GREAT PLANES Super Stearman

Model Airplane News, Nov 2004 by Kulesa, Stan, Davisson, Budd

Guaranteed to impress!

The Stearman is one of the most recognizable and beloved aircraft, and It has a reputation for excellent flight characteristics, reliability and rigorous construction. After the War, someone decided to fit one of these aircraft with a Pratt & Whitney engine and to add a cowl, wheel pants and two ailerons to the top wing; thus, the Super Stearman was born. This new version was highlighted by exceptional acrobatic performance.

Great Planes' latest IMAA-legal, giant-scale entry, a 71�-inch-span Super Stearman, is guaranteed to impress; it's just plain beautiful and flies as a Stearman should.

LET'S START

The model comes expertly covered and trimmed with MonoKote. This is a big plus because MonoKote is so readily available. The painted fiberglass cowl, the wheel pants and the painted landing gear and struts match the covering perfectly.

The kit box wasn't as large as I had expected it to be; the packing was tight and efficient. Each major component is individually packaged, so everything is easy to identify, and the well-packed parts weren't damaged during shipping.

The instruction manual is easy to read and nicely laid out, and the picture quality is well above average. Safety considerations and fun facts about the Stearman are also included.

* Wing. To begin construction, attach an aileron to each wing half. CA hinge material is included; each aileron has three cut hinge slots. Then join the wing halves to create two, one-piece wings. The top wing doesn't have any dihedral but the bottom wing does. I used 30-minute Z-Poxy for this step.

Each wing has about 24 ribs. The ribs beyond the sheeted center section are capstripped and have lightening holes. The structure is very solid, and there wasn't any movement when I tried to twist the panels. Balsa sheeting is used on the leading and trailing edges and on the center section.

The lower wing is held in place by two nylon dowels on the leading edge and two nylon screws that pass through a plywood plate on the trailing edge. The top wing is attached to cabane struts with four 4-40 socket-head screws. The cabane struts are permanently attached to the fuselage with four wood screws. Two, one-piece, N-shaped outboard struts are also held with 4-40 screws that pass through L-brackets. An assembled plywood carrying handle facilitates the transportation of the fuselage and also stores the two N-struts.

* Fuselage. The fuselage is constructed around a plywood frame with lightening holes. The forward section is balsa-sheeted, and the aft end is open-framed and uses balsa stringers for scale shaping. There are six plywood formers and a �-inch-thick firewall. The firewall and wing saddles are already fuelproofed.

The engineering behind the one-piece aluminum landing gear with fiberglass fairings deserves special recognition. The detail work on the fairings is exceptional, and the gear fits snugly into place with only a minimal gap. The paint also perfectly matches the white MonoKote. The gear is attached to the bottom of the fuselage with five 8-32 screws. A rounded, solid-balsa belly pan is glued over the landing gear to match the contour of the fuse-lage bottom. The axles, wheels and one-piece painted fiberglass wheel pants are added later.

The stabilizer and fin are epoxied into channels on the aft end of the fuselage; I again used 30-minute Z-Poxy. The instruction manual does a good job of explaining how to align the stabilizer properly. The empennage is flat and has a balsa frame with balsa ribs. The ribs are perpendicular to the trailing edge of the fin and stabilizer. Three CA hinges attach each of the elevator halves, and another three hinges hold the rudder. A shock-absorbing tailwheel assembly is mounted in the aft end of the fuselage. A scale triangular tail block goes on the bottom, aft end of the fuselage to contour it to the rudder.

Insightful engineering is evident when you attach the one-piece fiberglass cowl to the fuselage. Instead of having screw heads on the exterior, the cowl is connected to a plywood ring on the firewall that is tapped for four blind nuts. It's easy to access these blind nuts through the back of the cowl with a 4-40 ball driver.

A plastic 9-cylinder dummy engine fits snugly inside the cowl. A portion of the bottom of the mold has been removed to allow the air to circulate over the engine's cylinder head. After drilling holes to accommodate the aluminum tubes that simulate the dummy engine's pushrods, I spray-painted the mold with flat-black LustreKote. For added detail, I cut short lengths of red wire to replicate spark-plug leads. You'll need to make small holes in the cowl to accommodate the glow plug, the needle valve, the remote fueling valve and the muffler.

The construction throughout this ARF is exceptional; there aren't any warps, twists, or waves, and the quality of the materials used is well above average.

* Radio. Five servos (2 for the ailerons, and 1 for the throttle, rudder and elevator) are recommended, but I used 1 servo for each aileron, so I ended up using 7 servos. Radio installation is simple, and there's a lot of room inside the fuselage for these components. I used my Airtronics RD6000 Super system and opted for Airtronics 738 servos on the ailerons, rudder and elevator and a basic 102 servo for the throttle.