Piel Emeraude Plans
April 1969 American Aircraft Modeler

The May, 1964, issue of Experimental Aircraft Association's Sport Aviation maga­zine carried an article describing the Emer­aude, designed by Claude Piel of France and built by Wayne Barton of Rush, N. Y.

After seeing the photos of, this beautiful home-built aircraft, we had to duplicate Mr. Barton's marvelous ship for R/C. We obtained from Falconair Aircraft Co. of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, a descriptive brochure and three-view drawings.

The Emeraude is quite an airplane, hav­ing a wing span of 26 ft. 4 in., length of 21 ft., and a wing area of only 117 sq. ft. It can tote two adults at a maximum speed of 112 mph, or cruise at 103 mph on only 65 hp. Increasing the power to 105 hp jumps the cruise speed to 120 mph and maximum speed increases to 137 mph.

The cost of building a ship at home can be difficult to nail down. Mr. Barton man­aged to build his Emeraude, using all new materials except for instruments, wheels and a majored engine, for only $1,223. This is really a lot of airplane for the money! We plan, someday, to begin construction of our own Emeraude, but until then, we will have to enjoy our model.

Since building the ship in 1964, we have enjoyed many many flights. It is an excel­lent flyer, very stable and will perform the complete '68 AMA pattern (including snap rolls and inverted spins) maneuvers. And you wouldn't believe the ground handling; takeoffs and landing have to be seen to be believed with these old-fashioned bicycle landing gears.

Looking through wing opening and out the canopy from the inside. There's plenty of room for three large servos side-by-side.

Begin construction of the wing by pin­ning the inboard trailing edge Sheet to the flat building board. The main spar with the ribs keyed loosely in place is then placed on 3/8" square spacer blocks (you'll see the reason for this when you pin the ribs down to the bottom trailing edge sheet). With the loose assembly in place, key the outboard ribs in place and then position the aileron spar so that all ribs are in line. With this spar pinned and blocked in place, the ribs can be disassem­bled and, reassembled with glue. After the glue has taken its permanent set, the lead­ing edge, nose sheeting and trailing edge sheeting can be installed. Add the rib cap strips and, when the assembly has cured, lift the panel and add the landing gear blocks, lower nose sheeting, and lower cap strips.

Repeat this for the opposite panel and you are ready for wing joining. Sand the skin sheeting at the roots to the dihedral angle shown and butt glue the two panels together. Take all the time you need at this point and make absolutely sure that the two panels are perfectly mated. If you do this right, you will have a wonderful flyer. Do it wrong and you'll have a dog! Assuming you have done it right and your glue has set, paint a 2"-wide strip of resin around the center-section joint, press a strip of glass cloth into the resin, and finish off your basic wing structure with a final coat of resin over the cloth.

The ailerons are built now and can be either built-up as shown, or hogged out of soft 3/4" sheet stock.

Inverted engine easiest to start. Don't prime into cylinder; just wet side of piston with fuel just before flipping prop.

Pick up the fuselage now and complete the rounded, stringered top. To get straight stringers, pre-notch only the aft cabin for­mer and install the other three turtle deck formers without the notches. Position each stringer as shown and mark the posi­tion on the rest of the formers, then cut in the notches and install each stringer as you go along.

Miscellaneous: As the model is built to 1/5 the size of the real ship, there is room for almost any type of radio gear. If you would like to operate the wing flaps, there is plenty of room for the control installation.

Conventional torsion-bar landing gear used wheel pants from Stafford Chipmunk kit with strut faired by balsa and silk wrapping.

The second problem is wheel pants. We did it the hard way - made molds and laid up our own with resin and cloth. Our next ship will have Jack Staffords' fiber­glass Chipmunk or the Williams Bros. plastic parts.

As far as power is concerned, the ship is an excellent performer with a 45 mill up front, but for competition flying, a 60­size engine will really put those rolls "on a wire." Our ship is silk covered and finished in butyrate color in the same scheme as Mr. Barton's N9441H.

Every construction article we've read has cautioned the new builder to check things out before you go down to your favorite 5,000-ft. runway. We're no exception. Almost is not good enough. It's got to be right. Check out your control system. Recommended ground range, control linkages free, vibration checks with engine running, and so on. If anything doesn't look quite right, fix it now, or you won't have anything to fix later.

The real plane also is an exciting aircraft. Clean lines give fast cruise performance. Large wing area permits slow easy landing. Model's airfoil also permits aerobatics.

We have flown the trike-geared ships for a long time now, but two-wheel lift off and touchdowns of a bicycle gear really give you a thrill.

For the new R/C flyer, Emeraude is a gentle, forgiving ship, and with an experienced flyer as a copilot, she makes an excellent trainer.

If you would like to get into the scale competitions, here's your chance to grab a few points with a relatively easy-to-build dependable flyer.