Gypsy (oz2396)

About this Plan

Gypsy. Radio control glider. 64in span, 250 sq in area, 16oz weight.

Quote: "Gypsy, by Jack Headley. Single And Sexy... A Scale Sailplane For Pulse Enthusiasts.

The builder of scale gliders is, unfortunately, poorly served by the publishing industry. Books containing detailed 3-view drawings of powered aircraft are quite common, but very little literature exists describing full scale gliders, and looking for a suitable subject for a scale model usually involves a haphazard search through old gliding magazines. About the only exception to this are the troop carrying gliders of World War II, which are quite well documented, but these were not too numerous, and it doesn't take too tong to make models of most of these types. So it was a great pleasure to see a Whole book devoted to sailplanes recently (British Gliders and Sailplanes, 1922-1970) and I immediately decided that a copy of this would make an ideal Christmas present for my spouse. For some inexplicable reason she was less than enthusiastic when receiving this, but by late February she had forgiven me, and I'm now permitted to glance at the volume now and again when the 'new Sailplane' urge becomes strong.

In one of my recent searches for a single channel subject, I discovered the Gypsy shown here. This is an interesting type as it's a full scale design built using Modeling principles. The wings are built with a rigid foam core, which is then covered with a-thin sheet of aluminum, bonded in place. Sounds familiar? The model, however, is built using the old fashioned, all-balsa process. Details of the construction follow.

Wings. The first thing to do here is to get hold of four sheets of good quality 1/16 x 4 in balsa, not too heavy, but free from warps and twists. Select the two stiffest for the bottom surfaces, and cut these to the outline shown. Now cut a strip 1/8 wide from these, and also chamfer the back edge to almost a point. Make all the wing ribs and, after stacking them in a block, sand lightly so that they are simlarly shaped. The dihedral brace is also made now, and should be cut from hard 1/4 in balsa. That's just about all the balsa chopping, so dust off the plan, put a layer of wax paper over the wing drawing, and pin, down the two bottom sheets of wood..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Added article pages, thanks to DavidTerrell.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, text and pics.

Corrections?

Did we get something wrong with these details about this plan (especially the datafile)? That happens sometimes. You can help us fix it.
Add a correction