John Cooper's Rubber Powered Freeflight Page 1

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Fairchild 24

This plane approaches the size limit for indoors, but is a great indoor subject none the less. About 400 turns is the max or the plane will bounce repeatedly off of the ceiling. The "24" is also a great tow plane for the Sorta-Schweizer (see below). The plane is from a Herr kit (an excellent laser cut model) with much of the balsa replaced with thinner and lighter wood. The beautiful laser cut parts made excellent patterns for duplicating the replaced pieces. Video

  • wingspan: 76 cm
  • weight: ~38g without rubber
  • power: 2 strands of 3/8 inch
  • design: modified Herr kit.
  • built: 2002
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Fokker DVII

A plane that I haven't flown enough to get trimmed properly. This wings are covered with Japanese tissue which has a lozenge pattern printed on it from a colour inkjet printer. Printing with a colour printer is quite simple: attach the tissue to a sheet of paper at the top with a bit of glue slick and print on the lightest possible setting. At coat of matt krylon keeps the colours from running. Video

  • wingspan: 51 cm
  • weight: ~37g without rubber
  • power: 2 strands of 1/8 inch
  • design: John Cooper
  • built: 2002
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Hawker Hurricane

The plane flies nicely around the gym in a large stable circle. It is covered with Japanese tissue on the top surfaces and silver domestic tissue, reversed on the bottom. The back side of the silver tissue gives a pretty good shade of light gray that is quite opaque.

  • wingspan: 48 cm
  • weight: ~18g without rubber
  • power: 2 strands of 1/8 inch
  • design: ?
  • built: 2001
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Auster MkIV

A nice little flyer, capable of greater than a minute flights from an ROG. The plane is not really to scale and I deviated from the plans by making the wing chord about 20% bigger than the real machine. The plane is covered in green Japaneses tissue with a several very light coats of brown acrylic for the camoflage. Video

  • wingspan: 40 cm
  • weight: 5.5 g without rubber
  • power:
  • design: ?
  • built: 2001
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Fairey Barracuda

After more than 10 years, the Barracuda has finally been trimmed and can climb and glide in a tight turnVideo

  • wingspan: 51 cm
  • weight: 18.4 without rubber
  • power: 2 strands of 1/8 inch
  • design: Earl Stahl plans
  • built: 2001
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Royal Aircraft Factory BE2c

A fairly scale looking model, it has a realistic flight pattern but doesn't get very high. This is probably because of my less than efficient 4 blade prop. Wing covering is on one side of the wings only, but this is not obvious. Rigging on wings was done with a needle and thread, with the model assembled, but before the top wing was covered. Video

  • wingspan: 51 cm
  • weight: 17.5 without rubber
  • power:
  • design: unknown
  • built: 2001
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Petit Saint

Nice light indoor-only models easily capable of flights of several minutes. The clear one is Covered in Ultrafilm and the silver one is covered in mylar. The silver saint, without landing gear, makes an excellent living room model. It can make several circles of the room until it inevitably hits the ceiling and goes off course.

  • wingspan: 20 cm
  • weight: 2.5 / 3.6 g, without rubber
  • power:
  • design: From Saint Competion plans
  • built: 2001
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Morane Saulnier L Parasol

A pretty good indoor flyer, although not a very scale looking plane. Covered in domestic tissue; White Light Japanese tissued, dyed in tea, would have been a better choice.

  • wingspan: 51 cm
  • weight: 33 g
  • power: 2 strands of 1/8 inch
  • design: John Cooper
  • built: 2001
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Nieuport 17

The Nieuport 17 is now looking a little battered after some outdoor flying. This is a nice stable plane which can do flights up to 40 sec. It is covered (poorly) with silver domestic tissue. Note that silver tissue is fairly strong and has a realistic appearance of silver doped fabric. It is however very difficult to apply. It doesn't shrink well and doesn't get a good grip on the framework.

  • wingspan: 51 cm
  • weight: 35 g, without rubber
  • power: 2 strands of 1/8 inch
  • design: John Cooper
  • built: 2001
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Fokker DVIII

My first indoor flyer, it was much too heavy. I put too much weight into the fuselage; a good part of it the paint for the lozenge pattern. It has, however, flown from one side of the gym to the other and crashed into the wall. Fortunately the wings are held on by rubber bands.

  • wingspan: 61 cm
  • weight: 58 g without rubber
  • power:
  • design: Earl Stahl plan
  • built: 2000
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