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Having designed the Easy Eagle for ACE under Tom
Runge management, I may know a bit more about this little bird than
others.
The idea for it came to mind on a Sunday. I called
ACE, with whom I had a long standing relationship with Paul Runge, Tom's dad
back in the early '70's. I first spoke with Tom Runge and then with Steve Kaluf,
explaining my ideas for an exclusive ACE design. With an understanding reached,
I built them the prototype, wrung it out, and shipped it off to them, all within
about 10 days.
In concept, it was to be a simple ship, but
several steps above the venerable Gentle Lady. The wing was much stronger,
though, had turbulators and with flaps on a single servo, it added a new
dimension beyond 2 channel ships then around. I had also been fiddling with
swept rudder posts and had set this one at 27 degrees. A swept post gives
an "up elevator" effect and at that sweep, the ship would essentially
stay level in turns without the nose dropping, thus behaving like a
well-designed "rudder only" ship. It was was particularly easy to fly and
just a sweet handling bird, although boxy and somewhat lacking in aesthetics. I
had performance and utility in mind. I even had an alternate name for it. . .the
"Lady Killer" with obvious implications as I envisioned it might have if
well-advertized.
As I recall, using well-selected balsa I
had, the prototype weighed 24 ounces and it just handled perfectly on
launch, in thermals and in landing with those flaps. Incidentally, I had a long
square "U" shaped 3/32" wire to which a brass horn was soldered to operate them
with one servo. The ends of the "U" slipped into square tubes attached to the
inboard ends of the flaps. Since the flaps were bottom hinged, that "U" was
to "float" as flaps deflected. You could bend that wire to "trim" each flap to
perfect neutral.
The prototype had a "pull-pull" cable operated
rudder to keep things clean and the elevators were operated by a horn
centered in an exit at the tail end. Everything was neat and tidy and . .
.lightweight.
Well. . .things happened to the detriment of the
design. ACE had a lot of "light ply" on hand they wanted to use up. They thought
interlocking sides, top and bottom would make for easy fuselage alignment. They
went for Nyrod type tube in tube for elevator and rudder operation, exiting the
stuff through the sides and extending tshamlessly toward ugly horns on the
rudder and one elevator. The instructions said to glue the flap "U" permanently
in position. That kept the flaps from easily moving. They had those "Bantam"
servos that had funny cases and they showed rails glued across the fuselage
which made the mounts permanent and non-adjustable. The die cutting was a
disaster resulting in die-crunched ribs and fuse parts, etc. The openings in the
ribs for the spars were much too large. Whereas I had a really light prototype,
guys were reporting 36 to 40 ounce ships that were anything but what I had
in mind. I was sorely disappointed. About 1,000 kits went out to dealers. Not
many reports came in praising the kit.
About this time, ACE was running into difficulty,
having gone to considerable expense to gear up for a fully-expected government
contract, and with it then falling through. New managements subsequently came
along, ACE shortly became a different organization than the friendly,
modeler-oriented ACE we once knew back in the seventies, eighties and early
90's. The EE kit was never corrected to what I had in mind and was
discontinued, without notice to me, in favor of RTF ships.
Last I heard, Steve Kaluf, now with the AMA, still
had the prototype, having taken it with him when his time with ACE was over.
Dave Garwood built one and has taken some nice
shots of it in flight. Neat color scheme on the one on the RCSD
cover.
My prototype was finished in a week and I had
used 1/8" medium density for the sides, top and bottom of the fuse. I had
shaped the top and bottom to fit inside the sides on 1/8" balsa strips placed
1/8" below and above the top and bottom edges. This was a way to get a well
aligned fuselage. I used the same servo mounting system I have always used,
namely attaching one end of the R & E servos to the front former and
rails with adjustable cross pieces to catch the other
ends.
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