cantilever wing quite literally depends upon its fishing-trace bracing. Similarly, although she’ll get off tarmac on those scale Flair 3-1/4 in Vintage wheels with no trouble, you may need to fit larger non-scale wheels when flying off grass. Anyway, assuming you’re ready for this sort of pioneering experience, we’ll get started.

Fuselage: The predominantly balsa-built fuselage is made from a number of simple triangular 1/4 in sheet formers linked at the bottom by a 1/2 x 1/4 in keel and two 1/4 in top stringers. At the front, the top stringers meet two same-size spruce (or ramin) stringers, which take the weight of the engine.

I built the fuselage inverted over the plan, with these upper stringers pinned to the board and all the formers cyano’d in place. To make life easier I also drilled the formers to take the control wires before gluing them in place. In addition, former No.1 – the engine bulkhead – was faced with liteply and fretted out to allow the pipes of the built-in tin tank to poke through..."

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Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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Blackburn 1912 Monoplane (oz15821) by Alex Whittaker 2002 - model pic

Datafile:
  • (oz15821)
    Blackburn 1912 Monoplane
    by Alex Whittaker
    from RCME
    November 2002 
    56in span
    Scale IC R/C
    clean :)
    all formers complete :)
    got article :)
  • Submitted: 23/12/2024
    Filesize: 839KB
    Format: • PDFbitmap
    Credit*: Circlip, RFJ
    Downloads: 492

ScaleType:
  • Blackburn_Type_D | help
    see Wikipedia | search Outerzone
    ------------
    Test link:
    search RCLibrary 3views (opens in new window)


    ScaleType: This (oz15821) is a scale plan. Where possible we link scale plans to Wikipedia, using a text string called ScaleType.

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Blackburn 1912 Monoplane (oz15821) by Alex Whittaker 2002 - pic 003.jpg
003.jpg

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User comments

OS52 and 4 1/2lb? My Finucane FF version at the same size was overpowered with a Mills 75!
bill dennis - 02/02/2025
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  • Blackburn 1912 Monoplane (oz15821)
  • Plan File Filesize: 839KB Filename: Blackburn_1912_Monoplane_oz15821.pdf
  • Supplement Filesize: 2852KB Filename: Blackburn_1912_Monoplane_oz15821_article.pdf
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Notes

* Credit field

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Scaling

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