One Night In Jail

[kittyfritters]

Several years back, the O.F.F.C. was having a Legal Eagle contest so I drew one up. This is probably the last plan I drew by hand. My inspiration was some of the ultra-light airplane designs of the 1920s and 30s that had their landing gear right on the bottom of the fuselage.

I showed the drawing to Dave Gee and he said, "That looks like a One Night In Boston." At the time, I had not seen a One Night In Boston, so I looked up the plans. OK, it looks very similar, and although I had been planning to call it the Bail Jumper, I changed the name to One Night In Jail.

I didn't build it that year, but Legal Eagle came around in the contest schedule two years back and I started working on it. After all, how long can it take to build one of these things? I got the wings and tail feathers built and started on the fuselage. I built one side fine, but kept breaking the other side. When I finally got the other side built I broke it trying to assemble the fuselage. Something else came up and I didn't finish it.

Well, Legal Eagle came up in the schedule again for the 28th of this month. Now I have lots to do, like the production prototype and plans editing for the Wright Amount of Wrong, and making sure that the back splash tile is finished behind our new quartz kitchen counters before Christmas, but since my wife and a friend were doing some holiday baking this evening I took the time to drag out the box with the Legal Eagle bits in it to try again.

This time I used some leftover alignment jigs from my Bostillation development to make sure the second side of the fuselage is identical to the first one and used them to assemble the fuselage square. I had the fuselage finished, except for the nose block and the deck, in about an hour and a half, all while keeping up the conversation with my wife and her BFF and giving critical appraisal of the holiday goodies.

Anyway, here's a photo of it on the bench (TV tray). You can tell it's one of my older designs because of the excess truss work in the fuselage. My intention, gift wrapping and other issues permitting, is to finish it in time to test fly it at Wednesday's O.F.F.C. meeting. Let you know if it's any good.

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[kittyfritters]

This morning I got it finished enough to test fly. (Still needs the windshield and head rest.)

It flew right off the board with no trimming necessary except for a small drag tab to get the turn tight enough for the room. It would fly nicely, hand launched, on 1/16" rubber, but would not ROG. Moving up to 3/32" rubber got it off the ground nicely but it flies way too fast to be competitive. A bit of fiddling around with propellers and rubber and I will probably get longer flights out of it but it will still be an also ran. It can be a lot lighter (12 grams without rubber now.) and I want to change the airfoil. Back to the drawing board!

Here's how it flies:

https://youtu.be/mAVNsfz0YlI

[staubkorb]

I'm not familiar with the Legal Eagle rules, but I also see a few spots where some weight might be spared. How tight did you twist the 1/16th? If you have a rubber stripper, 0.075 might be a usable size. Is the plastic prop mandatory for the class?

A sweet looking plane that flies nicely!

[kittyfritters]

I'm not familiar with the Legal Eagle rules, but I also see a few spots where some weight might be spared. How tight did you twist the 1/16th? If you have a rubber stripper, 0.075 might be a usable size. Is the plastic prop mandatory for the class?

A sweet looking plane that flies nicely!

Actually, Legal Eagle is one of the more challenging events to fly. They are simple rubber powered models, but the rules are different from any other class:

Legal Eagle Rules

FLYING

Models must R.O.G. from floor, best two flights to count.

DRAWING REQUIREMENTS

If you design your own Legal Eagle they must conform to the following...

Drawing must fit on one side of one sheet of legal size (8 1/2" x 14") paper.
No component parts drawing may be superimposed or overlap another and must clear one another and the edge of the paper by at least 1/8 inch.
Wing(s) and stabilizer must be drawn full span, tip to tip and fuselage drawn in its full length from nose through tail in one piece.
Fin(s) may be drawn where space allows and not necessarily attached to the side view.
Landing gear must be drawn in its place on the side view showing its full length.
No top or front view is required.

