My+Puppeteer

I had always fancied a bi-plane and decided to make one during the boring nights while working away back in the early 90’s. I liked the look of the Puppeteer and my Dad had just built one. I decided to be a bit radical in the design and not buy the kit. I used the original planes and mostly used cardboard packing boxes for A4 sheet and file separators instead of balsa. The file separators where used for sheeting and the boxes where used for the wing ribs, wing tips, ailerons, internal formers and other structural parts. Balsa was used for wing spars and rear fuselage. Scrap plywood was used for the front F1 former. Epoxy and PVA was used to fix. The design worked well (a bit heavier than the original) and flew very well. The cost was kept down also by using scrap buggy wheels and an MDS60. Prop was a Master Airscrew 13x8. The aircraft was covered in solartex. Green for the fuz and white opaque for the wings. I used a remote plug at first but had many problems with it. In the end I cut a hole in the top of the cowl and did away with the remote plug.

Extract below for the DMAC web site:-

The Flair //Puppeteer// is a popular sport-scale WWI biplane which captures the character of the Sopwith Pup whilst having very docile flying characteristics. DMAC member Andy Thomson wanted to build one - but since he still had the plan from an earlier kit-built example he decided to build one from 'alternative materials'..... no, not glass, epoxy and kevlar, but cardboard! The forward fuselage and the wings were assembled using cardboard from packaging cartons to make the fuselage box, ribs, capping strips, ailerons, etc., and the fuselage sheeting was cut from file separator cards. Ply was used for the engine bulkhead, and balsa strip for the wing spars and leading and trailing edges. The rear fuselage and tail feathers were built up from balsa, and 'baby buggy' wheels from the local hardware store completed the undercarriage. Although a little heavier than an all-balsa example, the cardboard //Puppeteer// flew very well on an MDS .60 two-stroke engine.

[|Pup_flypast.wmv] [|Pup_landing.wmv]
 * Video of the Pup:-**