Tired of spending hard-earned money on fancy control horns that don’t give you the leverage you need?

Dave North came up with the design shown here. (I suspect this a generic design that’s been floating around for awhile, but I’ve only seen it on Dave’s planes.) It’s scissor-cut from 1/64 light plywood, stiffened with a coat of cyanoacrylate glue and epoxied into place.

Low & Long. The original is about 7/8 inches long at the base and approximately 5/8 inch high. Shape isn’t critical. Keep it low for maximum leverage and long to disperse the push-pull force of the servo.

We learned in the Control Horns 101 class to attach the control rod to the horn at the hinge line for symmetrical movement, hence the offset “eye.” If you need more overhang, feel free to extend the shape.

For foam planes it’s an improvement over most standard control horns because it mounts securely in a slot in the foam.

Max Movement. It’s now standard equipment on the Wild Wings I’m flying, since I want lots of movement from the elevons.

If you want to dial down the play, attach the control rod to a lower hole at the servo end or lower the rates on your transmitter.

This design would work on larger aircraft, but you’ll need heavier plywood.

Tags: Airplanes, Flying.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Elsewhere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.