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Website maintained by Erik Middeldorp

Great Planes Spirit
This is my first R/C airplane, a Great Planes Spirit glider. I had some 2 channel radio gear from an R/C car that I used in it, it was a good way to start out for me because it was relatively cheap. I sold it after a while, I needed the money for more model stuff.

There is a nice little review of the Spirit at The Balsadust Homepage (go to the Hanger and then click on Spirit)
 

J3 Cub
This is the first aeroplane that I designed and built. I had a small rubberband powered clipped wing J3 Cub and I basically just coppied the outline and made a box fuselage. For the wing I used the airfoil from the Spirit and the same basic wing structure (although I added bottom leading edge sheeting). Its wing-span is 48" I'm not sure how much it weighs. To power it I used an ASP .12 (the biggest engine I had at the time) which limited the climb rate a bit, but it did the job. This was also my first plane with full house controls (elevator, rudder, ailerons and throttle). One thing this plane does well is spin. Unlike some planes that just spiral dive, this Cub spins with quite a nose high attitude. Adding down elevator (and holding full rudder and ailerons) while in a spin flattens it out even more. However it does take about 2 1/2 turns to exit the spin which has led to a few close encounters with terra firma. A friend was thinking of buying it so we mounted his OS .20FP (in the photo) on the nose to see how it went. He liked it but he ended up repairing one of his old planes instead of buying this one.
 

Druine Turbulent
This little plane was built from plans photocoppied and enlarged from the september 1977 R/C Modeller magazine (the plans might still be available from them. The building article also appeared in Radio Modeller [a British mag] many years ago, now swallowed by RCM&E). It has a 48" wingspan and my one weighed just over three pounds. I powered it with an OS 26 4 stroke which I bought second hand. What a Beautiful little combination. The OS was the perfect engine for this plane, being a 4 stroke, it had a lovely sound. I really like the construction of this aircraft and I think the designer did a beautiful job. This plane has wing slots (simular to slats except they are built into the leading edge of the wing) which work really well to prevent tip stall and keep the ailerons effective when the wing is at high angles of attack. This has got to be my favorite (2nd favourite now that I've been flying the sukhoi, but they are different types of airplanes...) R/C model that I've seen or built. It's just so darn cute (particularly when it has it's 3" wheels and cowl with dummy engine on).
 

A low wing thing
This is my first 40 size plane (powered by a Tiger Shark .46). I designed it myself and it flys ok. I've flown it quite a lot and haven't had any serious crashes yet. There has been a couple of times when the engine has cut while it was down low and I managed to get it down ok.
First time, I was doing a low pass and I'd just pulled verticle and it was going strait up at the end of the strip. The engine cut at about 10 metres up. I did a stall turn and pulled out of the ensuing dive just in time to make a nice three point landing.
The second time was when I was flying at another feild and I was doing a inverted low pass. About half way across the strip the engine started sputtering, so I pushed verticle and traded speed for height. The engine cut about 15 metres up as I did a half roll and pushed the nose down to keep it flying. Then it was a gentle 180° turn to touch down on the strip!
 

1m span hand launch glider
I built this little glider to house some micro servos (cirrus 20bb or something) that I had bought. I had seen a picture of a glider called a Baby Albatros that had a tail boom and I liked the way the back of the fuselage was shaped so I copied it when designing this glider. A lot of the wing design is copied from the Great Planes Spirit.
The fuselage was made out of 1.5mm (1/16") ply formers and planked with 1.5mm balsa strips. The tailboom is from an aluminium arrow shaft. I really like the shape of the fuselage on this one and maybe one day I'll make a fibreglass fuse and use a carbon fibre boom. I think that if I was making another one I would do some research/testing to find out a better wing section and layout because I don't think the one I used was particularly good.
 

Sig Fazer
This was my Sig Fazer. It was powered by the same .46 that was in the stick but because it only weighed 4.5lb it could accelerate out of a hover. 4.5lb is however 1/2 a pound over weight...
I swapped the Fazer (along with the elevator and rudder servos) for some clean servos and a switch. I also needed to get rid of it to make room for my Sukhoi.
 

Sukhoi SU-26MX
This is my sukhoi, the main reason this website exists. I designed it myself using three views and it flew for the first time on sunday 5th December 1999.
So far I think I'm going to like this plane.

For more info on the sukhoi click here (clicking on the R/C Sukhoi 26mx link in the contents will take you to the same page).