Paul Winter’s first twin, a ‘Manchester’, broke up in flight at Clipston, ‘Tsunami 2’ was his second but lacked lift. Next came ‘World Jet’ which had a perfect wing but was too heavy, so it’s fourth time lucky for his latest effort, ‘Tribute’

As many of you know, I enjoy the challenge of creating something unusual, something that’s a bit different from your usual run of the mill stunt ship – hence my fascination with twins.

It all started initially way back in 1996 when I came back to aeromodelling and got the bug to build Reno racers – Tsunami, Strega, Voodoo, Miss Winter etc. all of course single engine models.  

But it suddenly occurred to me that there was a wonderful challenge starring me in the face, a chance to go one better – meaning one more engine.  Inspiration initially came while I was in America at Brodaks in 2004 and saw Windy Urtnowski flying his amazing B25 – I was hooked and had to build one.  A rule change in 2005 (I think) meant that you were allowed to run up to 15cc engine size with any configuration. So now I could use my favourite four strokes – Saito 40’s.  The next step was to find a suitable design, so after trawling through all my WW2

books on planes I opted for the Manchester.  Dave Roberts came up trumps by finding a 3-D drawing in an A4 format that he enlarged to approximately 70 inches wingspan.  Five months late the Manchester was ready to go, and what a joy it was to fly, until….…a control failure at Clipston in 2005 ended its life prematurely after a mere 35 outings.

 

Not discouraged, it was back to the drawing board to design another twin. Never one to build the same thing twice, my new design was a twin-engined version of my Tsunami 2 – meaning two engines.  Five months later and another twin was born, this one far more successful, and cast its shadow (literally) over every meeting that it attended.  By the end of the year my arm was several inches longer.  Why?  Because of the 110 ounces all up weight!

I realised to make this long-term project work, a smaller, nimbler model with a thicker wing had to be designed. So at the end of 2006 my highly successful Concours winning ‘World Jet’ that never flew well, even with a big Saito 72 up front, was taken down from the plane rack, the 72 removed and two engine pods grafted on to take two Saito 40’s.  It flew well but still a bit heavy at 94 ozs.  This model had all the right dimensions but the weight was still the problem I needed to address. NOTE a control-line model however big needs to fly at about 5.5 secs per lap, any faster and it gets messy.

So time for some canibilisation to get the perfect Claudia Schiffer type model..… perfect shape, size and weight!

Using all the dimensions from the ‘World Jet’ twin, except this time instead of a take-apart I opted for a one-piece model thus saving 5ozs and a much stronger model to boot.  We are now in the winter of 2007/8 and the model is showing great promise at some 80ozs.

Footnote: I’ve learnt a lot in three years of flying twins, I’ve listened to the people who know, as this is new territory for everyone.  I’ve followed three simple rules (1) Build light but don’t skimp on strength. (2) Don’t fly in the wind.  (3) Don’t give up but keep persevering.