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Need some help EAA'ers. This project was started years ago by a man no longer with us. A friend of mine is trying to help identify what it is. My first guess was a Stits Playboy, but I'm no expert. Can anyone identify it by the gear structure, spar attach fittings, etc?
Attachment 3467 Attachment 3468
Thanks so much for any help!
Steve
If you've got shots of the vertical stabilizer, tail feathers, or wings, please post. The gear doesn't look right for a Stits, plus IIRC Stits airplanes had welded steel fuselages. It's obviously a strut-braced wing, though.
Edit: Durn, that's a weird one. Obviously an externally braced wing (obviously not cantilever) but no structure on the fuselage for a strut nor brace below for wires. I'm thinking biplane, maybe, but there' s no obvious connection point for a set of cabane struts. The gear looks like that of a Baby Great Lakes, but that fixed root area for the wing isn't right.
Edit 2: Spezio Tuholer fits a lot of the details, but the plane doesn't look like a two-seater....
Ron Wanttaja
Unfortunately these are all I have in the way of pictures. I agree about the fuse structure - as I searched more I see the Stits Playboy fuselage was steel tube. I did however, find this gear structure on some versions of the Playboy. It ends up covered by the fuselage belly skin down to the top of those springs . Looks like some Playboys had this type of gear structure, but most have a spring steel gear.
@rwanttaja, I have to say, I have been a huge fan, and reader of your writings for a long time. Your writings are what really got me engaged and interested in homebuilts (I think it started with rec.aviation.homebuilt, but I don't remember for sure). I do remember how frustrated I was when you went "off the air" for a while. Anyway, thanks for replying to my post, it made me smile.
Some of the wire braced planes had the wire attached to the center of the wheel hub, through a hollow tube axle I assume? Maybe that's how it's braced?
I think it's a Jungster 1 biplane (thanks to a tip on another forum I posted in).
Gear assembly matches, the length of the wing center section, turtle deck shape, even the fuse structural framing and wing attach brackets match.
http://www.geocities.ws/jungsterbipe/jungsterspecs.htm
http://www.geocities.ws/jungsterbipe...ter1sketch.jpg
Oh, yes, you got it all right. Good catch!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sawdust
Nice to hear from a former RAH'er. Didn't Ed Sullivan (the non-dead one) have a Jungster?
As far as bracing to the center of the wheel hub, sure, some planes do (like the Fly Baby). But it doesn't work if the gear has a shock-absorbing system like bungees.
Ron Wanttaja
If it has lower spar stubs that stick out that far from the fuselage, then that kinda steers me towards assuming it is a biplane. Several biplanes had this system, and I believe it is not very common at all to have spar stubs like that on a monoplane. If you look closely, the forward metal spar fittings at the fuselage side looks like it has a tab for flying wires.
IIRC, the Tiger Moth had stub wings so that the upper and lower main wings could be folded rearward. So a smaller replica Moth might have used the same stub wings to be an accurate replica... But the spar fittings in these photos don't look like they would support a rearward folding hinge.
The shape and exposed stringers on the turtledeck seem to support a Jungster, according to my decrepitude and hazy memory.
Glad to see old RAH folks still here too. My scars have almost healed :)
with that very flat wind screen station maybe a boredom fighter?
The Spezio Tuholer has a steel tube fuselage, Ron.