Pegasus Mark 4 (oz9150)

About this Plan

Pegasus Mark 4. Radio control pattern plane.

Quote: "Tired of aircraft that look like glorified baseball bats? The Pegasus combines WWII fighter type looks with conventional and freestyle pattern performance that will challenge your ability. 50in span, four pound weight, for .40 to .60 engines. For the proficient flyer only. Pegasus by Jim Wilmot.

Now that you've had a look at the Pegasus, you are probably saying to yourself that this plane would be a nice sport plane, or something to relax with.

If you actually thought this, you are in for a big surprise. The Pegasus is not a sport plane, but rather a rip-snorter of a hot contest ship, All the controls are very responsive, and an incompetent pilot would smear the plane all over the field in a few seconds. It is not an extremely hard plane to fly, but was so designed to be unstable enough to enter spins without a falter, and to snap roll at a tremendous rate. Also, the roll is extremely fast, so as to retain absolute control at the low speeds encountered upon landing the beast. The Pegasus is also a smaller plane than the usual contest ship, being powered with a .50, with 500 square inches. Of course, as you already know, a good contest plane must be a smooth flyer even to qualify, and l am happy to say that the Pegasus fills the bill perfectly.

The Pegasus will do all the maneuvers, including knife-edge flight, and hands-off tailslides. These, however, are just the ground work for free-style maneuvers, such as Lomcevacs, Victory Rolls, and Victory Rolls with four or five snap-rolls tacked on the end. When you combine these fantastic maneuvers with a semi-scalish plane you have an immediate crowd pleaser, and a truly fun plane to fly.

If you are trying to decipher what 'scale' plane this is modeled after, you just won't find one, because the Pegasus is a conglomeration of most all WWII types, Mustang, Messerschmidt, Macchi, etc.

You will notice that this version is a tail-dragger, and if you can remember that far back to your last tail-dragger, you know that they are hard to steer in the wind. This has not been a serious handicap, because to take off, you have to taxi downwind, stop, and then take off. Now, with a tail dragger, the only problem in taxiing comes when traveling cross-wind, and the takeoff procedure is not performed cross wind, so no problem arises.

Now, for the takeoff. The Pegasus, when given full power, will lift its tail off the ground almost immediately, and after a roll of ten or fifteen feet, is ready to break ground when you apply a slight amount of back pressure. Total takeoff roll: sixteen or eighteen feet! Now that you have broken ground, a very impressive fact hits you, and that is that this beast really tears along. And you better believe it! Since 1 fly at Denver, a mile above sea level, 1 use a Super Tigre .56, which gives about the same power as a .50 at sea level. With my .56 powered Pegasus, I can do Vertical Victory Rolls, composed of four or five rolls, and still have enough momentum left to do three snap rolls at the top. A very impressive way to gain altitude! Flat out, the Pegasus would be a good contender in the open pylon events, if you use a racing type wing.

With this much speed, the Pegasus performs beautifully: huge loops, gigantic top hats, and almost goes out of sight on the tail slides. l would suggest, if you fly at sea level, to start out with a .45 and work up from there. Even at 5,280 feet, a Veco .45 gives out enough power to perform all the maneuvers without much strain.

Now that we're up, you should think about coming down again, and you would expect the plane to land like greased lightning. Not so. When you chop the power, and feed in full up trim, the ship will start to slow down. Now get her lined up with the runway, and about five feet up, start feeding in the elevator until at the point of touch down, you are holding full up-elevator. How can this be done, you ask? The reason is that the Pegasus has a 1/8 in positive incidence, and a semi-symmetrical airfoil. With this airfoil the Pegasus will not stall abruptly even at full low power and full up-elevator. It will, however, start 'bucking' but will not fall off on a wing. The only disadvantage to this foil is that it needs a lot of elevator to do an outside loop, but with the elevators shown on the plans, this is not a problem. Inverted flight is quite easy, and can even be flown at full low throttle..."

Supplementary file notes

Article, thanks to hlsat, JHatton.

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