RC Plans for Antique Model Planes
Antique aircraft make superb candidates for RC model airplane plans
One of the fun aspects of drafting your own RC model airplane plans is the wide variety of subjects you can base your aircraft design on. Aircraft from the dawn of flight to the golden years of aviation in the 1930s to modern jet aircraft can all be candidates for your design. However, RC plans of antique planes can make an ideal start for your modeling and design efforts for a variety of reasons.
Pioneers of flight
The time period from the first manned aircraft flight with the Wright brothers in 1903 to the start of the First World War in 1914 saw a large variety of antique plane designs that provide an excellent basis for RC model airplane plans, such as the Antoinette. These antique aircraft have character and are seldom modeled. In addition, any RC plans for these antique planes will closely mirror the construction techniques used on the full scale counterparts. These early aircraft employed the same building materials we use for our RC models such as wood, fabric covering, wire bracing and spoke wheels. Thus, your RC plan for an antique model plane will replicate its full scale counterpart from the beginning, to include working out various model airplane design problems.
1909 Demoiselle scale RC model aircraft
The 1909 Demoiselle RC model is a great example of an early airplane design. The Demoiselle has generous wing area, an under cambered wing airfoil characteristic of the era, and a unique all-moving tail surface. Sig did a superb job engineering this RC airplane kit. With its fully exposed framework, the model of the Demoiselle naturally captures the structure of the original aircraft.
Curtis pusher float plane
A quick internet search for antique airplanes will quickly provide an overview of the candidate aircraft available for an RC model plan. Very often, your investigation will show a full scale replica at a flight museum that can provide further detail. I usually draw semi-scale plans of these early flying machines, thus a series of photos provides most of the information needed to draw up the plans.
Electric flight advantages
Electric flight provides several advantages over gas engines when modeling an antique plane in RC plans. Many of these early fliers used pusher propellers for flight, and in some cases dual pusher props as with the Wright aircraft. Electric power makes these antique candidate model aircraft plans much easier to execute. With electric motors the challenges of cooling pusher motors and the sometimes difficult mounting options with fragile wood frame construction are much more easily met than with a gas powered engine. Plus, the new breed of micro RC equipment, such as that provided for ParkZone aircraft, makes for small equipment dimensions on any RC plans for antique planes.
Bleriot aircraft are good candidates for RC models
When selecting a candidate antique aircraft for an RC model plane plan, I take a look at a few planning options. First, many of the early aircraft designs had quite short nose moments (the distance from the wing leading edge to the end of the nose). This was due to the light weight of the airframes, combined with the relatively heavy weight of early aircraft motors. If at all possible, try and find an antique plane design that has some amount of nose length, to more easily obtain a correct balance at your RC model’s center of gravity. The early Bleriot aircraft are a good example of a plane with a short nose moment. By the same token, one of my leading factors with choosing the Blackburn for a candidate RC antique plane plan was its generous nose moment.
Voisin aircraft have a lot of character
Early designs and good proportions
Most of the early antique plane designs had ample wing areas to account for the low power of the early airplane motors. This is a positive aspect for drafting an RC plan of these early antique flyers. Be sure that you have enough tail surface area to provide adequate stability and control for your finished RC model plan. Oftentimes these early designs had insufficient tail area. There is usually no harm in adding extra area for an RC model’s tail surfaces, while there are stability penalties if the tail area is too small.
Electric flight makes pusher aircraft practical
Many antique aircraft have exposed wood surfaces for the fuselage framework and landing gear. These wood parts are very easy to replicate with a model’s balsa wood structure. In addition, any RC plan for an antique plane will have numerous bracing wires and outside control lines that can easily be simulated with elastic thread on your final RC model. Again, something easy to do that adds a great deal of unique character towards your RC CAD plane plan.
1912 Blackburn RC airplane in flight
The 1912 Blackburn Type D Monoplane is an excellent example of an antique airplane with ideal characteristics for a RC model. The Blackburn has character, a constant chord wing, a long nose moment with generous tail surface area. Plans for the Blackburn are available here.
In summary, the antique planes from the early days of flight make superb subjects for RC airplane plans. These early pioneers of flight used essentially the same techniques as today’s RC modelers to construct their flying machines, and their designs translate well to slow flying and relaxing plans built RC models for indoor flying. Do take a moment to survey the wide variety of interesting and practical antique RC modeling subjects from the early days of flight for your next set of RC plane plans.