OK...
I went thru the whole schmear (construction diagrams and article) and "discovered" that the wing center section is removable - hence, the knitting needle (old time bone) is actually the wing mounting system!  NOT a bad idea, tho a more modern, aluminium needle would be as stiff and lighter.

alfakilo wrote on Jan 24^th, 2022 at 11:34am:


My thought is that it is simply a fixture for alignment purpose during construction and was just left in place for "whatever".  Unless it was actually glued to the motor peg bits, it seems to serve no real purpose.

alfakilo wrote on Jan 24^th, 2022 at 9:23am:

That "skew drive" works on the same principle as the old speedometer cables - essentially a tightly wound spring - which allows quite tight radius snaking while still allowing it to spin.  Finding something like that and adding the hook at one end and the shaft at the other might also be a problem.  Model boaters use this type of "universal joint" between the motor and shaft.

I can't see any way to stretch wind the motors as stated on the plan.  I think the method to best get some decent length would be as in your third drawing - with a short removable (for scale judging) "cheat stick" added.

A very nice effort!

Thanks bjrn and welcome to the forum!

Good points and here's a couple of things I'm considering. First, this plan is semi-scale in that Towner doesn't seem to have a particular mark in mind, it's just a generic Beaufighter. I haven't found a publication date for the plan but given Towner's early 1940s activity, it may have been before the redesign that produced the new tail.

As you no doubt are aware, many of our plans have the horizontal and/or vertical stabilizer size increased to improve stability. In this Peanut plan, Towner made the horizontal stab a good 20% larger than real life. My guess is that he did that to improve model aerodynamics more than any attempt to replicate real life factors.

Lastly, there is the matter of the reported instability of the earlier marks. From what I can see, the issue here was lateral control in the event of an engine failure. There seems to have been a concern that there wasn't "enough tail" to deal with the asymmetric thrust effects of single engine operation at high power settings. The added dihedral increased the effective yaw control to correct this deficiency.

Will this be an issue on a model of this size? I doubt it! There are so many other things that the builder might get wrong that might affect stability to a greater degree.

I was re-reading some of the old FAC Newsletters and Wally Farrell has an article on his trimming procedures.  He mentions that for short motors he uses a 1.5 times hook to anchor length and tightly braids the rubber to take up as much slack as possible.  This might help in your straight back to the trailing edge hook arrangement.  I used a similar setup on my Connie. 

As for the holes through the ribs is there anyway to make a short plastic or heavy paper tube to keep the rubber from banging around against all the edges of the ribs etc.?  Just a thought.  The "Fort" looks good!

OOPS... I just reviewed your post and looks like you've already done the tube thing.   

Thanks, Mike. The motor set-up is definitely affected by the small size of the model...just not a lot of space there to allow things to sort themselves out.

I'm going with a single loop of 1/16" rubber to begin with just to see if I can get the prop to spin!! I ended up not using the soda straw "blast tube" idea, no room. Maybe in a dimer size model.

That's great AK.  I'm very curious how the angled motor setup and motor tubes work out - please post updates once you've had a chance to try it out.

Mike