Yard Bird (oz832)

About this Plan

Yard Bird (Yardbird). Free flight power model. Cox Pee Wee engine. Pendulum elevator.

Quote: "With 1 cc of fuel in the tank and 40 seconds counted off, I trotted forward and eased the model cautiously on its way. It buzzed down to one inch above sea level, skimmed above the runway for twenty feet, then started a slow climb to the left. The engine leaned itself out a trifle and the climb steepened; then the ship topped an invisible rise, flew level for a way, then tried to go up again. Once again something pulled the nose down, and the ship completed its first turn howling along at an altitude of ten feet. From where I stood I could clearly see the action of the elevator. As the nose went up again in another bid for altitude, down went the flippers and levelled her off.

At the end of the twenty second motor run Yard Bird had made it to twenty feet on sheer wing lift. The engine cut and the job slid off in a right turn, starting down a little too abruptly for comfort. But the pendu-lum kicked into action and she flat-tened out, glided along dead level a few feet, then with speed reduced dropped her nose again. She made it down to within two feet of the ground before the pendulum levelled her out moving fast, so naturally she started climbing, rode up to five feet, eased over the top and glided the rest of the way in uneventfully.

This was the initial test flight and Yard Bird had come through in good style. After a few more flights, and the addition of a couple of BB shot in the front end, the kinks were ironed out of the roller-coaster flight pattern, and Yard Bird was cruising around the yard as smooth as silk; no stalls, no dives, no spiral-ins - not even any interference from gusty wind. Yard Bird was designed to stay in the yard, and she did it to perfection.

If you have a yen to listen to a motor buzzing for a few minutes before dinner and don't feel like chasing anything, you don't have to resort to control line. A solidly built slab-sided little semi-scale job, under pendulum control will fill the bill nicely. Yard Bird is easy to build, featuring sheet balsa sides and tail assembly and a simple dihedral constant chord wing. The original model was built in eight hours, including some last minute engineering, so clear off a space on the work table, get out a couple of sheets of medium 1/16 balsa wood, a fresh razor blade and let's go... "

Update 18/03/2014: Replaced this with a clearer copy, thanks to JJ.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, text and pics, thanks to JJ.

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