Following the demise of Youngleccy's Protech Ultimate last weekend- short story, the model got jumped on after one too many gentle arrivals broke it's back for the umpteenth time - we were left with a spare Typhoon Micro 6 3D motor, LiPo pack and CC Phoenix 10 temporarily without a home.

Rather than breaking out the depron and running up another foamy a chance remark about a little model that I built years ago and flew with a Cox .049 Baby Bee engine led to pulling the oily, dusty airframe from the hook on the wall.

Little Mo was a free plan that was provided with RCM&E magazine years ago. At the time I had a spare .049 lying around and built one of these in a couple of evenings. I was impressed by the very strong, light construction of the wing and less so with the boxy good looks. However the model was a lot of fun. The climb after handlaunching with the untrottled baby Bee was, shall we say exciting, and my normal flight profile was to just hang on until the fuel ran out and then enjoy some nice aerobatics on the way down.

Last week the plan showed up on eBay and went for £16.00!!! That was an omen and I thought to just bolt the Micro-6 to the nose and be done with it. However I ended up making a new tailplane and fin and recovering the oily fuselage plus installing the electrics.

Here is Little Mo in her original glow powered form. 25" of blue and orange Solarfilm, about a quid's worth of balsa and a few hours building. There is a pair of HS80s in there, a mini receiver, a 250mah receiver pack, Cox .049 with integral tank and a dirty big switch.

THis is Little Mo in here electrified form before the maiden at Shifnal yesterday

Typhoon Micro-6 3D, 3s1P Kokam 1000mah LiPo, 1 HS 80 on ailerons, one Union 9g servo on elevator, Jeti Rex 5 receiver- for the short aerial, Castle Creations Phoenix 10, no dirty big switch, APC-E 6x4" prop. AUW is 11oz, 25" span, 125 sq inches for a wing loading of about 12 oz/sq foot.

You know those reviews where it says "The model needed half-a-click of left trim on the maiden"? Not this baby. I think it was a hundred and seventeen clicks of down and three hundred and five clicks of right to get her to fly anything like straight and level. The maiden was a bit exciting, even after discovering the delights of throttling back.

All in all just as manic as with the .049 under power and just as gentle when power is cut and she's on the glide for landing. Even with about five degreees of downthrust she needs a fair bit of downtrim under power- a real looney tunes ride. I predict a short and eventful life for Little Mo -E.

Thanks to Barney who took some clips of Little Mo in flight yesterday and of which a couple are reproduced below - just to prove that she does actually fly.

Gawds - it's Eric Clutton's dreaded "Sharkface" re-incarnated in modern format!

Ain't you brave!

D

I'll bet you're having fun with this one. It's just about the same size wing as a S400 pylon racer.

D - Brave? Or foolish?

It's just a bit of a laugh. I'll have to look out the original magazine article and try and trace the lineage between "Sharkface" and "Little Mo" - a clubmate made the same remark about the "Sharkface" yesterday.

Greg, I've seen those sp400 pylon racers- my mate Kev has an Adrenaline - and Little Mo is tame by comparison in terms of speed Good fun though and stupidly unstable whilst the power is on.

My old eyes couldn't cope with that sort of tiny, white gel-coated speedy model - notice the brilliantly fluorescent orange covering required for me to even see this one at all- it looks like she's fuelled with plutonium on some shots. It's funny how fast that colour fades, the stuff I took off was a pastel coral pink almost yet it's the same roll of film. I find that with all of the fluorsecents, they fade even with the smallerst amount of sunlight, even here in the land of little sun.

Originally Posted by leccyflyer

.....Greg, I've seen those sp400 pylon racers- my mate Kev has an Adrenaline - and Little Mo is tame by comparison in terms of speed Good fun though and stupidly unstable whilst the power is on.

My old eyes couldn't cope with that sort of tiny, white gel-coated speedy model - notice the brilliantly fluorescent orange covering required for me to even see this one at all- it looks like she's fuelled with plutonium on some shots.....

Ahhhh, all it takes is more practice. Before too long you'll be getting bored and looking for something faster, it happens you know. Look at it this way Brian, this is just the beggining of a new phase in flying styles for you!

Greg "One More Cell" Gallegos


Like this one?

That's the one- quick aren't they? I'm not absolutely sure of the motor Kev has in his, I think it's an MTroniks brushless on a 5x5 prop and a 3s2p 1250 Etec pack. It's certainly the fastest model at our field, but don't tell Kev I said that as its a running joke for us to downplay the speed of Kev's fast models Everyone stops to watch when he flies it and it can be the very divil to keep track of.

The funniest thing was after the maiden, on a 6v Sp400 IIRC, Kev came to take the wing off and couldn't get the long bladed screwdriver onto the wing bolt,so much was he shaking. We all had a laugh at that. The model is the most aptly named I've seen, better than four dopple espressos just watching it, never mind flying it. As you said though, in no time Kev was looking for more speed and upgrading the motor and cells to get it.

I think it's great that different modellers love to fly different types of models, it makes it all the more interesting. These days I'm trending towards bigger models that I can actually see!