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Rubber powered Chilton DW.1 by Clive Gamble



When I knew Clive was working on this model, I thought it would be great to have a copy of the plan for the web site, so I kept dropping less than subtle hints. He has now very kindly drawn it up specially so I could post it here. I think you will agree that he has come up with a first class design, which is not only very accurate (far better than the old Veron Tru-Flite example I have), but also beautifully drawn using CAD, and fully annotated. Not only that, but the little cutie actually flies excellently as well (the prototype has done over 80 seconds). Not bad for a 16 incher!



As you can see from the photos of the prototype, Clive is an excellent builder, as well as draughtsman. Only 12 grams as well. Who could resist building a model of one of Britain's prettiest ultralights?

I will let Clive tell you a bit more about the model:



"My interest in the Chilton began around 10 minutes after I opened the December 2002 copy of Aeroplane magazine, even allowing for my interest in Golden age British aircraft, this looked to be a real cute plane.

Further time spent looking at the Chilton Website just added to the impression. Thoughts of a largish scale model lasted a while, then John Ernst mentioned how much he would like a dimescale version, and I soon found myself volunteering to produce one.

Construction is basic box and former. I used light to medium wood for everything except the wing leading edge. Typical trimming crunches (particularly indoors) have made me think that using something a little heavier for the wing ribs supporting the wheels, and for the F1 former area may have been more sensible. If the bond paper covering for the front of the wheelpants is left overlong on top it can then be trimmed nicely to fit the wing LE profile. I used a pair of 1/8? magnets to secure the noseblock, and fitted a K&P adjustable nose bearing without the large outer flange, both work well.

The prototype has a slow and reasonably wide left hand flight pattern, very nice outdoors, but a bit limiting for indoor use. If you really want to fly this in a confined space then hinging the tail surfaces and increasing the washout would be considered almost essential. Just like a Miles Sparrowhawk I have flown for a couple of years, the wheelpants do seem to act like another pair of fins trying to keep the flightpath straight ahead.

I originally trimmed the model before making the soft block fillet that sits on top of the tailplane, a 1/64 shim under the back of the tail was all the adjustment needed and I could then go on to finish the fillet. If you are hinging the elevator then I would mount the tailplane direct to the upper longerons and it should trim out with minor adjustments



The wide body gives enough clearance to allow quite a lot of rubber to flail around, I use a 30? loop (60? of rubber) of 5/32 TanII braided with around 15 turns per inch. This is sufficient for over a minute of power, and quite a gain in height. Playing around with the pitch of the standard pecks 6? prop may help further.

For a small plane it still looks full of character when high in the sky, and as a bonus it has a colour scheme that I can find when it comes back down again."



To read and print the pdf file you need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is a free download from www.adobe.com

Test prints using A4 paper have come out exactly full size (three overlapping sheets), but there is a 1" scale around the border to help you check your prints are the correct size. Nothing to stop you enlarging it, of course. The real aircraft had a span of only 24 feet, so 1:12 scale would be just 24" span!

Click here to download pdf file (640 KB)

Click here to download printwood pdf file (44 KB)

Click here to download Autocad dwg file (128 KB)





Nice to see a few Chiltons built from this plan beginning to appear. This very neat example is by John Ernst, who finished his in this attractive non-scale scheme. I think he chose it an excuse to use up some of his stock of orange tissue. Very nice it looks too.



I saw this one in person at the Old Warden scale weekend, July 2005, in the company of its builder, Alasdair Deas. This is only his fourth model after the Comper Swift you may have seen elsewhere on the site, and the finish was just as good. The model had only just been finished (the windscreen had yet to be fitted) and we had a go at trimming it. The weather was a bit breezy, but it coped very well, and put in a nice series of left hand circuits.






Here are a couple of photos of the real thing which I took at Old Warden at the evening display, July 2005.






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