I had the privilege of seeing the original bird at Scaled back in 91 or so.  It was incredibly small! It also looked like they painted the cowlings on the engines and they only used one coat.  Really interesting concept and by all accounts it flew well but the motors kept blowing up.  Nissan V6 with 120" or pounds of boost. No wonder they kept having motor problems.  I seem to remember that they were blowing methanol buy the rings and contaminating the oil or some such.

Hi all,

While waiting for things to dry on the LearFan I cut out and started making the kit parts for the Rutan/Pond Racer seen at Reno Air Races.

This is a Catapult Launched Glider the hook will be at the nose of the Cockpit pod in the center.  

The Cockpit pod is laminated with a central split lamination of 1/32 with the grain changing to the direction of the vertical fin/stab.  The outer laminations are 1/16 that have been sanded to 1/32 inch thickness at the rear making a taper from the nose 4/32 to 3/32 at the rear of the pod.  

The engine pods are made from 1/16 balsa with nose laminations back to the leading edge of the wing.  The outer laminations are sanded to a taper 1/16 to 1/32 at the wing leading edge. The outer laminations hide the weight pockets that have two small split shots (fishing weights) hammered into a flat circular shape to fit the pockets.  

This being a Rutan design was composite so it was very rounded in shape.  It was sanded so all the edges are rounded and the engine pods though profile still give a simulation of the bulbulousness of the engine pods on the real bird.  

The 13 inch wing has a dihedral of 1 and 1/8 inches under one tip while the other lies flat on the table.

She glides ok for now...will need a bit more balast because she does a slight stall at the end of the glide across the lawn approximately 20 feet from a hand launch.

Here's some pics of the parts... I make a kit first from a 3 view.  

Here's a pic of the weight pockets hidden by the cheek laminations on the motor pods...

On the parts picture you see the left wing half has been sanded with a taper from the root of 1/8 inch to 1/16 at the tip... then I sand an airfoil in with the appex at approximately 25% of the chord.  So far she flies ok.
Here's a mockup of the sanded parts nothing glued...



Nose on view bdfore cheek laminations on the engine pods...

Got her glued together making sure the engine pods are square with the cockpit pod.  I started with the cockpit pod on the main wing lined up on the centerline of the wing I used right triangles to make sure the pod was square on the wing standing on its leading edge.  I then added horizontal stab using right triangles to square up the stab with the cockpit pod longitudinally as well as horizontally.  

Then the engine pods were squared with the cockpit pod and the tips of the horizontal stab.  I also use the TLAR engineering on the vertical alignment of the engine pods to the cockpit pod.

Here's the white paint applied...




As you can tell I like the unusual aircraft to model...I think this one meets that criteria.

Regards,
Tom