Fairey Long Range Monoplane for indoor flying.

[Colin Leighfield]

Building has been disrupted again because of being away home for about seven weeks in total over the summer and many things going on, so I will be using the winter at home to complete projects. In the meantime I’ve become very interested in indoor flying and have been to Shawbury three times this year, looking forward to being there again on Sunday.

I thought the Fairey Long Range Monoplane was an ideal candidate for indoor, so decided to draw one up as a very light Depron build, as large as I could make it to fly on a Parkzone geared Sukhoi motor with a 1S 150/160 mah battery. I drew it up at 35” span, about 1/28 scale.

Two were built:- J9479, about 80’ wing span with a 570hp Napier Lion. After a non-stop flight to India which was 4,130 miles but did not break any records, it was lost in December 1929 on an attempt to break the long distance record by flying non-stop from Cranwell to South Africa, when it crashed into mountains in Tunisia. The pilot and navigator, Squadron Leader Leader Jones-Williams and Flight Lieutenant Jenkins were killed. A second was built, K1991. It differed from J9479 by having a larger din and rudder, wheel spats and an auto-pilot. In February 1932 , piloted by Squadron Leader Gayford with Flight Lieutenant Nicholetts as navigator, it set a world distance record of 5,410 miles by flying from Cranwell to Jervis Bay, South Africa.

Dave Chinery built a beautiful 123” span model of this for electric power a couple of years ago.

[Colin Leighfield]

Because of other things to do, this had to be a quick build. Originally I decided to do the wing as single surface from 3mm aero quality Depron. I positioned the small number of ribs for ailerons, although later I decided to go for just rudder with elevator and throttle.

After I had made the wing as intended and having had a conversation with Danny, I decided to put a bottom skin on the wing using just 0.5mm Depron. The fuselage was built simply using 3mm Depron for sides and formers, with 2mm for the top nose sheeting and 0.5mm for the turtle deck and curved fuselage under-side. I used a Spektrum AR6410 rx with built in servos, connected to 24swg wire push rods to rudder and elevator.

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 17/11/2017 20:16:56

[Colin Leighfield]

I made the fin, rudder, tailplane and elevators from 2mm Depron. Originally I had drawn the second plane with larger fin and rudder, but after Andy saw the drawing and said how big it looked, I re-drew it as the first plane with smaller fin and rudder. Bearing in mind the problems in avoiding a reawards c of g it was the right thing to do.

I made the wheels using 1/64” ply discs as the core and 2mm Depron discs laminated on, gluing in 0.8 mm dia brass tubes as bearings. Because of the lack of springing, I simulated the full size plane’s prominent vertical sprung legs by using 0.8 mm wire with coil compression springs inside brass tube, they work well.

[Colin Leighfield]

Weight is absolutely paramount with these things, but it seemed as if I needed to get it around 80/90 gms all in, with a wing area of about 170 sq. ins. it should work. As it got close to completion it was 76 gms with 10 gms nose ballast, but no paint. Very careful checking on c of g based on 20% mean chord showed it needed another 10,taking it to 86. Despair! However at that stage I took it into the cul de sac, started it up and watched it shoot away, take off in 10 ft. and climb away dead straight. I closed the throttle and it glided down perfectly with no control input. I was too surprised to do anything! It will almost certainly accept some extra weight from paint, but I will test it at Shawbury first. Wish me luck.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Never heard of it, looks very good though. Good Luck.

[Dave Bran]

Well, your flight test obviously proves me downright wrong, but I'd have sworn that 35" span of anything would out power the Parkzone set on 1S!!

Watching with interest!

[Colin Leighfield]

John, it was the Space Shuttle of it’s day! It’s mantle in the Long Range Development Unit was taken over by the Wellesley.

Dave I got the clue from Danny’s 30” Cub weighing 82 gms. That goes off like a scalded cat!

[Colin Leighfield]

I’ve tidied it up a bit, ready for Shawbury later today. If it survives, I will put in a bit more scale detail.

[McG 6969]

Wishing you and your unusual 'bird' all the best for today, Colin.

Cheers

Chris

[McG 6969]

... oops... double post, sorry... 

Chris

Edited By McG 6969 on 19/11/2017 07:39:18

[Colin Leighfield]

Thanks Chris, fingers crossed!

[Timo Starkloff]

Good luck, Colin. Nice model you have chosen.! There were some very interesting long range planes in the 1930s from Britain, Russia and Japan with amazing flying distances.

Timo

Edited By Timo Starkloff on 19/11/2017 21:48:13

[Colin Leighfield]

Thanks Timo. There certainly were.

Mixed results today. Even on the very limited power it takes off at half throttle and climbs away strongly. The problem is half-expected, with the lack of dihedral there is a lot of adverse yaw in turns, making it difficult to control. Putting in dihedral would ruin the appearance, so it needs ailerons, which I had originally intended to do anyway. It needs to be done with minimum weight increase, so some care is needed. Not a big job, I had spaced the limited number of ribs appropriately anyway. the intention will be to have it ready for the next outing at Shawbury on 17 December.

[Dave Bran]

Thanks for update.