PAA Able (oz9641)

About this Plan

PAA Able. Free flight competition model, for Cox Tee Dee .020 power.

Quote: "Designed specifically for use with Cox's Tee Dee .020, our loader is an excellent combination of good design and power. Simple and practically foolproof it is a sure contest performer and an excellent fun ship for Sunday man. 10

The PAA-load event is one of the definite fun events of modeling. This is due in large part to the intention of Pan American to maintain an event which duplicates, on a smaller scale, commercial or airline type flight. This calls for a model with a pilot's compartment and one which makes an ROG (rise off ground) flight. This gives us something like what models used to be way back when the ROG was standard practice. And if there's anything closer to the old-timer's heart - in this age of the VTO and javelin launch - it's that realistic roll along the ground, the wheels just lifting off, the swoop into the air.

This is just what the Pan American event calls for - a model with a maximum dimension not to exceed 36" - small, easily built and powered with the second most charming engine in the world, the Cox Tee Dee .020. It is my feeling that a model of this sort should be kept as simple and as foolproof as possible. A model that can be built in a week or so, yet one solid enough to stand up under fairly constant use. Consequently I chose a sheet-sided box fuselage, one just large enough for the 'little man from Pan Am' to fit in. I put the rudder on the fuselage where it will stay put, not on the shifty stabilizer.

The size of the model, when it is built to proper weight, gives it a wing loading of just over 3oz/100 sq. in. Coupled with rather thin airfoils, this gives the model a snappy climb and surprisingly flat glide. But the outstanding feature of the model is its landing gear, a super-duper, shock-absorbing carriage for silky smooth take-offs - and one you could land wren's eggs on corrugated iron with, if you had any wren's eggs..."

PAA Able, MAN, September 1961.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

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