First flight of a 1/3 scale World War I sesqiplane, powered by a Moki 250cc Radial gas engine. The wingspan is 9 feet, and it weighs 53 pounds.The propeller is a Seidel 33 X 17 custom scale propeller.The radio control system is the Jeti Duplex System.
Maiden flight 5/18/23
I have never flown a WWl airplane, much less a sesquiplane, so the experience was incredible because it flies so differently. Not for the faint of heart! Most of the flight was throttle and rudder, and very little of each.
I think of a maiden flight like taking a blind date to the prom, after the dance you hope you leave together. So it was with the Nieuport, and her pilot Andre. We had a great time and except for me being “ham-handed” letting her down on the grass, we will dance again soon.
Here is some background about the the plane:
The plane is very unique, as indicated by the 24bis designation. First flown in 1917, it was obsolete before entering service. The French had stability problems with the original tail and had to fit it with a Nieuport 17 tail (hence the bis designation) which loosely means "diversion or change." Later they solved the issues and it became the standard Nieuport 24, which saw service mostly as a trainer.
The Avionics consist of two 5200 Jeti Lon batteries, connected to a Central Box 320. There are four receivers in the plane, three of the receivers are capable of flying the entire plane independently. The receivers are an R12 Assist REX as primary, a standard R12 REX backup, a R3 REX 900 MHz backup and a standard R3/RSW switch receiver. Servos are a mix of Jeti and Hacker. The engine is pumped with a Hacker Fuel Pump regulated to 30% output with overflow. A Rotoflo tank with a servo on the choke rounds out the airborne package. The propeller is a custom scale propeller from Seidel Props in Germany and the pilot is from Axel Scale Pilots, also from Germany. Both are outstanding additions to a wonderful example of model aviation.
The model was built by Alan Yendle, a nationally known and respected scratch scale builder who lives in Waco, Texas. At 91 he built this 1/3 scale, 108", 53 pound Nieuport sized for a Moki 250cc Radial gas engine. On the RCSB website, his building thread details how the plane was built. Everything is scale, the flight surfaces all move with cables and torque rods. There are no servos in the tail or wings, and no RC pushrods.