Plan Download Page
Peanut scale Blackburn Ripon
Here's the plan for my peanut scale Blackburn Ripon which will fit on one sheet of A3, or should tile onto two A4 sheets. The outlines are accurate according to the
3-view I used, which you can find
here except I made the nose more streamlined based on a photo of my subject
aircraft in the book "Fleet Air Arm Aircraft, Units and Ships 1920 to 1939" by Ray Sturtivant (Air-Britain Publications).
However, I have increased the dihedral a bit to ensure stability.
To get a scale rib spacing at minimum weight, about two thirds of the ribs are indicated only by sliced upper ribs – only the remaining third have top and
bottom strips. You don't have to do this, but I think the scale rib spacing under the silver looks really nice. All four
ailerons are hinged (half a scale point per separate control surface surface in BMFA static judging is the reason for this)
The rudder and elevators are also hinged.
One point not noted on the plan is that the lower fuselage longeron will need to be steamed to match the fairly tight radius as it curves under the wing root and up to the nose.
This is quite simple to do by bending the 1/20" square strip over a boiling kettle spout - just be careful to keep your hands away from the steam. Also, when assembling the fuselage sides at the
nose, cross-pieces should be added as normal top and bottom, then the upper formers added, complete with reinforcing strips. When the glue is dry, the upper cross pieces can be cut away to
allow the rubber a clear run to the rear peg.
If built lightly, a loop of 0.100" rubber should get the model up to the ceiling, at least if using an Easybuilt 5 inch plastic prop. Mine came out at 12.6 grams without noseweight
or rubber. You will need some noseweight though if mine is anything to go by. The model trimmed out surprisingly easily and I'm happy to report the it seems extremely stable.
Click
here to download plan as a pdf