Mollyhawk (oz7914)

About this Plan

Mollyhawk. Rubber powered sport biplane model.

Quote: "Build this attractive little biplane and you will find it has a surprising performance. Mollyhawk, by Neville Coldrick.

Mollyhawk was built simply as a fun fly machine, something that was cheap and easy to build and easy to fly in restricted space. Flying fields are so hard to find these days. It more than met my expectations as far as flying ability was concerned and, provided it is trimmed out correctly, will surprise you with it's performance.

Fuselage: A simple square box, in reality, built two sides one on top of the other. All longerons and cross members are 3/32 sq hard balsa. The 3/32 sheet side pieces at the front should be carefully cut from light, firm sheet. Be careful to make these as accurately as possible, in particular the cut-outs for the one-piece lower wings. Formers are a mixture of 1/16 and 3/32 sheet, a glance at the drawing will clarify this.

Undercarriage: The undercarriage is bent from 18 swg wire and sewn to the 1 mm ply faced former C. Do this prior to assembling the fuselage sides and spread white glue over the stitching and wire parts. Should you decide to fit the 1/8 sheet fairing to the undercarriage legs I strongly recommend that you do not omit the small L shaped pieces of wire, paper clips are ideal for the job. Clean all the wire parts with fine sandpaper then bind the L shaped pieces to the legs with a few turns of fuse wire; a touch of solder will then secure them together. The balsa fairing is a simple force fit over the prong of the L shaped wire. A groove cut in the leading edge ensures that the ll/C leg fits neatly inside. Superglue will hold the entire assembly together. The final touch is to get a strip of gummed paper and fix this around the leg and fairing.

A couple of coats of dope or sanding sealer will then produce a good strong leg and fairing, which makes the model look much better than with a naked piece of wire. A further glance at the drawing will show how the spats are fitted. All quite simple really. A saddle of paperclip wire is bent to shape and soldered to the axle ends after fitting the wheels. The spats are simply a tight fit over the saddle plus a spot of white glue. White glue is best for this as it gives time to set the spats at the correct angle. The spats themselves are easy to make from two pieces of 1/8 sheet either side of a 1/4 in sheet core which is hollowed out to take the wheels. All the parts are glued together and, when set, carved and sanded to a streamlined shape.

Wings: These are perfectly straightforward. Build in 1 in dihedral to the mainplanes, the dihedral brace will set this angle for you. Small balsa blocks hold the struts which are really only cosmetic and the model will fly perfectly well without them. If you want to use them they are a simple push fit into slots cut in the balsa blocks.

Tailplane and rudder These are simple flat plates built from 3/32 and 1/8 balsa as shown on the plan. Leave them weighted down over night for the glue to set thoroughly.

Covering: The original model was covered in red jap tissue on the fuselage, fin and rudder with the wings and tailplane being white. Black lettering was cut from tissue and doped in place. Two coats of clear dope thinned 50/50 with thinners..."

Hi Mary/Steve - Here is N. Caldrick's Mollyhawk from Aeromodeller magazine issue 09-94.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 08/02/2019: Added article, thanks to algy2.

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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