Sprite (oz4167)

About this Plan

Sprite. Free flight rubber sport model. A low-wing design.

Quote: "SPRITE WAS BORN out of a requirement for a small sporty-looking, rubber powered model that was easy and quick to build, inexpensive, and would fly well on a standard 150mm commercial plastic propeller.

For me, it has fulfilled all these requirements, and it looks pretty as well as being a good flyer. However, the smaller a model is, the more critical the weight becomes when good performance is required, so it is essential that the correct grades of balsa are chosen and also that too much adhesive is not used on the joints, as all the little extra blobs of cement add unnecessary weight which affect the performance and trim of the model. (There are 63 separate glue joints in the wing alone.)

Lecture over, now let's get started with the construction. Start by cutting out all the fuselage formers and fusel-age sides from light 1.5mm sheet. When all these parts are prepared, cement the two main formers (F2 & F3) to one fusel-age side ensuring that they are perpendicular, when these are dry the other fuselage side is cemented to the formers making sure that everything is square and 'looks right'.

When this assembly is well and truly dry the nose former can be cemented in position holding the sides in with elastic bands or better still some adhesive tape, pull the rear end of the fuselage together and cement.

If the basic fuselage is all square and straight the rest of the formers and cross braces can now be cemented into position. All that now remains is to add the forward sheeting, windscreen and rear top spine stringers and the fuselage is nearly complete.

The fin and tailplane are very straightforward but they must be kept as light as possible.

The wings are builtflat on the plan as three pieces, left, centre, and right panels, and when all dry the tips are raised up to the required dihedral angle and the joints cemented making sure that each piece butts up to each other snugly. Te centre section 1.5mm square bracing spar can now be cemented into place and also the fillets in the wing roots at the LE and TE. The undercarriage is bound and cemented to a scrap piece of 3 mm square balsa which is then cemented to the wing LE as per plan, giving it a forward rake..."

Quote: "Off to the 1980s this time with the April 1980 edition of AEROMODELLER... One free flight plan to pass along and it is a rather attractive design by RICHARD PRESTON. The 470mm wingspan sport rubber SPRITE. Richard said it is one for calm summer evenings that is easy and quick to build, is inexpensive and flies well on a standard 150mm commercial plastic prop. The plan is full size."

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