FAItal Charmer (oz5149)

About this Plan

FAItal Charmer. Power competition model. From HH plan #658.

Quote: "Here is a free flight gas job that is a real beauty and is also a real performer. Contrary to most streamlined ships, it is a simple airplane to build. Originally for FAI competition (under the old rules using an Oliver Tiger 15) at the last Nationals it did five maxs with no strain. It then turned in a 6-minute 57-second fly-off flight to get 2nd place. Now slightly oversize for the new FAI rules without overloading it's a natural for a 19 and 23 combination.

For the new FAI rules I built a new copy much heavier and stronger, with a lead nose cowl to bring it to the re-quired weight of 261,:2 oz. The lead made it possible to use a short nose. Wing and tail were cut down in span to reduce the area as required. This new job was amazing. Everyone expected the performance of FAI's to suffer by the latest rules which cut area and increase weight so much. They are still capable of very good performance! At the FAI semi-finals at Solberg, mine knocked off three maximums in a row before hitting a horrible downdraft that ruined us (everyone but Bill Dean, the winner, scored less than a max in this round).

At Miami the FAI event was held in a howling wind. Everyone was short fusing hoping not to lose his ship. With two flights short fused, mine still got 3rd place. That afternoon, flying in Class A, this model, weighing 26-1/2 oz and using a 15-second motor run found itself in a four-man flyoff against entries using 20-second motor runs and much lighter weight! In the fly-off, it took 2nd place. At 5:00 pm it did 3:36 only 12 seconds less than the 1st place winner. Sounds good? Then let's get started.

Construction. Given by steps and hints given where needed. These will be num-bered on the plans, where possible for clarification. The fuselage is described for both beam and radial mounting. Radial mounting is definitely simpler and elimi-nates a number of steps. I used beam mounts because I believe it gives a stronger fuselage and also because the Oliver-Tiger engine does not have radial mounts. I also built a Charmer for a Max 15 under the new rules using radial mounting. In this case, I made a plate of ducal the same outline as the firewall. I drilled holes to match the back cover of the engine and used this as my mounting plate."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 16/10/2018: Added article, thanks to theshadow.

Supplementary file notes

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