experience with SIG Dewey Bird

thanks George. I guess if nothing else we will find out when we fly it. We are going to make templates of it before building, so hopefully it is a reasonable performer.

I'm sure there is a reason for it, Yabby, but you are right, we know more when we actually fly it. So far, haven't heard any negative reports about SIG's Dewey Bird, so I can't imagine it would be a bad flyer.

I personally never liked the way the control line planes I've seen fly that utilized dihedral .These were all larger models from .35 on up. The reason for it was due to having the majority of the fuselage above the wing root. The one plane that I witnessed and flew, was the Horizon ARF PT-19. There certainly could've been several underlying issues with this plane as it was poorly constructed to begin with. I just wanted to jump on it after flying it. It wasn't so much flying inverted, it was more when you were flying insides to outside. One direction ( insides ) it would charge into the loop and when going outside, the wings would act as a scoop and would really cause issues. You could hear it when you were flying. This caused a lot of turbulence and funny business. Eventually, you would learn how to deal with it because it would take more control one direction vs the other to compensate for it. This isn't a 1/2A though and I can say I never really owned a 1/2A with dihedral.

I never flew a CL with dihedral (except RTF's but with dismal failure ), so, really can't contribute experience. Many of the half-A models with low wings did not use dihedral. This is particularly true with Scientific kits. My 18" F6F Hellcat (a very stand off scale ), 18" Little Devil did not use dihedral. Nor did my 18" Top Flite Japanese Zero. I remember the Cox RTF's had dihedral (including my Piper Cub L-4 Grasshopper), but I thought they did this to mimick the scale dihedral in the real planes.

But then with these, you were lucky to get a wide loop, do mostly wing overs, maybe go inverted, but not much more. They just didn't have the wing area nor the air foil for proper stunting.

Some say that one would be better off learning to fly C/L with a larger, more stable plane. But, as a young man with no experienced C/L flyer to lead the ropes had to learn on my own. So with a non-flying friend to release the plane, these half-A's still made good learners.

Yes, the lap speeds are ridiculously fast (3 seconds a lap or less), a little squirrely in wind. But, the sturdiness of the balsa, ease of starting a Cox Babe Bee, I still learned. Plus, because the planes were so easily and quickly built plus inexpensive made for quick fun on a dime.

my friend can fly, but he is very much a learner, he has crashed some much bigger planes trying to fly inverted so has chosen a simpler to build and much cheaper plane to try flying inverted and easier to fix when it gets crashed. The Autumn here is very wet and windy this year and it may be some time before he flies it and we find out. I think as Ken @Ken Cook described it will take more control feed one way than the other. It may be fine for wingovers and loops. myself I would have gone with one of the many other Kits that dont use dihedral.

Yabby, nothing wrong with your friend being a learner, we all need to start somewhere. Crashing is part of the learning experience and even with the experienced in their experiences.

In a way it is sort of like with motorcycles (as long as you don't lose it, don't injure yourself in trying!). The worst flight is better than the best day of work.

Its not just my friend that is a learner! Ive still well and truly got learners plates on. the hard part for him has been big planes seem to crash very badly into many hard to fix pieces. He probably doesnt crash as often as I crash. We are both trying to learn to fly laps inverted and crashing a bit thats for sure.

My friend is 4 times australian Bathurst roadrace sidecar champion . He campainged a Yamaha TZ 750 GP sidecar. Bathurst is a closed public road circuit in Australia that goes up, across and down a mountain range. It has been banned now for motorcycles and they no longer race there. It was averaging 3 deaths a year from one race meeting a year that went over four days of practice and racing. He has talent and skill to burn! He will get there. Once he starts doing regular wingovers and loops on the Dueybird he will have more confidence. He is going to build some other Half A Kit planes as well. thats the good thing with slab profile Half A planes. they are quick, cheap and easy to build, and Outerzone has heaps of plans for them.

I would suggest the Stunt Man 23 it is a good trainer IMO but i would put some reinforcement on the fuse especially behind the trailing edge of the wing where they have a bad habit of breaking !

Thanks Eric @getback I will have a look at it and see how we go as we are entering the build season over here now. Lol. It has plans on Outerzone. Hmmm winng looks tricky, will make wing from one piece of balsa. much simpler. will reinforce fuse where they break, as do many slab/profile models.

Yabby wrote:Its not just my friend that is a learner! Ive still well and truly got learners plates on.  the hard part for him has been big planes seem to crash very badly into many hard to fix pieces. He probably doesnt crash as often as I crash. We are both trying to learn to fly laps inverted and crashing a bit thats for sure.

