Sportwagon Junior (oz8555)

About this Plan

Sportwagon Jr. Single channel sport cabin model.

Quote: "RC fun-flying in a small package - this airplane is great for that. Uses an .02 Cox Pee Wee engine and rudder-only control via the Ace pulse system. It's basically a FF with radio to keep it where it's wanted. Cabin layout gives appealing looks.

This model traces its ancestry to a sport Free Flight model designed many years ago by the late Calhoun Smith. Builds quickly and economically.

THE SAGA of this model began many years ago (I was tempted to also say in a land far away). My main interest in modeling during my college years was strictly contest flying with a capital C. Any contest - Free Flight, Control Line, anything. Models were built for only one reason: to win. My model design was basic and functiuonal - no frills, no good looks.

Contest FF Power models of this era were high pylon, low aspect ratio devices, with the latest hot diesel engine up front. Into the latter one pored the most noxious mixture of ether, castor oil, and nitrated something or the other. Although I won few contests (more about that later), it was all great fun.

With this background it's a complete mystery why I built or obtained a Sportwagon (oz5310). The Sportwagon, for those of you not familiar with the design, was a product of the fertile brain of Calhoun Smith, and the
were published in a short-lived magazine in England during the Fifties.

The design was the antithesis of my type of model. It had a cabin(!), wheels(!), and a cavernous fuselage. However, it was a good flier. I used it for both fun and contest work, usually obtaining my consistent one max, out of sight, score. The best-remembered of this type of result was a flight at a contest in Huddersfield, which (as usual) went out-of-sight after a few minutes (the wind always blows in Huddersfield), and finally landed on a golf course in Halifax.

I can't recall what happened to the model in the end (does anyone remember the fate of his or her old relics?); however, a year or so ago, I got the urge to remake the Sport-wagon. A friend in Toronto happened to have a copy of the original English magazine, so I prevailed on him to Xerox a copy for me (thanks, Mike). Then I set about scaling it up.

However, as usual, my grasshopper mind took a left turn. Rather than remaking the full-sized bird, I decided to produce a single-channel version to fly in my local park. This single-channel model is the subject of this article.

Someday, however, I'm sure that I'll remake the original. Does anyone out there have an Elfin 1.8 diesel with the tubular tank in the back? I might need one.

Construction. The model shown in the plans is not just a scaled-down version of the original. I did quite a bit of redesign work and simplification, though I think I preserved the original flavor of its big brother. My prototype was built very leisurely during a rainy week, using one of the 'slow' super glues. It was built primarily for the Ace pulse radio, but there's no reason why a small Cannon two-channel set couldn't have been used (with addition of a small elevator on the back of the stabilizer). However, the following notes are strictly for the single-channel model.

Wing. This is made initially in a single piece, then cut into two halves and re-joined at the correct dihedral angle. Start by pinning down the lower main spar and trailing edge strip onto the plans. Make all the wing ribs in your favorite manner. (I make a hard balsa template, cut them all out quickly, then assemble in a block, sand, and saw out all the spar notches.) Glue all the ribs into place except the center and tip ones, then add the leading edge strip..."

Sportwagon Junior, Model Aviation, August 1983.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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