DESIGN REQUIREMENTS

Smallest wood size to be 1/16 inch square except for propeller.
Fuselage measured to its outside surface must contain a space 1" x 1.5" x 3".
Fuselage must have a cabin or open cockpit with a raised windshield of at least 30 degrees of clear or translucent material. Cockpit must be actually open, with a headrest or canopy.
Flight surfaces; Leading and trailing edges cannot parallel each other.
Tip outlines must have no straight lines except for stabilizer where a twin fin is used.
If twin fins, or two wings are used in the design, parts may be built in duplicate over the same drawing.
Jap tissue required on all non-sheeted, open framework surfaces except for fuselage surfaces covered by a flying surface directly attached to the fuselage and areas involved in an open cockpit or minimum access area to the motor. No ultra light film covering to be used, unless used for windshield or windows. Flight surfaces may be single or double covered.
Landing gear must use at least one 1 inch diameter wood wheel.
Use of motor stick(s) or tube(s) O.K. and if used, must be shown on the side view in one continuous length in the proper position.

Take a piece of American standard, legal paper (8-1/2 inches by 14 inches) and try drawing one. You get some really cute, and sometimes bizarre, designs. The 1/16 inch wood and the imaginary box limit create a built in weight penalty. Plastic props are not required but I used it instead of ballast to balance the model.

I will fly it in the contest, with a wood prop of the same weight with larger diameter and higher pitch. If I build another one I will have much lighter wing tips and elevator and rudder outlines. There are several good plans on the Internet if you want to try one.

[kittyfritters]

I added the windscreen and headrest, and went to a larger prop that weighed the same as the 5" Peck prop that I used for my first tests. Boy, did that mess up the trim! I could barely get it to fly. That's what I get for not having time to test it again before the contest. I managed to get some official flights in but the longest was about 30 seconds.

I did say, "Back to the drawing board!"

Looking at my 2017 O.F.F.C. calendar, I see that Legal Eagle doesn't come up again until June, so that gives me a while. I'm not giving up on this basic design since it's cute, different, and has shown some potential. (Even if one of the other contestants asked, "Why are you flying that ugly little airplane?")

I will leave out the excess truss work in the fuselage and greatly lighten the wing tips and tail outlines. If I can fit it on the drawing I will make the tail taller to compensate for the large side area at the front of the fuselage. The cockpit will be moved off the wing, making the structure simpler and lighter and eliminating some aerodynamic problems that I think I created by putting the cockpit where it is. Of course, the biggest change will be single covering the wing. There's nothing wrong with the lift provided by that wing but it needs the drag to slow it down.

As I said, it's an older design. Now that I have some experience with flying in the class I think that I can make it competitive without losing it's charisma.

[kittyfritters]

I didn't get it finished in time for the contest. Needing a hip replacement slows me down more than I would like to admit. (Those of you in the UK and Europe will not understand or may find amusing the process I'm going through with my HMO in an effort to get it but, that's health care in the USA.) That, and the fact that we're having a run of triple digit heat (Fahrenheit) and my garage has no air conditioning. (My wife is not that appreciative of my working in the house except that she has my companionship while watching television.)

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Anyway, I did get back to the parts in the box this weekend.

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I said the I would take the cockpit off the wing to improve the aerodynamics and I did. How I did it may look a bit weird however, it does satisfy the rules. Somehow, the fuselage did not look so alarmingly lizard like in the drawing.

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It all came together smoothly ( chipped nose block not withstanding) and, by way of celebration, I treated my wife and myself to a home made root beer float.

At the O.F.F.C. meeting, this morning, the opinion of it was that it was so ugly it was cute. It took a little trimming and adjusting of rubber size but it's flying characteristics are stable and slow. (No ballast again! Still can't believe I'm that good. ) Should be competitive with a longer motor and a re-pitched prop. Videos next week.

[kittyfritters]

Put up a demo flight just to get a video of it in the air. It was already over 90 degrees (F) outside and the air conditioning was on full blast. This wasn't too much of a problem for my Bostonian, but you can see this sub 10 gram model fighting with it. Most of the O.F.F.C. members were practicing for the Penny Plane contest at the end of the month so they really had a problem with the A/C. Most gave up and the flying session ended about an hour early.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueugpwW ... e=youtu.be