A Most Mag
Tiger Moth!
Build this beauty and make her more crash resistant: a step-by-step guide!
By Dick Adams PHOTOGRAPHY: DICK ADAMS & SUSAN BARNES I
have been a kit and scratchbuilder all of my life. Die-hard balsa. But last year was a zoo at work, and I needed the re- lief of building and flying a new air-
plane. Spare time was at a premium, so why not try one of the “throw-away” foamies? The pressure of flying my new model would be non-existent. No real time invested and not many dollars that couldn’t be trans- ferred to another airplane, if it bit the dust. Perhaps I could even get enough stick time to improve my piloting skills. With these thoughts greasing the hinges
to my wallet, I chose Great Planes Electri- Fly Tiger Moth for my venture into the world of Almost Ready to Fly airplanes. I have always had a soft spot for small yellow airplanes. With a nice shade of Cub yellow and a 30-inch wingspan, this ARF qualified. Little did I know that I was about to embark on a project that would end up tapping my life’s experiences as a scratchbuilder!
The good and the bad, but not ugly The model shipped promptly and upon opening the box, I was very surprised by the fabulous looks of this foamie. The yellow fin- ish was superb. No molding marks, no foam bead voids. This did not look like a throw- away foamie! The wings were undercam- bered and the airfoil quite thin, which I knew, from my decade long venture into mi- cro R/C models, should add up to excellent slow-flying abilities. Everything, but the slightly chubby nose (to house the brushless outrunner motor)
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and the wider chord for the wings (all the slower to fly with) was of scale proportions. Even included were pre-painted 2D pilots. I hate pilots in model airplanes. But if I was going to compromise my building principles, I decided I could compromise my stand against toy pilots, and, with the help of Google and my color printer, Snoopy climbed into the cockpit. No one could possibly mis- take Snoopy for anything other than a real pilot!
When I did my online research about oth-
er owner’s impressions, I learned this Moth was receiving flack for being brittle and eas- ily prone to major wing damage from minor mishaps. Something to do with the plastic finish over the thin foam was giving her wings and tail feathers the “crack like an eggshell” reputation (those critiquing did in- dicate that the fractured wing pieces were easily epoxied back together). I suspected that I had come face to face
with one of life’s tradeoffs. To get a Tiggie that would be a floater, the designers went with thin foam for the wings. To get her great non-foamie looks, they went with a thin hard- er outer surface that bridged the foam bead gaps. I accepted this Tiger Moth’s frailties as being a necessary trade-off for her great looks and light weight, and suspected that in my bag of building tricks I could find some things to rescue her reputation. So I put my tinker’s brain in gear, and can
report that this turned out to be a fun pro- ject, which tested the limits of super mag- nets, horse mane braiding bands, soft alu- minum rods, and my favorite flexible
adhesive: canopy glue. Although not my most rugged Moth, she can take her fair share of knocks and remains one great look- ing lady. Before I go into the “bells and whistles” of
this project, I will fast forward readers to my early flight impressions. This is an ab- solutely great flying airplane. It will bring a smile to your face if you like to just putt along under minimal power and don’t mind waiting for the wind to come down. It flies more slowly than any of my outdoor balsa Moths, of which I have a small stable. My Tiggie came in weighing but 81⁄2 ounces, with battery, which gives an as- tounding wing cubed loading of 3.13. Trust me, this is almost indoor floater range, and I am flying it outdoors where I don’t have to worry about walls and basketball hoops sud- denly coming out of nowhere. One thing I learned early on is if you hand launch, only give her a tad more than half throttle. To give her more makes her squir- rely in those first critical seconds of flight. I suspect this has to do with the significant built-in right thrust and down thrust, com- bined with a motor that puts out more thrust than needed. But once she is flying, she handles like
butter and cream with absolutely no bad habits!
A little history For the last 30 years, I have been re-engi- neering my airplanes to more easily break apart when crashed. (Can you guess why?) Yes, this probably has something to do with
APRIL 2012
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