I certainly am no expert. At work, we used to call an Ex-spurt a former drip under pressure.

Yabby wrote:My friend is 4 times australian Bathurst roadrace sidecar champion . He campainged a Yamaha TZ 750 GP sidecar. Bathurst is a closed public road circuit in Australia that goes up, across and down a mountain range. It has been banned now for motorcycles and they no longer race there. It was averaging 3 deaths a year from one race meeting a year that went over four days of practice and racing. He has talent and skill to burn! He will get there. Once he starts doing regular wingovers and loops on the Dueybird he will have more confidence. He is going to build some other Half A Kit planes as well. thats the good thing with slab profile Half A planes. they are quick, cheap and easy to build, and Outerzone has heaps of plans for them.

My congrats to your friend for his impressive wins. He has the right approach, Yabby, and being in a very competitive and dangerous sport where one is constantly weighing risks whilst attempting a win, he is well aware of the costs and playing his cards correctly.

Yeppers, 3 deaths a year on such an event is definitely a warning risk. Equally too, I find it heart breaking on Mount Everest to hear of someone who ran out of oxygen the last mile just to "make it", when they should have turned back to try another day, or live with a lesser triumph on a lower peak.

Crashing half-A's are a lot more affordable, plus, often when flying over grass, they are much more survivable. And, there are no "green fees" involved.


And speaking of motorcycles, there are enough photos and videos of someone buying a big touring bike over 1000 cc's, pays the down to the dealer, then crashes it only a block away. Would have been better off starting with something a bit smaller and easier to manage.

I had a daily rider, a 1987 Suzuki LS650 Savage. Bought it in 2002 with only 6,000 miles on it. Rode it regularly until 2014, all over New Mexico, into Arizona, parts of Texas, Colorado. Showed up at a motorcycle rally an 8 hour ride from here. First thing I was asked was how I got there on such a tiny bike. Then I told them that back in the 1960's, 1970's, a 650 was a big bike. Weird to be called "a real motorcyclist", wore out a couple sets of tires. Replacement bike was a 2001 Kawasaki ZG1200 Voyager XII full tourer. Some thought it was a big jump, but all those years (from 1979 to 1997, rode my little 1971 Honda CB100), riding smaller bikes prepared me for a bigger jump.

Love the acceleration on the ZG1200 (Road and Track clocked it at 12.6 seconds on the 0.25 mile off the showroom floor), I roll the throttle and watch the cars behind me disappear.

I really stand disqualified, because there are those like you, Yabby, that were actually involved in racing. (Only race I have been in is the slow run in motorcycle rallies, slowest to go 15 meters without a foot on the ground. )

There are certainly much faster bikes, but as the old saying goes, there are old riders and there are bold riders, but there are no old bold riders.


Flying less expensive half-A's can be a total blast!

Hi George,

Yes, sometimes learning on smaller bikes can be much better and when they get out of shape they are sometimes easier to recover. you can learn the skills that way and have them if you need to apply them to a larger bike should it get out of shape on you. but like the planes the little bikes tend to be a bit twitchier than the big bikes, but a LOT of fun can be had on a simple small bike just like flying a Half A.

In all of the cases its a balancing act, risk management. Some fly big planes but are too fearful to learn manauveres due to the risk of crashing a very expensive plane. I think a good Half a trainer will suit my friend well as he has become hesitant based on the cost and effort of repairing large expensive planes. with the Half A planes he can go out and have a cheap blast and some real good fun on some well flying anmd stable Half A trainers and then fly the bigger more expensive planes confident he has more of the basic skills and muscle memory built up to act correctly without thinking.

I hear you, Gary, and regarding out of shape, Covid put a big dent on things here, and gained some in girth as well. I'm ready to go back to mid-size riding, something easier to tool around in.

Mid size bikes are nice for just tooling around on and hairing through winding and twisting hills roads. They have all the power you need but are of a size that when they get out of shape on you, although you shouldnt, you can brute force them around a bit. I used to ride a Suzuki GSX 750 as one of my street bikes. Perfect for the average person to ride through the hills on a sunday looking for a dice. The GSX 750 when you really got it going through a series of corners tended to wallow the backend and shake the frontend but you had to be going really hard to cause it to happen and you could ride out of it. After riding my GSX 750, getting on my Yamaha TZ GP bike out at the track made my TZ feel like the best handling bike ever produced. But that illusion was quickly dispensed once I got down into serious race times and you start feeling the frame twist as you get on the gas out of a corner whilst the front end is lifting and crossing up, or you feel the front forks twisting under heavy brakes and the back wheel lifting into the air.

