Chip Smith's new Ghost Ryder

Chip's a guy who won't toot his own horn, so I'm tooting it for him. Take a look at this beautiful little ship he is finishing up!

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I'm paraphrasing his email to me describing the details here: The wing is an old Midwest Mustang wing at 48". Some of the numbers were changed when he built it. Shortened the nose from 7-3/4 to 7-1/2, and lengthened the tail moment from 12-1/2 to 13. The area of the flaps was increased, making them 1/2" wider all the way out. The Stab/Elevator and Wing/Flaps are moved closer to the thrust line. Tip weight box added, adjustable leadout guide added and empty 3/16 alluminum tubes installed in the underside fillets of the stab for tail weight if necessary. The wheel spatz snap on and off for grass flying. The profile view/design is just something he worked on for a while.

The nose is completely cowled and built Rabe style as in the Mustunt 1. Power is a Fox 35. Removable tank.

All Brodak finishing materials.

Color is a hand mixed lavender, trim is Lemon Yellow and the lettering is Piper Cream. Oh yeah, and that's a 40 year old Top Flite prop

L.

Since no one has chosen to comment I'll jump in. What a sweet looking ship this is. Love the simple but striking trim scheme and the fact that Chip has gotten such a harmonious look out of his mix and match building approach.---Mark

OOOOhhh, jealousy is such a terrible emotion! Beautiful work! Maybe someday..... Carl

Oh yeah, sorry, cool lookin ship. Little Casper ride along eh?

Nice looking ship! Let us know how she flys!

Very cute little airplane, it looks "right". The transition from inverted, fully cowled Fox to profile fuse is very nicely done.
One question: is it the angle of the picture or are both the flaps & elevators hanging down? Pushrod not hooked up yet at the time the picture was taken maybe?

Nils,

Chip didn't have the controls hooked up yet in these photos..
Same with hinges being glued in.

L.

Very nice model Chip!
Hope to hear about how it flies.

Thanks Larry, that explains it Nifty airplane, let us know how it flys.

Thanks everyone for the extremely kind comments on the "Ghost Ryder".

Being out of circulation for 25+ years, I had tons of help on this project from the following group of flyers:

Gary Lutz, Larry Cunningham, Barry Mayes, Chuck Holtzapple, Windy Urtnowski, Al Rabe, Doug Moon, Bob Gieseke, Steve Buso, John Brodak, Price "Bub" Reese, Joe Adamusko, "Big Art" Adamisin and of course, Casper. All of these folks contributed in some way or another, either directly or otherwise, many don't realize how influential they were and still are. Please forgive me if I've left anyone out.

Also thanks to the folks at Stuka Stunt for providing a great site for control liners and especially for the use of the Forums.

And finally, thanks to all the friendly open minded participants in this Forum and this great hobby/sport for sharing their knowledge and wisdom with myself and others, some of which they may never even meet. It's nice to know this rather small, unique and relatively unknown group of folks scattered across the world give a true meaning to the word "mankind".

Enthusiastically,

Chip: "hey, mom, Larry put me on the internet!"

PS - I'll let you all know how she flies as soon as I get the Ghost Ryder in the Sky.