Josh bought an imported kit of the Yashinskiy F1N earlier this year after Bill Gowen imported several of them. This design has absolutely dominated the Eastern European F1N (indoor hand launched glider) for the past few years, and for good reason. The fuselage alone is enough to make them desirable. It’s incredibly stiff but only weighs 1.3g. Mikhail makes these himself.

Here are the plans:

And here’s what you get in the kit (yes, pre-assembled, pre tapered wing panels–you only need to sand the leading edge profile!):

And some views of the finished model:

Complete build video:

Flight footage:

An interesting launch technique:

J&H Aerospace now produces a domestically available glider similar to this model, the Super Cat’s Meow.

This model is sort of an obsession for me (Josh). I don’t know why. I built my first one at age 13 and couldn’t get it to fly. In hindsight, the CG was too far aft. I ended up making a new longer fuse for it and it flitted about nicely for 20-30 seconds. Not bad for someone with zero mentoring and a cobbled together prop. Oh, and wood sizes double what is shown on the plan because finding 1/64″ balsa was impossible for me at the time.

I built a new one around 2012 using balsa given to me by Steve Fauble of Texas. This gift also contained the balsa which was used in my Last Best Hope Mk.III F1D which nabbed my first AMA national record in February 2014. You can now purchase the necessary wood from specializedbalsa.com. They’re great folks and will hook you up with very sizeable sheets of 1/64″ light balsa for a surprisingly low cost compared to the indoor wood suppliers.

Anyway, here’s the plan, resurfaced through a great deal of searching as it isn’t available at any of the usual sources. I originally got it from David “Dannysoar” Dodge’s Twin Pushers and Other Free Flight Oddities website, now long since defunct.

 

David has vanished from the internet. I wonder what became of him. I blame him for my first exposure to Class A ROG Stick, now known more commonly as AROG. It is the oldest aviation competition class in the world which still uses the original rules (commonly called Baby ROG back in the day). I have plans for models as early as 1932 which would not only be legal today, but competitive. Several designs as early as 1928 are available, but probably wouldn’t be able to compete effectively against today’s models. More on this in the future…

Anyway, scale the model so that the page outline is 8 1/2″x11″ and you’ll have roughly the original size of the model. It uses a lot of dihedral, and the center cutout is a nifty trick for getting it correct. My model has a very high pitched prop, about 2:1 P/D, and this seems fine. It’s very stable and flies shockingly well–over 2 minutes under a 30′ ceiling. Forget thrustline adjustments…and that’s ok. Bending the tail surfaces seems to be sufficient.

In case you needed any more motivation, here’s a video of it flying along with another excellent Baby ROG, the Clearfield:

I obtained plans for the Clearfield from Vance Gilbert after seeing a video of him flying one. Here are his remarks from July 2015:

“Hey Doc,

My Clearfield is built almost exactly per the plans save for my own design hooks and a wire thrust bearing in lieu of a sheet metal one. I doubt those things change its performance one bit. It’s a solid plane, if a bit quirky. The plans suggest 3 minute potential, a mighty feat in those days, and ironically a mark I personally haven’t hit. It’s a good model. Let us know if you build one.

By the way, here’s Vance’s rendition:

Bonus: Pete Andrews’ 1932 Senior record AROG which flew 6:36. Tissue covered at that!

Bonus #2! Garami also published the incredibly cute Phone Booth Special. I’ve built two of these, and still have the first one which was covered in condenser paper and flew a good 3+ minutes. I also built a lighter one covered in microfilm. It’s long since gone for obvious reasons but was a truly amazing flier.