Wingspan   

300mm

Length

300mm

Propulsion

Rubber band driven propeller

Control

Free Flight. Trim tabs can be added for greater control

Construction

Balsa and tissue

Buying the Osprey
This model is very good value and is supplied by the Scottish Aeromodellers Association. The kit comprises enough balsa to build the model, an A4 size coloured sheet of covering material, the propeller and rubber band. Prices for the model are available on the website at http://www.saaweb.org.uk or from Colin Nicol on 01383-410061.

Building the Osprey
This is a very easy kit to build as it is aimed at 9 year olds and above. The kit comes with an excellent set of instructions and all that needs to be added is glue and some pins or sellotape to hold the model down. A sheet of corrugated cardboard is recommended as a building board, Prit-Stick can be used to hold the covering onto the balsa, and Balsa cement is used to hold the balsa together. Cyno is not recommended due to the risk of glueing 9-year old fingers together. The total build time for one is about 30 minutes. As this was our first exposure to building with a group of kids, our Chairman, Jim McGlynn, decided to pre-cut the wing spars to length. This cut down the risk of having youngsters near sharp blades, and meant the kids could start glueing right away. We split the kids into groups of 4 kids to 1 adult. The Broxburn Youth Club who had asked us along met from 6:00PM until 7:45PM and building got underway about 6:30. Time passed very quickly and Andy Bartlett was tasked with taking all the half finished models to one side and using cyno to get them finished.

For youth club / group work I would recommend a 2-night session, building the wings, tailplane and fin one week, and doing the assembly work the following week, or allow about 2 hours on the one evening.

If time is tight, then groups of 3 children to 1 adult would got the models built quicker. Also, as we do more building nights I'm sure assembly times will come down as we get more proficient. Once all the assembly and glueing is done, the glue needs time to set.

Now, kids don't understand that: they want to fly it right away so our Chairman distracted them by showing them a pair of Twin Jets, a Fun Fly and Kyosho trainer and explaining how they worked. Obviously the engines were not started, but we now have 20 kids wanting to visit the flying site.

Flying the Osprey
This is simplicity itself. You wind up the rubber band and let it go. Great fun and the kids love it. Another reason for a 2-night affair is to allow time to add trim tabs which can simply be a piece of masking tape. Remember we are not talking about a jig-built model here, but kids still expect it to fly straight.

Verdict on the Osprey
The verdict from all the kids who came along was very definite. "Cool Colours" said one, "great fun" said another, "when can we see THOSE fly?" said one girl looking at the Twin Jets and Fun Fly we had taken along.

Verdict on youth club building nights
Obviously it is going to be a while before this group is ready for R/C models and they will probably go for plastic Airfix kits before then. However, there are a number of decent free-flight models available, from the Zing - Wing up, which gives them lots of exercise and most importantly, gets the children interested while keeping them off the street corners.