EASTWIND II This is an easily built and flown electric twin designed to use inexpensive 05 motors and the master airscrew 3:1 gearbox. It is the second electric twin I've built and flown this year, the major difference between the two being size and the use of geared motors instead of direct drive. Construction uses 1/4 sq. balsa extensively, along with 7 sheets of 1/16*4*48 balsa. Also you'll need some 1/8th aircraft ply, one sheet of 1/4 *3 sheet balsa, and a couple of pieces of 1/4 sq. spruce. I used regular balsa and ended with a 6 lb airplane which flies very well and easily on the cheap car motors. Using contest grade wood, the weight could be dropped as much as 6-8 oz. I have a lot of time on this airframe and have used it occasionally to carry a 35 mm camera. It carries the extra 3/4 lb of the camera, mount, and servo with ease. In fact you'd hardly know it's there. I later installed two astro geared 05 motors along with an additional four cells, taking it's weight to just over 7 lbs. It now will climb at about a 70 degree angle from takeoff until the battery dies. It has no apparent vices, flies very very slowly when you ask it to...lands easily and has scale speed at about half throttle. Flight times are 6 minutes with either motor setup, 1700 cells with the astros, and 1400 cells with the 05's. The whole front top of the fuselages comes off for easy battery removal, changing, or charging. The radio receiver is installed on the fuselage floor behind the wing saddle, and the servos right at the rear of the radio compartment. There is ample room for all standard components and either the 16 cell or 20 cell packs. The wing is easily built by printing out the airfoil section, cutting enough slightly oversized blanks, stacking them, gluing the corners sparingly with ca, and taping the printed airfoil to the stack. Cut carefully with a dremel on the inside airfoil line. Cut to size the rear bottom sheeting and pin it to the plans. Do the same with the front sheeting. Place all capstrips on the bottom at this time, as well as the centre wing sheeting. Now place the bottom spar, ribs and top spar. Use a wax paper covered section of your aileron stock to slightly raise the leading edge sheeting to meet the airfoil curve. Slightly bevel the leading edge stock so that it fits the curve of the front sheeting and glue in place. This, along with the extra front sheeting will be carved away when the wing is removed from the board. Don't forget or omit the 1/16th sheer webbing. This airfoil is a bit thinner than some at 10 percent and should have the webbing. Install the top front and rear sheeting. NOTE THAT YOU MUST INSTALL THE WIRING HARNESS BEFORE SHEETING THE WING CENTRE SECTION. Before sheeting use masking tape to mark the positive and negative leads coming from the wing bottom for both the motors and the battery connector. It'll save confusion when soldering the motors in later on. See the plan for wiring. Print out the nacelle section, and cut four blanks, using the printout to cut out the nacelle sides. Use 1/16th cross grain sheeting to double the thickness to 1/8th. This is sufficient for an electric installation. For glow use 3/16th sheet might be preferable, along with the obligatory 1/4 ply firewall. Use some triangle stock along the nacelle tops to allow some carving to match the spinners. make up four motor mounts by gluing together pieces of 1/4 inch spruce so that the mount is doubled to about 1/2 inch rear of where the motor will sit. Drill holes here for appropriate tie wraps to hold the motors in place. Now glue the motor mounts to the nacelle sides. I used ca for all construction in this plane, both thin and thick. Install the nacelle sides on the wing, careful lining up 90 degrees to the leading edge. Remember you don't need any side thrust in an electric, 'cause you're not going to have any flameouts. Right? Use 1/4 sq balsa pieces to frame up the nacelles. Carve the front sections to match the spinners, after sheeting the tops with 1/8th balsa. Note that the nacelle bottoms are left open to allow motor cooling. This is very effective. I can fly both twins back to back for several flights and barely feel any heat in the motors. Heat doesn't bother the astro motors, but over time tends to weaken the 05 ferrites. The Fuselage is an easy build as well. Print out the 1/4 balsa sheet "keel" which is designed to carry the load of both the wheels and the battery pack, yet keep weight to a minimum. It seems to work, as I have never had any breakage in this model, despite some harder than planned landings. Cut these pieces from 1/4 sheet balsa. Build up both sides using 1/4 sq. balsa. Both sides are then sheeted to just aft of the wing saddle using 1/16th sheet. This is not really necessary but I like to have