Mercury Old Timer

I have always loved old timer models but have only built a few in all my years of modeling.  Some of the  guys in the airplane club I belong to, Sky Corral, decided to get into free flight models so they have been building small 30” to 48” models powered by Cox .020 and .049 glow engine.  I am not one for chasing after model airplanes these days so I decided to build mine as an Radio Control model.

 Luckily I found a set of cad files on line that were free and had the right style of model I was looking for.  My 90” Span Mercury is built completely out of wood and is covered in Metallic Charcoal and Transparent Yellow Monokote.  The major changes I made to its design was to remove the balsa sheeting on the fuselage behind the wing and replace it with balsa stringers.   Instead of powering the model with an old style ignition engine, mine has an RImFire 60 Brushless electric motor and 5-cell 5 Amp Lipo Battery.  The lower balsa cowl is held in place by magnets and this is removed to gain access to the battery tray that slides out the front of the model.  The entire tail section removes with one screw.  The wing is in three pieces and held in place with 4-40 bolts.  Even the landing gear can be removed and is held in place by two rubber bands.

This model is a true floater and thermals with the best of them.  It simply looks beautiful in the air.

Built Summer of 2015