Swappable Champ

rcspaceflight

creator of virtual planes
As some of you know, I'm working on making more add ons for RC Desk Pilot. My Sketchup skills are based around designing DTFB planes, so that's what most of the add on planes are based on. Montiey suggested an Aeronca Champion, both for RCDP and as a swappable, so I did both.

Sketchup file, plans, and quickly made RCDP add on: View attachment champ.zip

The point of the RCDP add on is to show what it would look like in the air. There will be a finished version of it later.

champ thumbnail.jpg
 

rcspaceflight

creator of virtual planes
I guess I could throw some specs out there and also have a thumbnail picture of the plans so you know what you're getting into if you download the .zip folder.

champ plan preview.jpg

The wingspan is 40".

The fuselage is 24" long.

The ailerons are 10" by 1.5". Which should give plenty of authority (in my experience).

The reason why the tail becomes so narrow at the rudder is to make it easier to build and more solid (in my experience).

I actually love how the wings turned out. The airfoil isn't the highest, but it has no spar or spacer piece. Just fold it up like an FT wing, but make the hinge of the ailerons flush with the back of the flat bottom. (Although re-looking at the Sketchup file, maybe it should have a spacer piece. Or a recess cut into the fuselage or wings since the tail edge will be hanging lower than the bottom of the wing. Which would be fine. It would be like permanent "flaps" built in.)

To be "scale" it should have a 7" prop. But an 8" should look fine too.

It's only about a sheet and a half of DTFB without the power pod. So let's call it 2 sheets.

One thing that I didn't figure out was a recess into the rudder so you can glue a bamboo skewer to the back of the two elevator pieces so the elevator moves as one. I'm leaving it up to you because I'm usually lazy and end up removing too much material.

Hopefully the plans are obvious. At least if you look at the completed model in Sketchup.

But I like this plane enough that I may end up building one. It's a decent size, should be easy to build, and is only 2 sheets. It also should be a decent high wing trainer. Can't beat that.
 

LordVader

Member
This is really cool. I have not been able to fly a high wing trainer successfully yet, maybe this is the one. I can fly warbirds and edf jets, prop n slot jets and so on, but every high wing plane has met a dismal end.