Just out of curiosity, if I were to decide to tackle a homebuilt design with a welded 4130 steel tube fuselage, what is the most dead simple one out there? What is the Volksplane of welded designs?
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Just out of curiosity, if I were to decide to tackle a homebuilt design with a welded 4130 steel tube fuselage, what is the most dead simple one out there? What is the Volksplane of welded designs?
The Wag-Aero sport trainer.... basically a J-3 replica
I'd say Pober Pixie....
Ron Wanttaja
Don Stewart Headwind. Or any other three longeron "razorback" design.
Take a look at the Legal Eagle family of designs. Everything not essential to flight has been engineered out of the plane. :)
http://eaglexl-58.com
http://www.betterhalfvw.com
My Legal Eagle XL was featured in the January 2013 issue of KitPlanes magazine if you have a copy handy.
There may be less tubing in a three longeron design, but I don't believe it is easier to build. With a traditional four longeron "box", you can build both sides flat on a table or floor, and join them with equal length top/bottom cross members at each station using a simple carpenter's square to keep the sides vertical. With three longerons, you are going to be designing and building a welding jig to keep the upper longeron in the right position. This is a lesson a whole lot of old rubber powered free flight model builders like myself have learned the hard way !
Too much thinking going on.
A three longeron fuse is very simple to build. As far as welding jigs go, all you need are a couple of pieces of plywood:
Attachment 2834
Anyone contemplating building an airplane should be able to build that "jig". ;)