Midwing Wakefield (oz16507)

About this Plan

Mid-Wing Wakefield Model. Rubber duration model. Wingspan 44 in.

Note this is not a full size plan. Scale is 1/4 except where noted. This is how the drawing appeared in the magazine pages, back in 1942.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 11/1/2026: Added article, thanks to Pit.

Quote: "A Mid-Wing Wakefield, by Arnold Wathew.

This model might almost be described as 'A Wakefield from 1/32 sheet,' but due to the extreme scarcity of this commodity, it is of interest as regards the METHOD, whatever the material employed at the time of building.

IT was some two years and more ago that I set myself I to find something different in the way of a Wakefield design. I wanted the strength and smoothness of surface of the all-balsa monocoque body - but not its weight or the difficulty of building which the round or oval section monocoque body entails. I wanted a wing which would not warp on the dampest evening. A chassis which was sprung in such a manner that it would return to its original position after every landing, yet without external rubber bands. Fairing of wings and tail into fuselage must be good, yet easy and light. Ambitious? Yes. But that's the fun of it all. Any mug can do the easy job.

For my ideas re the construction, I went back to the methods used during the early part of last war on full-sized planes. As you know, they were mostly of simple spruce and plywood construction and made use of lath and stringer fairings upon a square section fuselage.

My first effort was upon these lines with a basic, square-section fuselage built up from 1/32 sheet balsa. This basic fuselage weighed only 1 ounce uncovered, was very strong and pleased me very much.

Building the fairings to streamline this fuselage was a long and tiresome job. As you will see from the photo, this machine was a shoulder wing monoplane with not unpleasing lines. Indeed, she flew very well, but could not be said to have more than ordinary performance. You see that fuselage, which was so light in basic form, now weighed over 3 ounces. The stringers on the fuselage formers, so nice before covering, were now buckling inwards with the pull of the dope, so that the flow of air over the fuselage must have been very poor indeed.

As regards the wings of this machine, more later. They were all-balsa and a great success. An all-balsa tail unit had to be discarded on account of excessive weight. A new tail unit was built according to conventional lines but, although only just over half-an-ounce in weight, was useless owing to warping. It just refused to accept or keep any definite adjustment. A third tail unit, using I-section spars and ribs, weighed about ounce and gave no trouble at any time.

At about this period, I read in the Aeromodeller of the success of two diamond-shaped fuselage parasol monoplane models. All at once it occurred to me that in my basic fuselage construction I had the ideal diamond fuselage - light, strong and simple, with no frills of any sort. Now it has always seemed to me that the parasol monoplane must suffer 'seriously in efficiency from interference between the wing and the fuselage. This is most serious in the case of the rectangular fuselage, of course, but even the diamond or round fuselage is handicapped in this way because some form of bracing is always needed to get a firm wing fixing.

This led me to consider the possibilities of the mid-wing type, using a diamond-shaped fuselage. I found them un-expectedly good. For instance. With a suitably large fuselage cross section such as was needed to conform to Wakefield fuselage formula, perfectly rigid fixings for wing roots, with in. square plywood dowels plugging into balsa boxes could be made, using 1 mita-. plywood fuselage formers of good section. Fairing the wing roots, tail plane and fin into the body was so simple as to be almost laughable.

Getting down to brass tacks in the matter of practical design, I found that a 35 inch overall fuselage, of maximim cross section, 3.5 in by 3.5 in, could be constructed out of four sheets of 1/32 by 4 by 30 inch hard balsa, with quite a lot of useful balsa left over!

Please note that in the construction of this fuselage there are NO longerons. All is from 1/32 sheet balsa with 48 inches of 1/16 square strip and a little 1mm plywood.

As actually constructed in the original model, lightness holes were very freely used and the whole covered with tissue and doped. I have since thought that it might have been even better to omit these holes and dope with No.1 banana oil, using no tissue at all. Weight would have been about the same and the surface would have been smoother in general. You see how one model gives you the ideas for a better one even before it has been completed? What is saved in weight by the lightness holes is probably all lost in the weight of the tissue, paste and dope..."

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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