CHINA CLIPPER was built for the World Championships in China in 94. For transportation via airline it had to go into a not too large box. This means that I needed a fully detachable airplane. The dimension of the box are dictated by a) the wing span, b) the wing chord ( plus some extra “safety centimetres” for both ), and c) your ability to stack all the parts one over the other as close as possible. Span is 154 cm (60,5 inch ); wing area 42,5 sq dm ( 660 sq inch ).

The airplane consists of four parts: fuselage, wing, fin, and tailplane. There’s manifold advantage in building an airplane “in pieces”: parts are easier to construct; parts are easier to handle ( especially in limited workshop space ); parts are easier to paint; you automatically have easy access to the control system; this is highly desirable for trim adjustments; if evil happens parts are easier to repair; and in the worst case: if one part is damaged beyond repair you can even build a new part - instead of having to build a whole new airplane !!

China Clipper was built for the Super Tiger 60. I used a Brian Eather 12 x 5 ½ carbon 3 blade propeller, a tank 170 ccm ( about 5 ¾ oz ), fuel 20% castor + 10% nitro ). Despite being overweight ( close to 1900 gram !) this was one of my best airplanes.