Lanzo's record breaker

[weathervane]

Well a long time ago, a good friend gave me a bunch of things before he moved. One of the things was an old Lanzo's record breaker. This plane was built about 50 years ago. (I am fairly sure.) It needs a lot of help. One half of the wing needs some epoxy and reworking. The tail needs a little help as well. The fuse is in pretty good shape. So most of the work will be repairing the wing and tail feathers. I will be pulling off the old silk and dope covering. After all of the structural repairs are done it will be posted in the night flyer fourm. OH yea, it's going to be a night flyer. I see about 950 LED's in this thing when I'm done. So for now, I have an older vintage classic plane to work on for my winter project.
Pics to be posted soon.
-Andrew

[Leadchucker]

Great flying lumberyard...err...I mean airplane, I had a couple of them both R/C and free flight. A few photos of my free flight O&R powered LRB at the 1975 SAM Nats. Sorry about the quality as they are scans from December 1975 R/C Modeler Magazine. Sheesh I was skinny.

[firemanbill]

Is that what Luke had at EOT?

[weathervane]

No, his is a close cousin. His is a Lanzo Bomber. ( I think) They look a lot alike with the same basic design.
-Andrew

Originally Posted by firemanbill

Is that what Luke had at EOT?

[firemanbill]

It does look very similar but I think you are right.

[weathervane]

Just a few pics of what I am working with.
-Andrew

[Leadchucker]

Originally Posted by weathervane

Just a few pics of what I am working with.
-Andrew

Good luck!! The whole tail assembly looks a bit off somehow,especially the vertical stabilizer. Maybe it's the rather odd way the movable flight surfaces were cut in. Waiting for more restoration and then flight photos

[weathervane]

I have a full set of plans for it as well. I will double check with them. And you are right. The vertical tail does not fit the plans. It is way small. I guess I will be building a new tail section.
Good catch.
-Andrew

[Leadchucker]

If I might make a suggestion. I'd glue that trailing edge "elevators" on the horizontal stab, then split the stab at the main spar by doubling it up to make elevators. The LRB is very stable and flys at about 10 mph in the glide,if that. I can't imagine those little elevators having much authority,but then again you really don't use them the same as a sport plane. I added a photo of a old timer horizontal stab I built for example. Ths free flight stab had a single piece of 1/4" x 1/2" for the spar,I just added another to match then built from there and TADA!!! One set of elevators.

[weathervane]

OOOoooo that looks nice. You do nice work. I am thinking about building a complete new tail for it. The closer I look the more I find wrong. It looks to have been crashed and rebuilt. (badly) So I will have to get some supplys to build a new tail.
-Andrew

[Leadchucker]

A couple more things at the risk of being thought overly chatty .
If you're not familiar with the old free flights you might find some things a bit odd. Balance or CG on the LRB is not at the "normal" location. You want her to balance around 60% or even a bit farther back. The lifting stab of around 600 sq.in. does a lot of work back there carrying part of the weight of the aircraft.
The old timers as we call them now were the state of the art competition models in the 1930s and 40s and set many design standards still used in free flight today. Lifting stabs were used in connection with the short noses to help control looping in the climb. The stab was also used to get some free lifting area as they were not counted in the wing area. Lifting stabs were and still are restricted to 50% of the total wing area.

The LRB was a duration and weight/duration World Champ back in the 1930s. She won the Scripps-Howard contest for lifting the greatest weight and then remained in the air for the greatest length of time. At another contest with a engine run of 21 seconds, the plane remained aloft for 25 minutes. She backed this up with another flight with an engine run of 25 seconds and completed a flight of two hours covering a distance of 25 miles, and established a new world record.

I found the wing likes about an 1/8" shim under the front to flatten out the glide with the Grant X (or X-10 depending on who you talk to) airfoil. You can move bit the wing fore and aft on the cabane runners for minor CG adjustments.

[weathervane]

Ok, great to know about the CG. I will take all the info you want to share.
-Andrew

[aeronca52]

If I may jump in here....I have a Lanzo Bomber and the flying surfaces are almost if not identical to the LRB. My Bomber has only one movable elevator and it is on the right side. It flies just the same. No difference if it had both sides movable. Might make building your new tail a little easier.

The Lanzo's are very similar but the RB has the wing held on with a wire cabane structure and the Bomber has a built up pylon.

Love what you are doing here. I would much rather restore an old model than build new. At swap meets I always buy the old clunkers for $10 or so and fix them up. The storage unit still has 3 or 4 pre WWII models waiting to take flight again, including 2 original designs from friends of my father who used to fly with us.

Who has more fun than airplane modelers!

[Leadchucker]

You can see the single elevator installation on my Gilbert Shuman Rambler. As mentioned, you can't tell the difference

[weathervane]

I had a plane like that (one with only half an elevator) a long time ago. I was holding it for a friend.
I think I will stick to the plans and build a full elev. The plans call for 1/16 balsa, it seems reall thin so I went with 3/32. I don't think it will add that much weight to make a difference.
-Andrew
Just a question, what size motors did they run on these planes? My first guess would be a 60 size.

[aeronca52]

Well, If you are just using a strip elevator of all sheet then that would be easy to make. I thought you were going to cut ribs apart and make a big modification.
As far as what size motor, yes they used to use .60 size but remember back then those .60's only had the power of today's .29. (or thereabouts)

[weathervane]

Yes, I am going to build a new tail for it. The plans call for the ribs to be cut from 1/16th balsa. I'm going to cut mine from 3/32nd. The 1/16 just looked very flimsy.
-Andrew

[Leadchucker]

The plans show a Brown Jr. .60 which was rated at 1/5 HP and they were made in Philadelphia. It would turn a 14 x 6 prop at around 4800 rpm on gasoline and 70 wt. oil.
They sounded like this:

Wahl Brown Jr on Vimeo

[weathervane]

Ok I have started. No turning back now. I did a rough cut of my ribs. I need to sand them down and cut all the notches yet. I also cut them from 1/16 like the plans called for. I do not have enough of the 3/32 balsa.

Thats great about the motor. I want to put a vintage motor on this plane, BUT I want to run an electric motor for power. The idea is to run a shaft through the old motors case from behind. I want to hide the electric motor in the nose of the fuse.

-Andrew

[Leadchucker]

Originally Posted by weathervane

Thats great about the motor. I want to put a vintage motor on this plane, BUT I want to run an electric motor for power. The idea is to run a shaft through the old motors case from behind. I want to hide the electric motor in the nose of the fuse.

Check my Miss Delaware thread down the page a bit then. She's set up to run either an ignition engine or an electric motor with switchable power pods. The electric version has a fake Brown Jr-ish looking wood engine over the motor that I cobbled up in the shop.

http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57167

Edit: Sorry if this sounded as though I am beating my own drum,it was not the intent. It's just that I did the same thing you were thinking about doing and I thought you could see one option that I came up with.

[weathervane]

OH man does that look good. I like it a lot. A WHOLE lot. I just might have to build one. It would be easyer than doing the shaft through the old timer idea.
-Andrew