Bede BD5
Bede BD5
Bede BD5
venerable BEDE!
John Rutter's exciting little Bede BD5 offers full slope or power options.
Construction: Wing
The BD5 first caught my eye in an
Aeroplane magazine of the early The wing is made from a single piece
edge before Solarfilming them in place.
Cover the wing at this point, but leave
'70s. It struck me as a beautifully of medium 1/4" balsa 4" wide or a the centre section bare. The 1/4"
streamlined, but simple aircraft. I saw combination of smaller pieces. I cut the locating dowel is glued onto the wing
one (static, unfortunately) at the outer parts of the taper off and glue before the centre section is reinforced
Farnborough airshow in 1978-80 but I them to the inner sections to make up with a narrow strip of wing covering
didn't finally get the bit between my the width. Once the blank has been type glass cloth.
teeth until I bought a l/72nd scale kit produced, the underside of the outer 6in The tail surfaces are 1/8" sheet
(all 3.6" span of it!) at a rally this year. is carved and sanded to give washout planed and sanded to section. The
By this time I had also become a fairly before the normal section is carved in. elevator is top hinged, again with film.
experienced R/C modeller, so I dusted This done, the wing is cut across the I covered the surfaces at this stage as I
off the TD .051 and got busy. centre and the strip ailerons cut away. am hopeless at getting film to stick in
My models are invariably pretty The wing can then be rejoined to give the corners of a finished model; they
simple to build so a week later it was 3" dihedral under one tip. The aileron are epoxied in place later.
ready to fly. I had one or two problems torque rods are 16 gauge piano wire
with it at first caused by that fat (for bent to an 'L' shape and the torque Fuselage
the size of model) fuselage and the arms are 16g brass tube. These are The fuselage is the trickier bit. As
high mounted engine. It was distinctly flattened at one end and drilled with can be seen from the drawing, there
tricky to launch, the motor pushing the l/16" holes to take metal clevises. isn't a straight line in sight so it can't
nose into the floor, so, rather than This end is then bent to an 'L' shape be pinned to the board. The formers
break it, I chucked it off the local cliffs! ready to be soldered to the rods. The could be cut across the horizontal
The problem became immediately ailerons are top hinged so they need a centre-line along with the fuselage
apparent; the CG was too far aft. The wedge planed off their lower leading sides, enabling you to build it in top
other problem was tip stalling but Photo 1. The kit of bits; wing can be produced from a single sheet of 1/4 x 4 In
twisted-in washout soon cured that.
The model was now transformed into
an exciting and acrobatic power/slope
soarer depending on the strength or
direction of the wind.
The only deviations from scale that I
know about are that the motor fairing
is a little fatter than it should be to
hide the tank and the wing has 1/2"
more chord to give a little more area.
The real aircraft has strip ailerons and
used a tail plus elevator set-up
experimentally though it now has an
all-moving tail.
30
and bottom halves, but I built mine in
the air using a straight line on the Top right, photo 2.
board as a reference. Fuselage halves are
To build it my way, I first marked drawn together
the position of the formers on the onto main formers;
prototype fuselage
fuselage side and, using CA, glued F3 was 'built In the air'
and F4 in place. I then drew the tail using a straight line
together and glued it, followed by the on building board
for reference.
nose and Fl. F2, F4 and F5 were then Centre right, photo
slid into place and glued. The canopy 4 shows sanded
formers are tack glued into place, the and caned fuselage
and marked-out
engine bearers and support are glued canopy/hatch ready
firmly, taking care not to build in any to be cut away.
side thrust (photo 2). The tank is held Below left, photo 5
shows R/C
in place with silicone (photo 3). The installation details;
fuselage is planked with 1/8" x 3/16" elevator pushrod Is
balsa, finishing with the underside of from a bike spoke.
Below right, photo
the motor fairing. The noseblock and 3 shows home-
front bottom block can also be added made tinplate tank
at this point. Carve and sand this lot (from a cleaned up
bean tin!) and Cox
to shape (photo 4) then cut away the .051 on bearers.
canopy/hatch (you did remember to Aerial on power
mark it out as you planked, didn't version should be
led out to a wing
you?) tip.
I installed the gear before planking
but, being clumsy, kept knocking the exciting if it's any
formers off; I reckon that it is easier further back. I
the other way round. Temporarily fit
the wing to the fuselage making sure
to install the reinforcement plate for
the locating dowel. Install the servos
and their mountings - they are offset
to give straight runs to the ailerons. I
used a 14g bike spoke for the elevator
pushrod and 16g threaded rod for the
aileron (photo 5). The elevator
pushrod exits via a slot cut in the
centre of the fuselage join under the
elevator itself. Once you are happy
with the controls, the rear bottom block
can be added and carved to shape.
The ply wing retainer plate can now
be added (internally) as can the wing
underside fairing. Cover the fuselage in
film without the tail or fin in place, didn't glue the lead in place so that I
cutting the slots out again afterwards. can fly either power or slope. your model, the cure is to warp in some
The tail and fin are epoxied in place extra washout or reduce elevator
when the covering is finished; it looks Power... movement. In a strong enough wind
much neater that way - don't forget to The power model needs a healthy the extra weight of the motor and
cover the wing fairing. All the trim I motor run and a firm push into wind ballast does make the power job into a
used on my model was film and there to take off. The elevator doesn't have a faster sloper.
are many schemes available, so make lot of effect till flying speed has built There is a shorter wing version of
it bright. I used silver film on the up. I hold the model just behind the both models. I haven't tried this but it
canopy and airbrushed the shadow trailing edge to launch. Once in the air would work out at 28" span and should
lines. The canopy is held in place by a the model is fast and aerobatic and be appreciably quicker in all respects.
small elastic band between the pins this is where the bright colour scheme Unlike most powered gliders, this
shown on the plan and small scraps of comes in useful - it stops your losing one stays pretty clean under power
thin ply to stop it moving about. The sight of the thing! It will do all the with the rear mounted motor blowing
Rx and battery are held in place by aileron/elevator maneuvers I can think the majority of the gunge clear of the
putting them in foam rubber blocks, cut of but the tank and lifting section plane. If it's too windy to fly power,
to fit the fuselage or canopy. I used a wing make prolonged inverted flight just take it to the slope. Not enough
225 ma battery but if you are building difficult. wind at the slope? Stick the motor back
the power version then the extra weight on it! It is a handy size for a second
of a 500 ma pack might be useful for .. .or slope? model being small enough to leave in
balance. The slope soarer is about 6oz lighter the car fully assembled. I take mine
than the power job but this still means apart by removing the servo disc from
Flying about 16oz/sq ft so it needs a 20mph the servo before removing the wing.
Now for the best bit, flying it! Check wind to fly well, on our slope at least. I Leaving that little screw out gives a
the control surface throws first, though launch by holding the model just in measure of crash resistance, provided
- they should be about 1/8" in each front of the wing and usually just need that the disc is a tight fit! (A wind of
direction which doesn't sound a lot but to let go. (Our slope site is a 200 ft or about 35-40 mph seems to be about the
certainly has the desired effect. The so sheer cliff). The model performs well limit for the soarer, with the motor and
balance point should be l" behind the enough for a scale job though it's balance weight as ballast; after that,
leading edge; I know that this looks a somewhat 'draggy' and loses speed a penetration is zero. Surprisingly, the
long way forward, but the fuselage has bit quickly compared to the 'kippers'. looping performance in this
a lot of effect and things get a bit too Both versions were prone to tip stall in configuration seems to suffer
very hard turns; should this happen to compared to its minimum weight
condition.)
April 1986