Smith Special (oz48)

About this Plan

Smith Special. Semi-scale half-A all-sheet balsa biplane by Calhoun Smith from Air Trails.

Quote: "Indoor sport or stunt flying is possible now with the new small engines. Try this tiny, trim semi-scale biplane.

Indoors or out this K&B Infant powered biplane is real flying fun. Oldtimers can trace the ancestry of the Special way back to the biplanes so popular with model builders during the '30s. How many of us wished then for a power plant such as the Infant to hang in the nose.

The Special was designed as a one-evening project and should prove simple enough for the young builder. The Infant pulls the model along at a good clip. Initial flights were made in a two-car garage with about 9 feet of thread out. We had to give that up when we wandered from the center of the circle and banged the ship against the walls. Outdoors we flew on 15 feet of line and the Special handled well. Because of its light weight (3 oz) calm air is almost a must for flying, although the more experienced flyer can make good flights in a wind - but you'll be a busy boy, believe us.

Two types of wings are shown in the plans, stunt and sport. The first test model was built with the regular lifting sport wing and performed loops and eights easily. We managed a few inverted laps, but this is not recommended for beginners. If you wish to build a true stunt job, use the symmetrical airfoil stunt wing and a stunt fuel tank such as the Darwin Pee-Wee.

Interested? If so, grab a couple of sheets of 1/16 x 3in and two strips of 1/16 square. The rest of the odds and ends such as wire and plywood should be down in the bottom of the scrap box. Plans are drawn exactly half scale, so if you can't wait for the Air Trails Full Size Plans simply double everything shown.

Construction can be started with the fuselage. Cut out the sides and formers from 1/16 sheet balsa, The formers themselves have parallel sides and simple half circles on the top..."

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to BillW.

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