The Big Pussycat

An awesome flyer designed by Dick Baxter.

If someone has recently told you to get some increased cardiovascular excercise, then this plane is just the ticket. Dick Baxter has given us an amazing gift, and if you don't have one of these you are really missing out. I'll start with yet another link to Thayer Syme's page so you can download the plans. If you have exact control over your printer/plotter, the wingspan should be about 16" while laying out flat. If you don't, then just print it out on 11x17and go with it. If you are new to flying models, and have built an AMA Racer then you are ready. If you are moving over from r/c and know how to build already then start with this one. This was perhaps the easiest build of all my current planes and it is the best flier by a wide margin.

The only concern I had when building the plane was all that left rudder that is built in (in full scale planes you typically hold a pretty good boot of right rudder on climb out). Go with it. This plane circles close in, which turns out to be great fun. In calm air with a gutless motor you can position yourself so that the plane makes frequent fly-by's close enough to touch it. Wind it way up with fresh rubber and it may be the last time you see it. I invested 2 hours per night for three evenings and I was done. My finished plane weighs 11 grams with prop, motor, and clay on the nose. I've heard that Jason McGuire's large Akro (another D. Baxter plane available from Thayer's web page) is roughly twice as big and weighs half as much, so my plane is a barge. I power mine with an 15" loop of 3/32 Tan II.

Cover it with the wrinkled tissue that Dick suggests. Personally I don’t go to town with all the frames and ironing that other builders do. Just cut the tissue a tiny bit larger than you would if you were going cover it normally, then crunch it into a tiny ball. I open it up and re-crunch it at least once. If you don’t, you’ll see some places with lots of tiny wrinkles and other areas with just a few. I then smooth it out as flat as I can on the building board and put it to work.

At first toss my plane was way out of trim, but it still flew (it seems incapable of stalling). Since adding a small piece of modeling clay to the nose I have not retrimmed it. Now that I have trimmed out some other planes I'd say I still have it trimmed way aft. The plane flies at a slow walk, with the prop whirring away. Because it is so slow, it has spent nearly an hour (total accumulation of all flights) in the air without so much as a cracked stick. The first motor blew up and tore two small holes in the tissue. BFD.

Once you’ve owned it a while the flights are very predictable. We flew in moderate wind at a local school one day. The first flight at 500 turns went fine, so I upped the count to 625 turns. The plane had a great flight, but ended up in the street outside the school property. For the next several flights we wound to 600 turns and the plane landed just short of the fence every time.

My kids love the plane because I usually let them launch it. It doesn't depend on a skilled launch, recovering from any effort they put into it. In fact the lamest launches usually result in the plane circling around us like a big mosquito until it sorts itself out and climbs away.
In the wake of a couple of biplanes, my oldest son has name the Big Pussycat the Bye-Bye plane because every time we take it with us it goes bye-bye.

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