Graham Stanley 3

I've since flown my Gnat. After two less fast throws the third got it away, and it flew very well. Initially, a tad of a handful as the ailerons needs trimming. I forgot to throttle back until reminded, so fast, small, and a bit tricky to hold level. But once I managed to feed in the trim, absolutely lovely. Not for the faint-hearted, as the roll rate lives up to "twinkle" rating! On the next flight I fed in even more exponential, as well as reducing the throws to about 25%. Roll rate them a little less than scale, so will be increased for the next outing

Better battery and of course more thrust if the scales can be trusted. "new" weight down to 583g and thrust up to 470g. The scales might be telling porkies, but I'm more confident it will fly even after adding the covering or paint.

Thanks both. I'm concerned about the weight and (lack) of thrust. I'm measuring about 440g of thrust, 3S set up. I was hoping for more installed thrust, and potentially even more in the air. Time to go an get a fresh battery and retest..

I've built mine with four servos, and kept the control arms inside the fuselage. It's added a little extra weight of course, and I only had 9g servos available for the ailerons. I also decided to make the ailerons a slightly bigger chord, and hope they can be used as effective flaps too. For the finishing.. Clearly film covering a small, curved model when built is a pain, and paint (to a decent standard) adds rather a lot of weight. What do you recommend? The current weight RTS but no covering or paint is 610g.

Hi Dave You are correct, Solarfilm ceased trading a few months ago. However there are other model coverings that can be considered direct replacements, such as Oracover and Oratex. The covering serves two main functions..... To make the cardboard water and fuel proof, and make the model a colour that is pleasant to look at and easy to see in the air. Coverings that use separate adhesive or dope are not suitable, as they add too much weight or alter the characteristics of the cardboard. The cardboard we used was chosen as the best combination of bounce-ability and lowest weight. For best appearance the covering is only stuck on the edges / corners of our models, and shrunk tight with an iron or hot air gun without pressure on the flat portions of the cardboard. Trying to make it stick to all of the flat panels spoils the appearance and reduces the strength of the cardboard , as it doesn't stay flat when exposed to too much heat. Extra heat on the cardboard can be used to change the shape to good effect, i.e. make trailing edges more streamlined can be done with a hot iron and perhaps a little PVA. To get the same profile with wood it would have to be sanded, and a thin balsa trailing edge is not as robust as an ironed card one (when using our corrugated card). The card we specified was craft paper both sides, "B" flute normal corrugated between.

We also added veneer to the leading edge D foam, not for structural strength but for cosmetics and to make it easier to cover. Solarfilm was best, the extra weight of Solartex wasn’t worth it. I thought the Solartex versions didn’t fly as well. Weight of surface finish?

Hi Dave. I agree with your comments. On the Craftsman instructions (link above) there are a number of illustrations showing exactly how we added local bits of spruce and ply where needed.

Sorry I can’t remember the all up weight. 6 lb rings a bell, but that sounds a lot for an aircraft with such a good low speed flight capability. We did fit anApprentice with a 20 size four stroke. It was exceedingly economical, but very marginal on take off. I recall it flying for an hour on 6ounces of fuel.

Instructions for the Craftsman can be seen here - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zeryw3Xjkx-8wQ1T6N-T8POlZLnuUpIW4rVVWIdh6N8/edit?usp=sharing

I can dig out a copy of the instructions for you. That is a Craftsman 60 Mk2, which has veneered leading edge D section and Spruce spars. You will need PVA glue, Solarfilm or equivalent heat shrink glossy film covering and metric ruler. All the (card) parts are identified by their length in millimetres. I will try and remember which moulded cowls fit it too. Power can be anything between a four stroke 40 (scale like flying), two stroke 40 for normal sport flying, upwards. One customer fitted a 90 four stroke, but the model is designed to balance correctly with a 40 two stroke. It may take me a while to dig them out, please send me your email so I can forward copies. Graham Stanley

Re Stanley Model Aircraft.... Sorry to say only I am left, Frank (my dad) passed away several years ago. Between us we designed the Apprentice 60" as a low cost replacement for the "Slim Jim" trainers I was using to teach dad to fly with. It turned out to be a strong model with good flying qualities. We did try a full cardboardboard wing on the early prototypes, but ended up with a foam leading edge to achieve good handling. Early "purist" prototypes had no spars in the wing, but 6mm x 6mm spruce was added very early on after a wing fold at a Sywell public show! We had some great support from the press, and David Boddington was especially supportive.. The Craftsman 60" followed on, styled on the 1930 style races, later versions having a vac formed cowl. Sadly we didn't market it widely enough to support the volumes needed for the cardboard manufacturing process, batch sizes in the 1,000s being needed. The cardboard was made specially for us, with smooth (craft) paper both sides. The USAF club based at Upper Heyford mandated the Apprentice as their beginners model. I remember Major Hanover ordering a lower rank to buy one at a show!