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George Clark of British Columbia, Canada builds solid Squirrel
George sent these pictures of a Squirrel constructed from sheet balsa today. Here are the details:
"I decided to try an all-balsa Squirrel. I used light, competition balsa for the plane. Wingspan is 20 in. Weight of the plane, excluding prop assembly is a mere 8.2 grams. The tail and fuse weigh 3.4 grams and the wing weighs 4.8 grams. With prop and 2 strands of 1/8 in. rubber, total weight is slightly under 12 grams, giving a very low wing loading of .2 grams/sq. inch. The plane flies reasonably well with the 6 in. plastic prop and plastic prop assembly, however the prop turns very quickly and thus runs out fairly rapidly. I have a 7 in. balsa prop(pictured) with greater width and pitch that should work better. The balsa prop actually weighs about the same as the plastic prop.
As you can see by the photos, I've reversed the tail assembly. I kept the wing adjustable, but flat(no incidence). I added several degrees of positive incidence to the stabilizer instead, which seems to work fine. If you look closely at the leading and trailing edge of the wing, you can see that I added two pieces of 1/32 in. square balsa strips longitudinally as turbulators.
If this plane flies well, I will shrink the design by approximately 50% for indoor flying. For now, I am using twist ties to secure the wing to the fuse."
-- George Clark, BC
A couple of flights at the park
I couldn't resist flying in the calm weather. These Squirrels were in the trunk of my motorcycle so were a little warped. They seemed to fly well. I had them set up a litte towards stall (with the wing far forward) and they seemed to do ok. After seeing the videos I realize I'd have gotten a lot more height if I moved the wing back a bit. Bit it was still lots of fun.
(2009-07-31)
