Post by Jef on Jan 12, 2016 20:01:29 GMT
Around 28 years ago I started building a Ben Buckle kit of the ED "Radio Queen".
The ED model (the only aeroplane kit that Electronic Developments ever produced) was originally designed just after WW2 and was available as a kit from 1950 until 1956.
Very much a basic freeflight or Rudder only high-wing cabin model, it was often used for pioneering the then new technologies and achievements.
Such pioneering was fairly rife at the time that this model was designed. It was in the very early days of radio control, model diesel engines were being developed that were as powerful as their complex spark ignition petrol counterparts, and electric motors and batteries were just becoming more available for hobbyists.
People were setting records for distance and duration with radio controlled model boats and aeroplanes, and the Radio Queen with it's large span and big payload capability was a popular choice as a tool for such record breaking.
The engine it was designed for, was the ED Mk4 3.46cc "Hunter" Diesel, which Aeromodeller magazine reviewed in March 1950, and which was used in a cross channel flight, made by the ED team, with a wing borrowed from Col HJ Taplin (as the team had managed to break a wing in testing, the day before the record attempt).
Col. Taplin was responsible for engineering two "Hunters" together in tandem; that engine became known as the Taplin Twin, and it was also used in the Radio Queen. ED provided the parts for this quite successful 7cc unit, available from 1958, from Col Taplin's "Birchington Engineering Company" of Albion Road, Birchington, Kent.
Ben Buckle saw a need and kitted it again in the 80s, to satisfy the nostalgia market for this and other 'vintage' models. Ben, sadly left quite young, but his son Colin has, thankfully, carried on the production and supply of the kits which his Dad had started selling.
On the Ben Buckle plan, which has been updated to include modification for easier / more practical builds, some accumulators are drawn, as the Radio Queen was also the first model to be flown with an electric motor up front.
With so much time (since I bought the kit) having passed, my mind has finally "decided" on electric power, but I had already built the fuselage, including the hardwood engine bearers, before starting to fit the motor. As my model has taken so many changes in the destined power plant, over the decades, I feel I should keep the options open for the future, so am keeping the engine bearers as they were designed. That way I can fit a glow motor, or a diesel (or a sparky come to that) some time in the future without having to build a new fuselage.
So, I looked on the internet for previous installations of a similar ilk. Nothing too impressive jumped out at me. So I designed my own system.
The motor I had finally decided on, is an 840kv GliderDrive by Turnigy. This has an Outside Diameter of 38mm. My design is for a round hole in a square, three-sided box, with a clamp outside aiming to grip the motor on at least half of it's circumference. The fourth side of the box is marked by the bearers, with two of the three balsa sides in contact with them.
The clamping arrangement is to be completely removable (so I can fit an engine on the same bearers), and whilst the motor is to be kept firmly anchored in place during use, it needs to be removable, should I decide to fit another motor at any time. (I have a few Speed 600 buggy motors, of a similar diameter.) So the clamps are to be made from two glass fibre board panels and, 8 of, 2.5mm diameter stainless steel studding, washers and nyloc nuts.
So, having decided I needed 8 x 60mm lengths of stainless 2.5mm studding, nuts and washers, I was very pleased to find everything on my list at Modelfixings.co.uk, with some other bits and bobs for a tenner plus VAT.
To be edited and continued...
The ED model (the only aeroplane kit that Electronic Developments ever produced) was originally designed just after WW2 and was available as a kit from 1950 until 1956.
Very much a basic freeflight or Rudder only high-wing cabin model, it was often used for pioneering the then new technologies and achievements.
Such pioneering was fairly rife at the time that this model was designed. It was in the very early days of radio control, model diesel engines were being developed that were as powerful as their complex spark ignition petrol counterparts, and electric motors and batteries were just becoming more available for hobbyists.
People were setting records for distance and duration with radio controlled model boats and aeroplanes, and the Radio Queen with it's large span and big payload capability was a popular choice as a tool for such record breaking.
The engine it was designed for, was the ED Mk4 3.46cc "Hunter" Diesel, which Aeromodeller magazine reviewed in March 1950, and which was used in a cross channel flight, made by the ED team, with a wing borrowed from Col HJ Taplin (as the team had managed to break a wing in testing, the day before the record attempt).
Col. Taplin was responsible for engineering two "Hunters" together in tandem; that engine became known as the Taplin Twin, and it was also used in the Radio Queen. ED provided the parts for this quite successful 7cc unit, available from 1958, from Col Taplin's "Birchington Engineering Company" of Albion Road, Birchington, Kent.
Ben Buckle saw a need and kitted it again in the 80s, to satisfy the nostalgia market for this and other 'vintage' models. Ben, sadly left quite young, but his son Colin has, thankfully, carried on the production and supply of the kits which his Dad had started selling.
On the Ben Buckle plan, which has been updated to include modification for easier / more practical builds, some accumulators are drawn, as the Radio Queen was also the first model to be flown with an electric motor up front.
With so much time (since I bought the kit) having passed, my mind has finally "decided" on electric power, but I had already built the fuselage, including the hardwood engine bearers, before starting to fit the motor. As my model has taken so many changes in the destined power plant, over the decades, I feel I should keep the options open for the future, so am keeping the engine bearers as they were designed. That way I can fit a glow motor, or a diesel (or a sparky come to that) some time in the future without having to build a new fuselage.
So, I looked on the internet for previous installations of a similar ilk. Nothing too impressive jumped out at me. So I designed my own system.
The motor I had finally decided on, is an 840kv GliderDrive by Turnigy. This has an Outside Diameter of 38mm. My design is for a round hole in a square, three-sided box, with a clamp outside aiming to grip the motor on at least half of it's circumference. The fourth side of the box is marked by the bearers, with two of the three balsa sides in contact with them.
The clamping arrangement is to be completely removable (so I can fit an engine on the same bearers), and whilst the motor is to be kept firmly anchored in place during use, it needs to be removable, should I decide to fit another motor at any time. (I have a few Speed 600 buggy motors, of a similar diameter.) So the clamps are to be made from two glass fibre board panels and, 8 of, 2.5mm diameter stainless steel studding, washers and nyloc nuts.
So, having decided I needed 8 x 60mm lengths of stainless 2.5mm studding, nuts and washers, I was very pleased to find everything on my list at Modelfixings.co.uk, with some other bits and bobs for a tenner plus VAT.
To be edited and continued...
