It is a long while since I last built something and nothing built this small in R/C so here goes.

A Covid lockdown purchase that I considered retaining as free flight, but then remembered my Kiel Kraft model crashes as a lad and thought I would give it a bit of a chance to last, with some degree of control. Not being doing much R/C flying either, however

The model is the The Vintage Model Companies Sopwith Triplane, 18" originally for free flight. A bit of steal at £34.99 inc UK postage.

It is a slow build, due to time pressures.

It is a laser kit kit, with lovely quality balsa and everything inc glue and tissue to build. The parts are not numbered, but the full sized plans shows all the parts and so easy to locate and mark ready for construction.

It will be rudder and elevator only, thinking that I will use the original hinge locations by splitting them off and using thread to hinge them. Control will be pull-pull with thread.

All the wings are constructed but not put together. This will be done later to minimise the risk of hanger rash. I did not use the supplied white glue, I thought I would be too heavy handed with it, so used Cyno.

I have now started on the fuselage and trying how to configure the 3.7gram servos and RX ahead of the balance point but still allow unobstructed routes for the control threads.

The electrical gear motor, battery, servos, RX and Esc were recommended by RobotBirds.

Looks super! Keep posting progress.

Cheers--Stacker

If it helps, there is a major thread covering the Guillows range of kits that includes build threads for the Fokker Dr.1 Triplane.

Guillow's Conversions - The list of conversion threads.

Scroll down the list of kits to Kit No - 204 There are 9 threads listed.

Should have some useful information if converting to electric power and RC regarding equipment used.

Ray.

This is a fun size to build. Looking forward to watching Daniel

This is cool.
The AP05 motor should be perfect for this size model. I have one and will be watching how yours works out.
What receiver will you use the works reliably on 1S?
IIRC, this one has a really short nose. One suggestion, I would move your servos forward one more bay. Receiver under servos, battery against the firewall and esc above the motor in the cowl.

I want to build the Peter Rake version of this one someday.

..... Sopwith Triplane? This looks interesting, so I'll subscribe. Laramie.

What Glewis said. Remember that dihedral is your friend. The real one had a bit too, so dihedral on your model won’t look as blasphemous as it does on a Dr.1.

I like using pull-pulls for rudder and a carbon rod for elevator on the little stuff I build, but all string will be lighter still. Save all the weight you can out back, of course, and shove everything you can up to (and in front of if possible) the firewall.

Frank Tallman, the Hollywood stunt pilot, has a chapter on the triplane in his book “Flying the Old Planes.” He loved them. You wouldn’t think it’d be a “handles perfectly with no vices” sort of thing to fly, but that’s what Tallman found.

Looking good!
Joe

Hi everyone, thank you for your advice. The servos I am holding onto a bulkhead are about in the position of the marked CoG and I want to create something so they can be mounted in the bay forward of this.
The ESC is tiny and apart from cooling can be mounted on the inside of the firewall. The battery will be in the same bay. It is only a few MM deep and some spare strips of balsa will create a tidy battery bay. I have a small magnet that I can use as a catch.
The RX is a Lemon 6 channel micro and is pictured with the servos plugging into it. I need to research some instructions for this or I will not know how to set it up!
No further work done on it yet, just gazing at it to work out the electrics set up, now I can get a better idea of the space and mounting points available.
The dihedral does not look excessive and I will leave that as per the plans but will check the incidence of the horizontal stabilizer before fastening that down.

Having looked at pictures of some finished VMC T’Planes, I’d be tempted to crank in a little more dihedral — not much, but just a bit. Dihedral is our friend.

..... That this build thread doesn't die off before we get to see a finished plane . So how's It coming? Laramie.

Still looking at it, quite literally and previous build threads, most of which are quite old. I have found a length of carbon fibre rod, that will ease my positioning of two servos in such a narrow fuselage (I am not accustomed to this size model) and will not use pull pull for the elevator now. I needed to think about that before I built up the fuselage any more.

A tiny bit more work on the fuselage. Now I have a bit of a plan for the servos I was happy to put the stringers over the top, front of the fuselage using the 1.6mm square strips cut into the parts. At former 10 it recommends cutting the fuselage sides slightly, so they crack and you get a sharper corner than a gentle curve at the very rear. Just made sure everything was square and glued that up.

Very well done thus far. I have a few of the VMC kits and they are really nice. Will be following to see how you convert this one

D-Rock