Smoke Trail (oz6613)
About this Plan
Smoke Trail. Free flight or single channel cabin model.
Quote: "INITIALLY FULLY TESTED as a free flight model with wheel and snow ski under-carriage, Smoke Trail also makes an ideal single channel radio model with but slight modification. Chain dotted line detail on the plan gives the conversion information for simple radio installation. Naturally it's one for the lightweight outfits. For winter flying over snow, the skis are drawn full size, also being useful on smooth wet grass or for hard launched flight over a smooth flying ground.
With a handy 32 in wingspan, transportation is no problem. Smoke Trail can be flown from any small field and thanks to the lightweight structure the original model was 9 oz, complete with an AS 55 engine. Thus Smoke Trail will bounce off most minor crashes and some of the major ones, too! Designed initially as an all-weather flier it has a good climb and a long flat glide. The original is still airworthy after almost two years of constant flying!
During the winter of 1962, skis were fitted and the model flown from snow covered downs. The take-off and landing were most realistic. For summer flying use the normal undercarriage.
Construction: Study the plans carefully and decide which version you want to build. Note that the building instructions refer only to the free flight version.
Commence construction by pinning the plan to a flat building board and cover it with a sheet of transparent waxed paper. The port (left side) wing leading, trailing edge and the 1/8 sheet tip should then be pinned down and cemented together over the plan position after cutting the leading and trailing edge notches with a sharp razor blade. Slide all W.1 ribs into place and cement firm. The 1/16 lower centre section sheeting should be cut to size and cemented to the leading and trailing edge, between outer lines of ribs W.2.
Cut the innermost W.2 rib away at the leading edge and behind the spar notch to clear the 1/16 plywood dihedral braces. Cement the 1/8 sq spruce spar in place and then B1 and B2 dihedral braces, cracking the spar to bend down on to the 1/8 sheet tip. The top 1/16 centre section sheeting should now be added. Remove port wing from plan, sand leading and trailing edges to section. Now build the starboard (right side) wing over the dotted areas of the plan after packing the already built port wing up 4-3/8 in for the dihedral angle.
The fuselage formers should now be cut out, depending on which version you are building. F1, F2 and F3 are fretted from plywood and the rest from balsa except F3 which is made as follows..."
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Supplementary file notes
Planfile includes article.
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(oz6613)
Smoke Trail
by Chris Foss
from Aeromodeller
July 1964
32in span
IC R/C Cabin
clean :)
all formers complete :)
got article :) -
Submitted: 03/05/2015
Filesize: 682KB
Format: • PDFbitmap
Credit*: Terry
Downloads: 2276
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User comments
My Smoke Trail didn't last long. Although it flew well and the Pee Wee 020 was plenty of power, my receiver had problems. Ace R/C offered a kit of the Kraft K3VK single channel receiver, which worked first time I turned it on, after carefully soldering all the miniature components onto the circuit board. The kit sold for $9.95 in 1964, which would be about $75 now. But all my tuning efforts failed to result in enough range to fly it very far away. Several successful flights, keeping it close, made me a little too confident and the last time I saw it was as it disappeared over the swamps next to Sage Park. Rabbits couldn't find their way through that jungle and there it has remained ever since, probably buried under whatever was built after they developed the area. Production quality control was not so good in the transistor industry back then, most likely the reason my receiver was unsuccessful. I'm sure I could get it to work now, a superregen receiver is a pretty simple circuit, a few component changes would give it some more sensitivity. It was a learning experience though, and its failure enabled me to modify a Mattel receiver with exactly the same problem and get it to work, ten years later.DougSmith - 31/08/2015
Dear Outerzone, I noticed that you didn’t have any recent photos of the Chris Foss Smoke Trail model published in Aeromodeller, July 1964. I built one when it was first published and successfully flew it as a free flight model powered by a Cox 020. I needed a test airframe for my Redfin SAM 50 diesel, so a second build of the model was too good to miss. This time I’ve added two channel RC on the rudder and elevator. The model weighs in at 247gm ready to fly which is just under the requirement for CAA registration. The Redfin SAM 50 provides more than enough power. The model is an easy build and looks great in the air. I’ve enclosed a few pics of the model on the ground [main pic, 005, 006]. Please feel free to use them as you see fit. Best Regards,
Andy Sephton - 07/06/2022
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- Smoke Trail (oz6613)
- Plan File Filesize: 682KB Filename: Smoke_Trail_oz6613.pdf
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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
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