1.1m Fokker Dr 1 triplane

Two wings on the Tigermoth worked so well I had to take the next step...three wings.

The most famous triplane is the Red Baron's Fokker Dr1.

My wings are stiff enough not to need inter plane struts so I decided to stick to the familiar rubber band mounts. That meant I had to come up with a method for creating a rigid mount for the top wing. I recorded detailed build videos along the way.

SPECS
Top Wing - Top 1.1m, iron-on laminate and packing tape. 0.5 x 3mm CF spars
Middle and lower wings - 950mm and 900mm. packing tape. 0.5 x 3mm CF spars
Airfoil - 170mm Clark y
Fuselage - 6mm depron, 3mm ply nose, packing tape.

1.2m Tigermoth

I have never been much interested in scale model planes apart from the Tigermoth biplane. Tigermoth World is nearby and for my 40th Virginia and I went for aerobatic joy flights...great fun.

I already had enough practice hot wire cut wings laying around for the build so I decided to have a go. I gathered scale measurements from tiger moth photos and made the adjustments needed for a 1.2m wingspan model.

The fuselage is 6mm depron covered with yellow packing tape to mimic the plane I flew in. I added 3mm ply under the nose to take landing impacts and a 5mm ply motor mounting firewall.

The motor is a Hextronic DT750 which had plenty of thrust, especially with a 4S battery. Prop is 11 x 5.5", ESC 40A Plush. 3000 mAH 3S or 4S Lipo gives 20+ minutes of cruising.

Here are build and flight videos of this great looking vintage biplane. It flies just like the real thing, slow and steady with just enough aerobatic capability.