Wireless Countess

[TheLurker]

This is a reconstruction of the build thread that first appeared at HPA last year so it's more a retrospective than a proper build.
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Time for another Lurker Industries Aviation Co. Ltd. knock-off ahem homage.

For reasons going back into deep, deep prehistory, that is my childhood and early adolesence, I have always wanted a Radio Queen of my very own.  There are, now, only two problems with this desire, I was then and am now a public liability with RC and who among us can build a 7' span model on the dining room table *and* maintain a semblance of domestic harmony?  The other obstacles, "back  inna dawn o' time", were the cost of radio gear and motors; such things were not to be dreamt of on paper round money, Horatio.

What to do? What to do, eh?  Well some bright spark, Dave McDowell, did a 56" span version which he called "Radio Princess" in the 1980s so I thought, "Let's follow his example!" and Lo!  A plan for a rubber powered FF one sixth sized Radio Queen, the Wireless Countess, was brought forth.  However, there was a fly in the ointment, the undercarriage.  The smallest reasonable sized prop for rubber, say about 4", would require an aesthetically unpleasing stalky, even "storky" undercarriage if ROG and reasonably tidy landings were to be possible, but after a digression investigating a supercap powered version I decided to live with it.  At some point I'll go back to the supercap version because the Radio Queen holds a significant place in electric powered model flight, see the note below.

I don't think this build will be especially exciting, it is after all only a sport cabin model, nor will it be especially quick, but a thread will keep me focused and may provide an amusing (for you) record of my blunders.

"Wireless Countess"?  I'll let you work that one out.  If I tell you I've drawn a companion plan for a 1/4 sized Queen called the Wireless Marchioness you might be able to fathom the twisted logic behind the naming.

First tasks will be to sort through my existing 1/20" strip and then see about cutting the remaining parts. So see yoθ back here in a few days...


A bit of history for you.

Col. Taplin's Example.
The first officially recorded electric powered radio controlled model flight was made by Col. Taplin on the 30th June 1957 at Chalgrove airfield in Oxfordshire using, yes, that's right, a Radio Queen; in fact it was the Radio Queen prototype airframe. The Col.'s model weighed about 8lb (3.6Kg) and the motor alone weighed a fraction under 2lb.  I'm hoping that the built weight of the Wireless Countess will be 15g or less.

There's newsreel, yes genuine newsreel, footage of a, very dodgy looking, launch which looks like it probably ended badly here, https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/36087/ which, if nothing else gives a good colour reference.

[TheLurker]

The original drawing needed revision. There was no way that the highlighted area could be built and drawn together without breaking so this was replaced by a simple box into which the nose block could be inserted.  This also made for a more robust fixing for the supercap variant.

[TheLurker]

I tried a slightly different approach to the rudder & fin assembly; fitting the outer frame after the ribs &tc were in place.  It worked quite well, but I don't think there's a significant advantage to doing it this way.

[TheLurker]

Fuselage, undercarriage & noseblock construction were much as expected.

[TheLurker]

Covering and final assembly of the rubber powered version also proceeded as you would expect.

[Squirrelnet]

Great to relive the build on this one Lurk . It's such a lovely little model

[TheLurker]

This is where it starts to get a bit more interesting.  I hope. The supercap conversion. 

Because I am lazy and didn't want to make a new fuselage I needed a "power egg" solution for the capacitor & motor mounting.  The pictures show the original power components which were robbed from a BMFA Rookie.

[TheLurker]

The next problem was to allow for easy, but controlled starting. Without building a new fuselage there was nowhere to put the usual toggle switch so a spring switch was fashioned from fine, bent piano wire.  I was expecting this to only allow easy hand launching, but it turns out that - power permitting - the pull tag will allow ROG.

[TheLurker]

Current state of play.

Rubber Powered Config.
The model flies an anti-clockwise circuit, uses a small amount of tip weight on the port wing and a barely perceptible smidgen of left rudder deflection.

A motor and propeller combination of 1/16" loop & 4" Peck (VMC) pattern, which is an easily obtainable over the counter combination, will give a 30s flight from ROG on 1,400 turns of a 13" loop.  This is satisfactory, but at 8g untrimmed built weight it should be possible to improve on this significantly if you have access to a rubber stripper and are happy to tinker with the airscrew diameter & pitch.

There snaps below were taken by Andy Blackburn in June and show the model flying in its rubber powered config.


Supercap Config.
This was put to one side in the summer when initial tests using the 615 motor and 45mm prop from the BMFA Rookie with both a 5F & 10F capacitor were unsatisfactory.  The model flew, but would not climb and the flight duration was poor even with the 10F "fuel tank".  The consensus was that a larger motor and airscrew would be worth trying to get a decent climb to height with consequent extended glide phase.

Work will resume on the supercap version when the active project is completed as I received a 720 motor & 60mm prop from Jon Whitmore (Yak52) a few days before Xmas.

[TheLurker]

An article & the plan for the Countess as it stands (rubber power proved, capacitor power "sort of" proved) have been sent to Colin in response to a request he sent to a number of previous contributors for material for AeroModeller. 


When, if, it will appear I have no idea.