Yuppy Love

FIRST PARAGRAPHS OF BUILD ARTICLE:

"Try Peter Miller's unwardly mobile biplane for 1.5cc engines! wonder how often a model is designed to suit a name? I was trying to recover from pneumonia and pleurisy and I was waiting for the results of tests to see if I had 'Yuppie Flu'. Sitting over my mid-morning coffee my mind began to wander. Yuppie Flu, Yuppie Flew, Puppy Love and then I got 'Yuppy Love'. I liked that! I began to doodle side views for a pert little model, the shape started to emerge, a tall wind screen straight from the spinner, not bad but it lacked something, I stuck a top wing on and there she was. Yuppy Love.

The design uses my old favourite wing section, Clark Y, set at true zero. This works very like a thin symmetrical section but it is more forgiving at low speeds. the nose can be raised a long way before there is any risk of stalling. It also has the advantage that it can be built flat on the board. I used ailerons on all four wings. I decided to use two servos, one for top and one for the bottom wing, which saves a lot of messing about with linkages which can be a real nuisance, especially if the wing shifts in a thump. The top aileron was made 1 in wide and the lower one 3/4 in wide, this because I did not have enough of the correct size of trailing edge to make both the same. You could make them both 1 in wide or you could use ailerons on the top wing only and either leave the bottom wing plain or even fit flaps.

The fuselage is very simple and tough. There is more than enough room for most radios. I have Fleet Micro radio fitted with five servos. If you wanted to use standard radio you might have to omit the ailerons on the lower wing and drop the servo tray a little.For power I used a PAW 149. the model will fly nicely with this engine without being too hairy. A .12 glow might add a little more urge, a .15 engine would be overdoing things a little but if you drive a Porsche you may feel that the extra power would be in keeping with your image. If you are suffering from one of the Yuppie Flus I don't recommend it!

The model is very quick to build. working for about an hour and a half a day I took just over two weeks from start to finish. Fuselage: Choose light but firm 3/32nd sheet for the fuselage sides. You can get the sides from two sheets. Glue the top and bottom of each side together and add the 1/64 ply doublers. Also fit the 1/16th ply gussets to take the wingband dowels. Cut out all the formers, F-1 is 1/8th ply, F-2 and F-3 are Reply as is the nose ring. The rest of the farmers are 1/8th sheet.

Fit the landing gear to F-2 with saddles and drill F-1 for the engine mount and tank vents. There is very little room round the mount so discard the vents provided with the tank and get some copper tube. Heat this to red heat and allow to cool - it can now be bent easily and you should make sure that the pipes hoe up as shown on the plan. Glue F-2 and F-3 to one side, making sure that they are vertical, then add the other side. When this has dried add the 3/32 balsa treblers at the wing seats and the 1/16 ply reinforcement for the wing band dowels. Pull the rear of the fuselage together and glue in the rear formers, the tailplane platform and the tailskid mount..."