Identify this Plane!

[Sawdust]

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?

3467 3468
Thanks so much for any help!

Steve

[rwanttaja]

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

[Sawdust]

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.

[Sawdust]

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?

[Sawdust]

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/jungster1sketch.jpg

[rwanttaja]

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/jungster1sketch.jpg

Oh, yes, you got it all right. Good catch!

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

[Victor Bravo]

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 :)

[eiclan]

with that very flat wind screen station maybe a boredom fighter?

[Richard Warner]

The Spezio Tuholer has a steel tube fuselage, Ron.