Who's your favorite?

Sterling half-A R/C Minnie Mambo

I have several favorites, but most favorite which is also @Kim 's favorite is the .049 powered Sterling 36" Minnie Mambo. Unfortunately, Sterling plans do not state who the designer was.

Back in the early 1980's, I powered mine with the then fairly new Cox .049 R/C Bee. It's extended tank, throttle controlled by a KRD sequential quick blip throttle especially linked so to provide proper idle to mid to high throttle with its exhaust throttle muffler (I calculated using trig and geometry that ring pushed fully forward provided the opened little dimple on the back edge of the ring's exhaust for idle, mid range opened slot fully for full throttle, pulled back all the way cracked the slot about 1/4th to 1/3rd for half throttle, drilled a new hole in the throttle servo's control disk since travel was less for the Bee than it would be for a standard R/C carb engine.)

It was fun to see my calcs were spot on, worked flawlessly. The short couple elevator to wing and symmetrical elevator made it capable of doing two loops after a spiral dive and barrel rolls. Could dead stick land it within 15 feet of me. Simplicity of my set up with Ace Pulse Commander & aux. throttle control, rudder with Adams Stomper Actuator, quart of fuel, Cox starter wiring harness and the big 1.5V dry cell starting battery helped to keep my sanity then.

Other favorites

The late Ken Willard, R/C designs: 20" Roaring 20 (downsized Top Dawg for .020 Pee Wee or .010 Tee Dee), 27" Schoolboy, 34" Schoolgirl, 39" Schoolmaster. These were all sheet balsa (1/20th in. thick sheet wing coverings with optional silkspan or lightweight silk covering over ribs), optimized for single channel rudder only control. Built and flew all except for the Schoolgirl biplane.

The late Lee Renaud, R/C designs: 36" Q-Tee, 36" Gere Sport semi scale biplane.

The late Walt Musciano, R/C design: 27" Shoestring Racer (for .020 Pee Wee or .010 TD); C/L, his half A hollow logs, built ups and profiles: (ones I built) - 12" Little Bipe w/.049 Babe Bee, 18" Little Devil w/.049 Babe Bee, 18" built up with plastic turtle deck Grumman F6F Hellcat w/.020 Pee Wee, 18" Sizlin' Liz P-51D Mustang built up & plastic top with Babe Bee, 18" ME-109 Messerschmidt hollow log with Babe Bee, 18" Cessna 180 hollow log & Babe Bee, plus yet built kits.

Hard to pick only one as was mentioned…..Would have to be Ken Willard for me….
Good success with Schoolmaster, Schoolboy, Pageboy, and even the Roto Riser,
A free flight spinning wing thing from his Eight Easy Fliers for 1/2A Engines book

Just glad there were so many talented 1/2 A designers and that we are still able to enjoy their work today!!…

An easy one for me:
Walt Musciano for boats
Kauko Kuosma for planes

Do we have to limit ourselves to 1/2A?

My favorite designer is Nick Ziroli. He has a knack for designing efficient, buildable structures that when finished present a scale appearance and fly extremely well. Runner-ups would be Joe Bridi and Fred Reese.

For CL, George Aldrich, Dave Platt, and Walt M.

Kim wrote:Speaking of Minnies'...I don't know who engineers the Emoticons, but how cool would it be to have the little guy chasing his departing plane while wildly waving his single channel tone/pulse radio in the air????!!!

Figure a few of us Oldies have had a similar experience!!!!

Nice thing about Ace Pulse Proportional was one could turn off battery power to the transmitter, with receiver powered on, Adams actuator would go full rudder one way and spiral the plane in.

Had similar happen to me when I forgot to extend the antenna.

I think I saw a video of your Roaring 20 with Tee Dee .020, András. That was definitely an adrenaline rush.

Duane, I have 2 Nick Ziroli plans from Flying Models magazine, 1966 single channel 40" Waco N tricycle gear cabin, and may be a year later 52" 3 channel Fokker E-III Eindecker, for cross scavenge .35 R/C of the time (more modern .19 to .28 sport Schneurle would do).

Except for life events, always wanted to scratch build those classics.

Kim wrote:Speaking of Minnies'...I don't know who engineers the Emoticons, but how cool would it be to have the little guy chasing his departing plane while wildly waving his single channel tone/pulse radio in the air????!!!

Figure a few of us Oldies have had a similar experience!!!!

We'll have to see, that'd be a good one. It took me long enough to make this one though:

OVERLORD wrote:Walt Musciano for boats

I have always loved reading Musciano's book on model ships. Last September, I bought a used copy through the Biblio.com website.


When I was stlll in school as a child, would often check out his ship book regularly, read it at home. I never built any of his ships, but enjoyed reading all the same. (In high school, I did build the Dumas half-A Little Swamp Buggy powered by a Cox Babe Bee engine and standard airplane propeller on a pylon.) Found his rubber powered submarine fascinating.

Hi All,
-Dave Thornburg (Honker, and nice others)
-Randy Randolph (anything under .25)
- Bill Winter, with his FF scale, with early escapement control.
Your results,
Will vary,
Take care,
Have fun,
Dave

Can't believe no one said Dick Sarpolus. I've built a few of his 1/2A planes.

The Fanboy Mark

Mark, among Dick Sarpolus, I especially liked his C/L designs.

Dave, all those designers you mention are my favorites, too; David Thornburg, Randy Randolph, and Bill Winter.

Bill had some earlier hum dinger cabin single channel aircraft. So did Hal DeBolt, example, his 34" span 1953 Livewire Kitten. His mid 1950's R/C stunter, 56" Equalizer cabin (nowadays 3 channel, then could be 6 channel reed or galloping ghost or escapements) was unique for its symmetrical wing airfoil.

I have an unbuilt Kitten in all its early kit glory, wood and all.

GallopingGhostler wrote:

OVERLORD wrote:Walt Musciano for boats

I have always loved reading Musciano's book on model ships. Last September, I bought a used copy through the Biblio.com website.


When I was stlll in school as a child, would often check out his ship book regularly, read it at home. I never built any of his ships, but enjoyed reading all the same. (In high school, I did build the Dumas half-A Little Swamp Buggy powered by a Cox Babe Bee engine and standard airplane propeller on a pylon.) Found his rubber powered submarine fascinating.

Walt Musciano was a naval engineer and worked at George G. Sharp & Co naval architects in NY. This company designed the Victory ships and also the Savannah, the only nuclear powered merchant vessel. The super structure of the model OO/HO train ship he designed in '59 is very similar to the main castle of the Savannah that was launched in 1962 if I' m not mistaken. He explained in his article that appeared in the Aero Modeler yearbook, the importance and advantages of roro vessels. Very advanced!!

I forgot to mention Ray Malmström. He has very popular designs. His plans were published mostly in Aero Modeller magazine as free plans.

Many great designers have already been mentioned. I remember many Sarpolus designs being featured in Finnish model airplane magazines in the ’80s. The stories and some of the plans were re-written and translated. The photos were original, sometimes along with some additional photos of the Finnish version of the same design.

Looks like Dale Kirn has not been mentioned yet. Not many designs from him were published, but the five I found, are all really interesting to me. Here’s a couple of links:

https://outerzone.co.uk/search/results.asp?keyword=Dale%20Kirn    

https://www.coxengineforum.com/t11035-torquette-1-2a-biplane-by-dale-kirn-september-1966-flying-models