Introduction

In early 1998 the Blue Foamie was introduced at the Ft. Wayne (Indiana, USA) Freeze Fly. Pat Mattes, the designer, was after a low cost, low emotional investment aircraft that would let people try their hand at electric flight. Of course the plane should also build quickly and fly well. There’s a "rule of thumb" in engineering circles that says "Quick. Reliable. Inexpensive. Pick any two." So much for rules of thumb, the Blue Foamie delivers on all three!

Kit Contents

Photo #1.  Kit Contents

Photo #1 shows what comes out of the box when you open the kit. It’s quite complete, right down to the push rods and the control horns. You need to supply two mini servos, a Speed 400 motor, receiver, speed control, prop, and battery pack. The finishing materials consist of a little epoxy or foam safe glue and some wide packing tape. Trim sheets to add a splash of color are optional.

Whats included:

• Two 18" wing panels, blue foam, pre-notched, pre-bevelled
• Two 18" balsa spars
• One 23" long fuselage, blue foam, pre-notched (including scrap "U"
• channel piece for under tail, for servo mounting, etc)
• Stabilizer and Elevator
• Fin and Rudder
• Square stock reinforcement for Tail
• Two dowels
• Two control wires
• Elevator/Rudder horns and hardware
• Wing incidence block (cut from wing core beds)
• Trailing edge protector

Construction

The plane goes together quickly. Pat says he can whip one together in under half an hour now that he’s built a few. First time builders will probably need an hour or so. In my case almost exactly one and a half hours elapsed from the time I took the parts out of the box until it was geared up and ready to fly. I’m not really that slow, I had recently "organized" my shop area and couldn’t find things!

Wing construction is quick and easy. The wing core comes with the spar slot cut and the proper dihederal cut into the wing tips. First, you glue the balsa spar into the slot. I used regular yellow carpenter’s glue because it was handy. Next, you line up the wing panels and tape them in place. That’s right, no glue at the joints. I used more tape to reinforce the leading and trailing edges. This isn’t necessary for flying but it really helps avoid hangar rash. Finally, a piece of the core bed is cut and taped to the bottom of the wing to set the proper incidence and a small balsa piece is taped on the top at the trailing edge. This piece protects the edges from being damaged by the rubber bands.

Photo 2.  Completed wing

Set the wing aside and go on to the fuse. The tail pieces come precut. I didn’t sand or shape anything, just hinged them with the packing tape per the instructions. Before gluing the tail pieces together the supplied control horns were mounted. Next I used a little thick CA to attach the vertical to the horizontal and the tail is essentially complete. I attached it to the rear of the fuse with a little foam friendly CA.

The motor is held in place by positioning it in the U-shaped channel and wrapping the nose with packing tape. If you wrap it tight enough the foam is compressed around the motor. No other mounting is required.

I deviated from the instructions slightly when mounting my servos (Don’t you just hate it when reviewers do that?) Pat says you can tape or glue them in place. Instead I glued two pieces of 1/4 by 1/8 scrap across the fuse and mounted the servos with screws. My main reason for this transgression was that I’m short on servos right now and wanted to be able to swap them in and out easily.

The U-shaped channel in the foam is just the right size to hold a battery pack underneath the wing. Once the wing is rubber banded in place the battery is held securely and you’re ready to go flying.

In addition to the items supplied in the kit my Blue Foamie is fitted with two Hitec HS-80 servos, an FMA Micro-2000 receiver, Lofty Pursuits LPSC-Mini ESC, 6 volt Speed 400 Motor, 7-cell 500AR pack and a 6x4 Grish Tornado prop. My digital scale claims a ready to fly weight of 15.4 ounces.

Flying

Okay, so it builds quick and costs next to nothing. How does it fly? Very well, thank you. The plane will never win any beauty contests but it’ll do any two channel maneuver you want. I find myself flying lower and trying things I might not do with a plane I’ve spent days or weeks building. It’s very easy to repair. I’ve bashed mine up a couple of times and the repairs typically involve the application of more tape!

Recommendation

I can see a lot of uses for the Blue Foamie beyond it’s original mission. Electric combat has been tried by Pat and his friends. It would be a blast for one design pylon racing too. Of course, you could always just keep one around to fly while the batteries in your "other" plane are charging. One thing I am sure of--you probably won’t have much more fun for under $20 and an hours work than you will by adding this little plane to your squadron.

Blue Foamie is $15.00, shipping included in the US.  Kits can be obtained by mailing a check for $15.00 to:

Pat Mattes
9732 Lafayette Center Road
Yoder, IN 46798