Limits and purpose. they all have them. Planes, bikes,cars,...... Its knowing and understanding the purpose of a jigger and its limits and then knowing your own limits within the jiggers limits. And also what it is you want out of the sport.

The great thing with aero modelling is you can pass the limits and you dont get hurt. You just have to fix the model. I like Half A for learning as it is cheap, and easy to build and fix. there are good stable trainers around and you can progress to far more capable Half A planes as you get flying time up and learn to fly and build up muscle memory. I know a lot of people say bigger planes are easier to learn to fly, but Im not convinced of it. Ive seen people learn on bigger more expensive planes and they seem to get stuck going round and round the circle. the fear of crashing such a big and usually expensive and difficult to fix model tends to hold them back from trying loops and wingovers. I think with a cheap Half A plane, including the Ambush, stuntmaster 23, baby ringmaster, scorpion,........... there are heaps of good stable half A profile/slab trainers that loops and wingovers can be learnt on.

I do suspect (as advised by many) that planes with a built up wing are probably a better choice for learning to fly inverted laps and I have read many people say that bigger planes are easier to fly inverted than half A planes. That may well be the case. One advantage with bigger planes is they are often far more aerodynaically correct and the longer lines provide a lot more air space to fly in, and the more powerful engines provide good solid line tension. I think the good solid line tension of the bigger planes is a definite plus for learning manauveres beyond loops and wingovers. all that said I am still going to try and learn to do inverted laps using a Half A plane. I think I will build the Stuntman 23 Eric @getback sugested (once Ive wrecked my current fleet of Half A Planes) . It looks like a capable plane and relatively simple and cheap build. Plus I have my baby ringmaster I can try on. Havent decided yet if I will try the holding the handle sideways when flying inverted or not. I have so far just held the handle the same way and tried to adjust for inverted mentally. Either way, it still needs concentration and I think a LOT of flying to build the required muscle memort for it to become natural. i can do lazy horizontal eights on several of my jiggers and I am trying to extend the inverted period from there.

I am a through and through Half A lover, so I will learn ( or not ) on a Half a model. the good thing is having joined a club I can get some advice and views on technique that I previously couldnt get, and it is very valuable information. Especially when you can discuss it at the field and then go fly and try it out.

Back to the Dueybird, I suspect it might turn out to be difficult to fly inverted but great for wingovers and loops which my friend really needs to master so he can do them from all parts of the circle on calm and windy days and feel confident of controlling the plane with little line tension at times. That and lazy eights are where I have become stuck. I am thinking of trying some short inverted flying via reverse wingovers.

As far as the SIG Dueybird kit goes, the balsa used to produce the kit is good hard balsa, but the stamping is a little light on and dissapointing in some parts requiring more hobby knife work to get parts out than I would like from a kit. When it eventually one day gets flown I will report how it went. there is just something that bothers me about that dihedral and wing at the base of the fuse.

The most important part of control line flying is inversion. If one can fly inverted, he/she can fly the entire pattern. That's all there is to it.

944_Jim wrote:Reflecting on Gary's memories...1982 Honda CB900F bought as new/left-over stock in 1985. Totalled in a tank slapper at 135 MPH downhill about 57 weeks later. Ouch! I seem to like them heavy. Next bike was/is my CB1100F. All the woes of the CB900F, with anti-dive front end and another 25 horsepower. Oh, and pick which side to fall to at stops. Remember, work the crown!

The last few weeks I've been tooling around on my kid's Ninja 650. Fun, light twin...and I can flat-foot both feet at a stop. Dropping ccs may be worth the drop in weight.

yes, there is nothing like a tank slapper at top speed when you dont have any power left to straighten it out again. usual method is apply heaps of throttle whilst applying very light bake break. makes the frame squat and pull long and straightens slappers out. downhill is worse as its pushing the rear wheel at the front end and tring to shorten the wheelbase. Big heavy bikes when they get out of shape are a nasty thing to try and control. Although I must say I did like the original 900 honda boldor. seemed in general to handle well and had nice power to weight. Although yours obviously had a momentary lapse from handling well.

the modern midrange bikes are beutifully made with excellent power to weight and awesome frames for a standard bike and I also like that you can touch the ground with both feet flat footed. the ninja 650 would probably get around a race track faster than the CB900F. They are a completely fifferent proposition nowadays with electronic wheelspin control, huge and light box section alloy frames, massive swingarms,..... compared to the old jiggers they are luxury if you want to go fast or just cruise for that matter. Mind you, if you are into touring the CCs seem to be worthwhile with the bigger sized bike for paniers, big fairings where you dont get wet etc... Horses for courses. They will all bite you at some time if you are not careful.