1910 Rumpler Taube Scratchbuild

Okay guys, bear with me, this is my first post about one of my scratch built planes.

I started off with plans from the original 1910 Rumpler Taube (Dove) and made measurements. I quickly realized that the nose was too short to get the CG right (back in 1910 they used a heavy engine vs a lightweight frame), so the nose was lengthened a few centimeters.

The fuselage is 70cm / 27 Inch long and the wing is 90cm / 35 Inch wide.

Also, the original Rumpler Taube was a bank and yank (ailerons and elevator only) plane, but I wanted an easy-to-fly trainer for newbies in our model club. The orignal wing already had dehydral, so I just added a rudder. 

When I was pleased, I started transferring the plans to 6mm Selitron (the German equivalent to Depron) It was all glued together with hot glue and it already looked  "wunderbar". Note that the wing wasn't glued onat this stage. I just had to make sure it would fit.

The control horns are made out of popsicle sticks with a hole burned in them (with a red hot paperclip. Just heat the tip, don't burn your fingers). The control rods are made out of a paperclip, a BBQ skewer, tape and some hot glue and CA (So the bent paperclip can't slip out of the BBQ skewer. The motor is mounted with a hose clamp on a piece of wood, which is glued to the fuselage with hotglue.

The wing is undercambered for lift and strengthened with some carbon fiber rods (Use a heatgun to bend the foam, otherwise it will crack). The undercarriage is made from BBQ skewers and hot glue, the wheelhubs from plastic straws, so the foam won't rip. 

Here, you can see my Version 0.8 of the Dove. It had a 2200 KV Blue Wonder Style motor with a 8x4.3 SF prop and a 3S Lipo. I forgot to add an air inlet, so the air outlet was useless at this time. (Ooopsie)

The acces hatch, like the control surfaces, is hinged with tape. The battery is held inside with velcro.

"Now let's see this dang thing fly" I hear them say. Alrighty.

Some adjustments were necessary : The ESC got way to hot, the 2200 KV motor was way to strong with the 3S Lipo.  I changed the motor to a 1000KV, the battery to a 2S and added an air inlet. Here you can see Version 1.0 of the dove.

In the future, a bomb drop mechanism will be added, but the plane is finished.