Blunderbird 3 (oz5091)
About this Plan
Blunderbird 3. Radio control sport trainer model, for Cox Golden Bee power and single channel.
Quote: "FREE full size plans. 'A series of blunders'. Blunderbird 3, by Cliff Kershaw.
THE drama remains the same, only the actors and props have changed. Twenty-five years ago he paid half-a-crown for a mottled sheet of Utility paper and a bundle of 1/16 in. obechi - that is, a 16 in wingspan flying-scale rubber (unobtainable of course) powered Spitfire. After incredible Croidian labours he carried his brainchild to the nearest bombed site or allotment, and heaved. The curtain fell with a crunch. A few years later the reintroduction of balsa prolonged the finale to five seconds, but the result was almost always the same; enthusiasm died with that first model, and another budding acromodeller was lost.
Nowadays it is father who forks out ten quid for a 16 in wing-span. ready-to-go, flying-scale, control-line, unbreakable plastic Spitfire. A fortnight after Christmas the nurseries of our land are filled with mangled plastic and redundant .049 glow motors.
In an effort to retain some of the precious enthusiasm of my pupils I formed a club, designed a model around these engines, and kitted it at £1. For this the kids got pre-cut balsa and ply, wire, wheels, dope, tissue, plan, cement, bolts - the lot, including a one-ninth share in a tin of fuel-proofer. All materials were bought by me at normal retail prices, without even an Educational Discount. I selected the balsa. I object to paying through the nose for a kit (let's face it, Blunderbird's nearest commercial counterpart costs £4.9.7d) only to reject half the contents as too soft, unbalanced, short-grained. and for a beginner this can be disastrous.
It was intended to call the series Thunderbird 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Gazing fondly but rationally upon my kids I amended this to 'Blunderbird'.
Instead of die-cutting I sawed out the parts on the school jig-saw. It is nothing like so difficult or tedious as one might imagine. On hard 1/8 balsa, mark the positions of wing and tailplane dowels. Square up stack of sheets below the 'Master' (I used eight simply because eight boys had started bringing their half-crowns per-week), and drill through dowel holes with school bench drill. Shove scrap dowel through the holes and treat the result as an ordinary block of balsa. This way you get sixteen fuselage sides identical in shape, and providing you choose each sheet for uniform density throughout its length, they are in perfectly matched pairs.
I produced nose doublers and cheek pieces in the same way, all out of hard 1/4 in sheet. Thus all the fuselage forward of the wings has rock-hard sides 3/8 in thick..."
Direct submission to Outerzone.
Supplementary file notes
Article page, text and pic.
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
Do you have a photo you'd like to submit for this page? Then email admin@outerzone.co.uk
User comments
No comments yet for this plan. Got something to say about this one?Add a comment
- Blunderbird 3 (oz5091)
- Plan File Filesize: 319KB Filename: Blunderbird_3_oz5091.pdf
- Supplement Filesize: 275KB Filename: Blunderbird_3_oz5091_article.pdf
- help with downloads
Notes
* Credit field
The Credit field in the Outerzone database is designed to recognise and credit the hard work done in scanning and digitally cleaning these vintage and old timer model aircraft plans to get them into a usable format. Currently, it is also used to credit people simply for uploading the plan to a forum on the internet. Which is not quite the same thing. This will change soon. Probably.
Scaling
This model plan (like all plans on Outerzone) is supposedly scaled correctly and supposedly will print out nicely at the right size. But that doesn't always happen. If you are about to start building a model plane using this free plan, you are strongly advised to check the scaling very, very carefully before cutting any balsa wood.
Terms of Use
© Outerzone, 2011-2025.
All content is free to download for personal use.
For non-personal use and/or publication: plans, photos, excerpts, links etc may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Outerzone with appropriate and specific direction to the original content i.e. a direct hyperlink back to the Outerzone source page.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site's owner is strictly prohibited. If we discover that content is being stolen, we will consider filing a formal DMCA notice.