Description

The Digester was designed in the early 1960s as an equipment test vehicle for the new digital proportional radio control system.  It is the direct precursor to Phil Kraft’s famous Ugly Stik.  Everybody should build a historical RC plane at least once, and I think this is a pretty good candidate.

The original Digester was a 3 channel model, but I offer the choice of high or low dihedral braces in case you want to build it with ailerons.  So let’s start with the dihedral braces.  The plan shows “rock hard” balsa braces.  I have replaced these with enough 1/8″ plywood braces to add up to the correct thickness.  I suggest adding glass cloth to the center joint as well.  If you want to add ailerons, you could trim some of the ribs and turn them into barn doors.  Or you could do what Phil Kraft did: use the standard Digester wing and add flat sheet ailerons to the trailing edge.  Either way works great.

You may notice that the firewall is very far forward, so there’s not much cowling to cover the engine.  When you order the kit, you can get the small firewall to be installed as per the plan, or a bigger one to be installed an inch farther aft.  In the case of the farther aft firewall, your tank floor will also be an inch shorter.

Other than that, it’s pretty much like the plan.