Tadpole (oz9359)

About this Plan

Tadpole. Radio control glider model. Wingspan 54-1/2 in.

Free Plan #9030 (Full size plan in magazine).

Quote: "On a recent visit to Sepulveda Basin I watched with a great deal of awe while the 1973 Championship Pylon Races were being run off. How anyone could coolly control one of these racers, flying at speeds that appeared in the region of Mach One and, in addition, avoid the other three or four planes in the circuit was beyond me. I just don't have that many thumbs! Exciting as this form of R/C flying is, it's somehow not for me. A typical pylon race could be started and finished before I've managed to get the transmitter the right way up.

My own preference, as you may have gathered, is for something a little slower, which is a roundabout way of bringing us to the Tadpole. Slower you can hardly get, in fact in a good breeze it even flies backwards, but it's perfect for a casual afternoon's flying.

The model is designed around the Ace Baby Twin Radio and, in fact, Tadpole I had a fuselage just big enough to wrap around the radio. This proved to be just too small in practice, so a new fuselage was designed and this version Tadpole II is the model we present here.

My own favorite system for building simple models such as the Tadpole is to first cut out all the sheet items, then assemble them with suitable pieces of strip wood, in just the same way you would build a kit. If you decide to do the same then you'll find most of the sheet items on the 'bits and pieces' page. The remaining items namely the fin, rudder and tailplane are shown on the other sheets.

We haven't written too much about the detailed construction, mainly because there isn't much to write about on such a simple model. The following brief notes, however, do describe the order in which the pieces are cemented together..."

Update 7/7/2024: Replaced this plan with a cleaner version, have removed the paper crease marks, fixed some minor alignment issues. This is easier to read now.

Supplementary file notes

Article.
Previous scan version.

Corrections?

Did we get something wrong with these details about this plan (especially the datafile)? That happens sometimes. You can help us fix it.
Add a correction