Here is a Q-tee that I built converted to e-flight. Twin GWS 4.8 motor. 1200 etec lipos. Covering is tissue and dope. Weight is 9 oz. ready to fly and fly it does. A Q-tee was my very first RC model 22 years ago. My 12 year old son is flying this one now.

Jim

That takes me back. Flew them with Cox .049 engines. No throttle or engine cut-off. More than a few sore necks from those airplanes.

Hi Jim

Lovely model! Long for when I can have a workshop off the house, my wife's badly allergic to dope smells, but one day I'll be able to cover models properly again! (Funnily enough, housepaint seems to have no effect on her )

Isn't that design still around as a kit or part kit ? "Dream Catcher Hobbies" rings a bell. The plan must still be around - RCM?. I might even have the mag article somewhere in my 'library".

Maybe it's time to upgrade this old classic with an electric specific version? Yes, I know about the SR Batteries 'look something like', but the original has a certain something about it.

Regards

Dereck

I think www.dchobby.com makes 2 versions of the Q-Tee, one for 1/2A power and a slightly lighter one for electric.

Originally Posted by Dereck

Hi Jim
Isn't that design still around as a kit or part kit ? "Dream Catcher Hobbies" rings a bell. The plan must still be around - RCM?. I might even have the mag article somewhere in my 'library".

Maybe it's time to upgrade this old classic with an electric specific version? Yes, I know about the SR Batteries 'look something like', but the original has a certain something about it.

Regards

Dereck

I was not aware of a kit anywhere of the Q-tee. I knew of the SR version but like you said there is nothing like an original. I have had an original kit for years still in the box. I just copied the part to preserve the kit. This one is my third Q-tee. My first was 22 years ago. Black widow .049 for power. I cannot count how many times I had crashed it. But it got me started on the road to RC. My second was about twelve years ago. Same Black widow for power, but I was playing with the Cox sleeve throttle. It would work but not very well. Then Norvell came out with the throttled 049. Wow that was the ticket. I could taxi with the big boys. This plane is pefect for e-flight. It would make a good trainer with a covering that is a little stronger. I still like covering with tissue though. Just something about it that makes a model.

Jim

Ask - and it shall be Googled

http://www.dchobby.com/electric/q-teee/qteee.html

Or in the really a lot closer to original :

http://www.dchobby.com/powered/qtee/qtee.html

Or real close to the original, for those who know which is the best end of a balsa knife to hold :
http://www.rcmmagazine.com/e/env/000...m=plans:PL-625

Which translates to RCM plan # 625

DCH seem to be updating their website, so must assume they are in business. The glow version must be closest to the origial plan

The Dream Catcher version of the regular Q-Tee is VERY close to the original, but in the kit I had for a time, made from better wood. The RCM plan Dereck notes is the exact plan for which the original Airtronics kit was made.

WOW!!!! This was my first RC airplane - smashed it into a million bits on the first flight. Great links on the new laser cut kits!

Jim - thanks for sharing your awesome model and the nostalgia!

Mike

The Q-Tee was a great airplane. I built five of them in 1977 for friends and roommates. We used to get together and fly combat with them...no streamers for us...we were out for blood.

The goal was to knock the other Q-Tee's wing off. They were tough planes even coming straight down with no wing and the black widow screaming.

One of those 1977 airplanes is still flying and I still have another wing from one of the others.

Mike

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I love hearing from everyone with thier stories on the Q-tee. Keep them coming.

Jim

This is my Q-tee. I built it in 1979, it was my second R/C plane and the one I learned to fly with. I had no help and the cabanes had to be repaired many a time. It was quite rugged otherwise. It even survived a 70 foot nose dive with no wing attached (too few rubber bands). It flew again with no needed repairs that time. After I could actually fly without crashing I modified it to a shoulder wing with ailerons and it flew very nicely. I later built an S-Tee and then an S-tee modified to a low wing with trike gear and an OS 10. I have a Dream Catcher kit of the Q-Tee and intend to build it as an electric someday.
Dave Chewning Sr.

Trouble with having too much stuff is that sooner or later, you become temporarily unsure of said stuff's location.

About a lot of years BE (Before E-power), in fact so far back I was still living in Scotland (The RAF gave me a seven year sentence for escaping flight training ), I built a small biplane. It was one of zillions designed, published in magazines and even kitted - sometimes even test-flown - by Dave Boddington. However, halfway through building it, I converted it from a full depth cabin fuselage to a regular cabane type fuselage.

Sometime after building it, I broke the bottom wing when my flying skills came up inadequate to getting my donkey out the mangle when my enthusiasm led me to need greater skills than I had.

Anyway, the rest was okay, so I rubber banded the radio gear into place - the job previously held by the recently departed bottom wing - and slung her off.

To find that she flew far better as a single winged parasol than she ever did as a bipe. The following week, I'd built a radio hatch and she took to life as a parasol very well indeed.

I later rebuilt the wing and would swap her between parasol and bipe in the same flying session with great results as both.

The same couldn't be said when I flew her as a twin though ...

I'd loved to have sent D Bodgers a photo of her in both guises. He openly preferred that if you built his designs, you used the same colour scheme as he had and was immensely scathing about people doing dastardly things to his designs, like changing a fin shape. I'd loved to have heard his thoughts on his cabin bipe to a parasol monoplane

Anyway, there is a point to all this. Looking at the shots of this great little model brought back long dormant memories of that little bipe / parasol / twin of mine - has to be around 1981 - 83. A parasol is a cute idea, nearly as personable as a biplane but a whole lot less hassle to deal with all round, and this little fella is a pinnacle of the breed. Looking forward to it maybe catching on again, but quietly>

If anyone's got any spare paper prints of their electric Q-Tee's, do the world a great favour and send them to RCM magazine, as they published the design originally. That mag actually has a fair bit of e-coverage these days (between the ads ) and a E-Q-Tee should do a little to expand on that.

Thanks to all for sharing their shots of this delightful little model

Regards

Dereck

Built four Q Tee's myself and a couple of the S Tee's (shoulder wing, no cabanes)

Transparent Orange Solarfilm , Cox 049 sticker on the side and a cannon "brick " flight pack (rx,servos all integrated)

You remember the Bantam Midget servos?

Here's my modified S-tee, circa early 1980s.

I had a 150% scale QT. Span 54'' I guess. I bought it at a swap meet in Detroit in 1993.

It started off with an OS20FP and worked its way up to an OS 40 FS. Had a total of seven engines in it ! It flew well because it was so light, I guess.

After about 250 flights I stuffed it in during a gale. I repaired the damage, cut off the struts, mounted the wing on top of the fuselage and added ailerons. It went on to fly another 400 flights.

It would do the flattest spins I ever saw. I was even dared to fly up through the cloud base, count to 30 and spin it out. No problem.

It met its end when I dropped it on the marble floor in my hallway. I guess the monokote and the epoxy had turned to glass as the thing just shattered into a thousand pieces. I have never seen anything like that before or after.

I have a copy of the original article somewhere and want to build another 150% one with brushless and Lipolys one day.