Interesting Fuselage Design

I bought a model airplane kit on ebay. Most profile kits have hard wood engine mounts that are 6" long. This kit has hard wood engine mounts that are 26" long that run the full length of the fuselage. The 1/8" plywood doublers glue directly to the hard wood. The fuselage is 1/8" balsa glued to both sides of the hard wood. The 1/8" plywood doubler and the 1/8" balsa are flush creating a smooth side on the fuselage. After both sheets of 1/8" balsa have been glued to the hard wood the fuselage is hollow. 1/4" x 1/2" balsa is glued into the edge of the fuselage. The fuselage turns out looking like a profile the only difference is the fuselage is 3/4" thick instead of the normal 1/2" thick. Seems like a really neat idea I wonder how it actually compaires to a solid balsa fuselage.

It'll be interesting to hear what this weighs, and how it flies. I'm taking a W.A.G. that it would be way heavier due to all that hardwood...

Tim

And the name of this kit is???

This one [photo not recovered: corsair.jpg]

Well, it's a Navy Carrier design, after all. They take a beating, and a stiff fuselage will make it go faster. By the way, Roberts kits are fairly rare, and if the plans are full size, you should preserve them by copying them and sending the original to the Plans Service of your choice, maybe a copy to the Navy Carrier Society also. If the plans are not full size, some good ones should be made, with parts template sheet. All the original Roberts plans were burned in a shop fire quite a few years back. I'd love to see the J.Roberts "Sabre", "Swift" and "Cobra" plans made available, in case anybody has those. I saw a Cobra fly when I was a teen...it flew quite well. Steve

>Well, it's a Navy Carrier design, after all. They take a
>beating, and a stiff fuselage will make it go faster. By the
>way, Roberts kits are fairly rare, and if the plans are full
>size, you should preserve them by copying them and sending
>the original to the Plans Service of your choice, maybe a
>copy to the Navy Carrier Society also. If the plans are not
>full size, some good ones should be made, with parts
>template sheet. All the original Roberts plans were burned
>in a shop fire quite a few years back. I'd love to see the
>J.Roberts "Sabre", "Swift" and "Cobra" plans made
>available, in case anybody has those. I saw a Cobra fly when
>I was a teen...it flew quite well. Steve
>
>http://www.nwskyraiders.com/index.html

Steve, Brodak made that kit for awhile till they ran out of some of the special pieces for it. They still make the Bearcat and skyraider also J Roberts kits.
I have the same kit that Gary Weaver has. These were actually quite innovative for the time period that they came out in. Later Bob Smirthwaite made some really great looking scale R/C kits a Stitson and a Douglas DGA truly beautiful kits.
Yes I had a Swift and loved it. Didn't realize that the plans were no more. really a pity.
Dennis

I have probably the very last Corsair kit Bob Smurthwaite himself ever made up. I got it from him a few months after he ran off the last batch of them and before he sold all his remaining materials out to Brodak. He was kind enough to go and pull all that was needed out of his stock and put the kit together for me. He was a true gentleman.

J

Steve, I have an original COBRA(ROBERTS)and the plans are fine. After I get up to the new house next month I could pull them and get copies if you need them. Just need to find a copy place around town somewhere.

I made a copy of the original Roberts plans. 2 people have contacted me wanting plans. One guy wanted the plans enlarged to 60" wing span. The enlarged plans turned out good. The place where I get copies has been having trouble with their equipment and I have not been able to get copies for 3 weeks. The copies that I received last week were worthless lots of black streaks on the copies. They are not dependable, they tell me they will deliver my plans to my house and show up a week or so late. I send them 10 plans and order 5 copies of each then when the copies are delivered to me I discover I have only 5 copies of 1 plan no copies of the other 9 plans. These people can't seem to read and understand simple instructions. I just discovered that Staples does copies too so I will start doing business with them. Staples sends the plans to Knoxville 150 miles from here to be copied it will take me a week to get the copies back.

Gary: Swiss cheese the 26" hard wood mounts, where they are covered up.

Make sure that there is at least a hole diameter distance, edge to edge, between each hole.

Thus, you will eliminate some weight, while retaining the stiffness and other positive attributes of these extremely long mounts.

I do this even when extending mounts to the wing, like on a Ringmaster (the kit ones don't go much past the motor!). The extended ones hit the wings right around the max thickness of the airfoil, at an extreme angle, of course.

Gary if you want plans copied CRISP AND NEAT....send em to me..I will do them for the cost of postage only....here's the catch...I live in New Zealand.......turn around will be 2 weeks ( 7 days here, 7 days back ) but I GARUANTEE they will be clean and crisp copies.....even if the originals are not.......

Wynn

I am flying one of those kits. I don't recall the 26" motormounts, but I acquired it in a partially built state. I fly it in profile scale but not in carrier. I'm afraid of the wing and landing gear breaking on carrier landings.
I use a K&B 40R/C/ Tornado 3 Blade 10-6. I haven't tried to stunt it, and probably won't. But it's real cute. Right now its navy blue on top and light gray underneath. Checkedboard squadron. But I'm looking for a way to add more color to it. Anybody have any ideas?
Happy Landings

How does the Corsair fly compaired to other airplanes?

I've often wondered about the wing design of the Corsair, the Stuka and others with similar dihedral. Will that wing design be good for stunt? I noticed that "Mr. Stuka" uses a flat wing.

Someone in our club,bought one of these kits and built it for profile carrier. He later found out it does not qualifly because the fuselage was too thick to be in the Profile category. Better check your local carrier rules before deciding on this kit.