Pondhopper (oz5909)

About this Plan

Pondhopper. RC sport flying boat from RCM magazine issue 03-76.

Quote: "The Pondhopper is an amphibious sport plane specifically designed in response to the many requests for such an R/C model that could use engines in the .35 to .40 range. An earlier design the Puddlejumper (oz5910) was intended for .09 to .15 engines, and the Wavemaster is a six foot job for .60 power. The Pond hopper fills the 'power gap' for all you enthusiasts who have a .35 or .40 and want to have the choice of runway or water take-offs.

It's not really a new design. Those of you who built the Puddlejumper will immediately spot the basic design similarity. The reason is simple; the Puddlejumper had excellent water handling characteristics, as well as good sport flying ability. Also, the rectangular cross-section of the fuselage makes it easy and fast to build. And, by using a slightly modified Goldberg Falcon 56 (oz2424) wing kit, the wing construction is very easy to accomplish. In contrast to this simplicity, the Wavemaster - if you were to build it from balsa - has sweeping double curvature surfaces that would be very time consuming, but which in a plastic kit are easy to mold. So, for the scratch-builder, straight lines and single curvature surfaces are the way to go. You'll find that the Pondhopper goes together like any old box fuselage, yet the finished product has very pleasing lines. And the performance with a K & B .40 is WOW!

It takes off easily from the water at half throttle, and almost jumps off if you give it full power. In the air, it will do all the recognized maneuvers (well, maybe not a Lumcavek - or whatever you call it), although I don't recommend it for pattern contests, since it is not all that precise. For pure sport flying, either at the lake or the club field, it's pretty hard to beat.

Construction is quite conventional. There are just one or two details that might need some explanation... "

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 14/01/2016: Replaced this plan with a better copy scanned from a fullsize plan, thanks to Balsaworkbench, scanning by Don at EAC, cleanup by theshadow.

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Previous scan version.

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