Tim W's Affordaplane.

Hey everyone, this morning I visited Tim W at the airfield. The weather concerned me on the way out. It was a little windy, a bit hazy, and the clouds were quite low. When I got to the airfield, he took me on a tour of his plane, and the build decisions he made.

Welcome to my first impression of the airfield... :-) Poor plane.

My first impression of Tim's plane however, was very good, and it stayed that way. His modification list is quite extensive. The winds were a bit high, so Tim kept his flying to a couple of quick runs down the runway.

Performance wise, with his MZ201 powered Affordaplane, is a mixed bag. The planes level maximum airspeed is in the 65mph range. However the climb performance is disappointing.

Hi Tims plane.

So, what all did tim do? He tried to make the plane easily disassembled. He did something similar to Gent's tail, where the horizontal stablizer can fold. ... except the control horns interfere with the rudder. On the bright side, having a hinge means you can use the pins as a quick removal tool. The main and TE spar are also held on with pins.

The tail originally just had single bracing wires, but Tim saw the leading edge dancing during flight, and he decided they needed some more bracing. While we're on the subject of flying surfaces, he also sealed the elevator and alerion gaps.

I really liked the landing gear. It's fiberglass rod, and beyond providing some shock absorption they are lighter than the per plans landing gear. They also fail progressively on a hard landing. (Tim's turning out to be a good test pilot.) Due to the way they are attached, they are easily replaced.

While we're looking at Tim's planes legs, I'll note that he did not use the solid aluminum round bar to transfer strut load from one side of the plane to the other. He used some flat 2024 plate. You can also see he doubled up the bottom tube. The stock gear were hard enough on the frame to bend it.

The MZ201 he's running is the planes second engine. It was originally on a Kawasaki with a reduction drive. His engine mount is 2" longer than per plans. Despite that, he has 20oz of lead on the tailskid.

I like the prop.

He also ran all cables for the control surfaces. I'm not sure I'd make the same choice, but I have the whole r/c plane thing going for me. But look at those beautiful belcranks. The cables also facilitated the folding tail.

Thank you Tim for letting me look at, and show off your plane.