Blue Thing (oz16886)

About this Plan

Blue Thing. Control line sport model. Canard pusher layout. Wingspan 10 in, for .049 engine.

Quote: "Canards, however obscure, have been lurking in aviation's background ever since that flier lurched from a rail near Kittyhawk and soared into history. More recently, we have seen the canard reappear as the fantastic USAF XB-7O and remarkably successful Swedish Saab-Scania Viggen fighter. While offering certain theoretical advantages, particularly in low drag and low-speed controlability, canards remain aeronautical rare birds (notwithstanding that the word is French for duck—a connection that remains obscure).

A canard is not simply a backwards airplane. The kid down the block who accidentally turned loose his ready-to-fly Christmas present with its reed-valve engine running backwards will already have discovered this.

The canard does, however, possess all of the usual parts; they are just sorted out in a different order than that to which we have become accustomed. And because of this configurational re-organization, our cherished rules of thumb quickly fail apart. The canard suffers more from misunderstanding than from its intrinsic faults.

Since balancing the beast is the most troublesome factor, we invite you to refer to the accompanying sketch and its attendant formula. It's only a trifle more complicated than the admonition to maintain a balance between leading edge and 25% of chord. But, in the case of a canard, this formula works, and has been checked against published canard designs. The CC derived by this means will be the most aft position possible for good control. Should you wish a steadier sort of bird, balance the ship a bit more forward. Other factors of value in the design of CL canards are these: while not a hard and fast rule, it is well to use similar airfoil profiles for both wing and stabilizer. Control will be further enhanced if the thrust line, fuselage centerline, and wing are coincident. A radically high or low thrust line can cause serious troubles.

Free flighters, though, should ignore the foregoing; yours is a different bag altogether, wherein the thrust line is used to control climb, and you don't wiggle your elevators either. make sure your design has plenty of fin area aft of the CG in order to effectively balance out the forward lateral area, which in a canard is considerable. Where the presence of the control lines and line guide can allow a CL ship to get away with aerodynamic murder where fins are concerned, not so the FF or RC. Still, any model flies best when all of its components are working together.

Most readers would pursue modeling with knife and balsa, rather than the more prosaic pen and paper. To these we say, welcome to the Blue Thing, a rugged canard of a simple sort, entirely tractable in flight, and thus well-suited to relative beginners or inquiring experimenters.

Having found that not only is a straight line the shortest distance between points, it's also the easiest to draw and cut, the Blue Thing is designed accordingly. Thus, there is no need for the customary full-size plans. One need only measure off the key dimensions on his wood and start cutting.

CONSTRUCTION Begin by butt-gluing enough pieces of 1/8 sheet balsa to form the wing. This also would be a good time to glue up the tip fins. Bend the landing gear wire to shape and lash it securely to the fuselage stick with strong 'button and carpet' thread and lots of glue. The wing can then be attached to the fuselage.

Slip the aluminum-tube stabilizer bearing over a length of music wire and from this bend the stabilizer connector to shape. This connector is then epoxied to the stabilizer halves, taking care not to glue the wire to the bearing. The control horn is then affixed and the assembly epoxied into a notch on the fuselage.

The plywood firewall is glued to fuselage and wing by means of wedge-shaped balsa reinforcing blocks. The only other piece of plywood in the Blue Thing is the bellcrank mount, which should be glued to the wing's underside. Add the doubler over the stabilizer bearing tube before gluing the sheet balsa fuselage top in place. The wing tip fins also are glued into place now, but will not need additional reinforcement..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 28/7/2026: Added vectorPDF and CAD (dxf and dwg) versions of this plan, thanks to Valeria367.

Quote: "Hi, Steve and Mary. How are you? I hope all are right. Some years ago, I found one photo of the Blue Thing (oz16886) model on the internet, but without any clue about the name or plan, until I looked at it in Outerzone last week. Since it's an interesting little model, I decided to make the redaw of the plan in the more modern CAD format.
As usual, I send you the redraw in vector PDF, as well as in both CAD formats: DWG and DXF.
Greetings, from your friend.
Valeria367."

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