something to grab omto when I pick the model up by the fuselage. Glue 1/4 in sq. spruce rails along the bottom insides of the "keel" area to support the landing gear plate and the battery plate. Two cross formers of 1/4 spruce should be used at the landing gear location. Join the sides over the plan top view using 1/4 sq. balsa and the 1/8th aircraft ply front wing hold down. I used two pieces of 1/4 inch behind the hold down for a bit more security. Place appropriate size pieces of 1/4 sq. between the fuse sides as they taper together front and rear. A piece of 1/4 sheet is used to pull the nose together, along with a soft balsa block which is carved to shape. The bottom of the fuse is sheeted with 1/16th balsa with the grain running from side to side. The top rear is not sheeted. I cut an air cooling inlet through the bottom of the nose block to provide some cooling air over the speed controller which resides right up in the nose, and an exit hole was cut in the bottom sheeting about 4 inches or so back of the wing saddle. Remember, your receiver sits about there, so cut this hole back far enough so you have room to mount the receiver. The whole front top of the fuselage is designed to come off to allow battery placement. The hatch is built up of 1/4 sheet, with 1/4 square sides. I had to use another section of sheet on the hatch top to fair it into the front of the wing, carving it to shape. After fitting the stab and fin, 1/4 capstrips are used along the sides and centre of the fuselage to bring it level with the sheeted front section for covering. Use hardwood blocks for the rear wing hold downs and after drilling and tapping these install and align the wing. Use the wing as an aid in aligning the fin and stab. The stab and fin are built using the appropriate 1/4 inch sheet and 1/4 sq balsa. The battery is held in place by velcro and is mounted on a plate made of two layers of 1/16th balsa, joined cross grained. Smooth some thick ca on the upper layer to give the velcro stickum some place to grab. The plate is fastened to the 1/4 sq. spruce rails with small screws. The plane is balanced at 25 percent of the constand chord wing. Battery placement is just as shown on the plans, but this is one of the neat things about some electrics...the battery can be moved forward or aft to balance the ship. I test flew this plane using it's original motor configuration, two 18 turn mild modified car motors and master airscrew 3:1 gearboxes. Props were 10/8 on 16 cells turning 7800 rpm. I changed to 9/8 props a bit later and found them to work well also. Amp draw with both was about 25. Lift off occurs easily in 30-40 feet from our grass field and flights on this setup with 1400 cells were an easy 6 minutes. On two occasions I got nine minutes by simply loitering at altitude, but this was rather boring flying. As soon as any throttle is applied, this plane likes to point it's nose right into the wind, typical of a lot of taildraggers. As soon as the tail feathers get some airflow however, it starts to track straight. You can make repeated touch and goes in crosswind conditions and never see the swing into the wind tendency until you actually stop it, at which time it will turn it's nose in whatever direction the wind is blowing. I later changed to astro geared 05 motors and added four more cells, bringing the weight to just over 7 lbs. With 10/8 props turning 8500 the plane is much more aggressive, but still lands slowly and easily. Stalls are straight forward with just a slight nose drop. The sound of electric twins is unique. You can plainly hear the prop noise, especially through a steep turn. The sound is very scale like. I am still flying the smaller original version of this plan, with two 05 car motors direct drive on 12 cells. This little 48 inch span plane is very aggressive and gives me repeated 6 minute flights. Once this summer during our fun fly, I dumped it attempting a limbo pass. When I picked up the pieces I thought it was a write off, but a quick look saw the breaks were clean, and in the absence of any fuel soaking, easily fixed. In fact I went to my home a short distance away, got out the ca and was back within the hour, flying it again. A word about electric motor wear. I've found that there is virtually no wear, certainly not what I was used to while racing elecric cars, on the ferrite 05 motors. I have 176 flights on the direct drive twin at this time and the brushes are hardly broken in. This much time in a racing scenerio would have seen the motors chucked a long while ago. If you decide to do something with this plan, and have any questions, please feel free to contact me at nstn1183@fox.nstn.ca. This plan is freeware. Should you make any changes or improvements I'd appreciate any comments. cheers Al Eastman