MOON DANCER 2

An old favourite revisited, Peter Miller's sports aerobat is great fun to fly and makes an ideal first-time traditional build.

- Peter Miller

I was looking for a new sports aerobatic model to design for electric power and finding inspiration a little hard to find, until I came across one of my old designs, the 36” (914mm) span Moon Dancer that was published in the June 1993 issue of Radio Modeller. Powered by a PAW 1.49 diesel, the ‘Dancer’ flew like a dream, which inspired me to design the Dancer 25 (a direct enlargement), the similarly styled Dragon Dancer, and the Firedrake, which used the same basic wing design.

The 48” (1219mm) span Moon Dancer 2 isn't an exact scaled-up Moon Dancer but is very close shape-wise, with minor changes to the wing section and a slightly smaller tailplane.

Construction is very simple and conventional, to the point of being suitable as a first build. You do need to be an experienced pilot, though!

FUSELAGE

Start by gluing the ply doublers to the fuselage sides (impact adhesive is ideal for this) and add the tailplane doublers at the rear.

Fit blind nuts to the rear of F1, positioned to suit your engine mount. Make sure that your ESC will pass through the holes in the top of F2 and F3.

Lay one fuselage side down on your building board, fit formers F1 - F5, and when dry glue the other fuselage side in place, making sure that the two sides remain perfectly parallel. Lift the assembly from your board when dry, then add the battery platform and the triangular stock between F1 and the sides, as shown.