The Lil' Bit

[DonStegall]

This is the Lil' Bit. It had a fiberglass fuselage. I have the molds and may have an ancient set of foam cores I can pull out and make wings te,plates with. I don't know if I have the plans or not. Hopefully I do.

It had predecessors by that name. I will be posting a solid one that was a test bed for the Stegall Minnow planform configuration in the 60's photos but may cross post that here since it was an influential plane in the regional pylon community. That plane hangs in my main workshop and you may have seen photos of that.

I don't have full memory of the class this was raced in. I know there was a Formula II class in the AMA rulebook at some point. Whether this plane was a Formula II, I can't say and would welcome somebody like Bob Brogdon clarifying that.

The story is that the original Lil' Bit was built to test the wing, tail, and moments was built up in the late 60's before Dad started on the Stegall Minnow plugs. It was a fast low drag, low frontal area plane that Bill Helms and Dad drew up one night at our old house before we moved on January 1, 1969. It was a built up plane and I think he used 1/4" balsa for the sides and top. There was triangle stock in the corners so it could be rounded. The first one was built using the wing and tail from a Stafford Midget Mustang. It is the survivor. When Dad decided to do the Cosmic Wind, he built one with that planform. It does not survive.

After the first Stegall Minnows were being flown and a sport racing class was created wither by SEMPRA or the NMPRA, the Lil' Bit was brought back into action. There was a minimum wing area of 500 square inches. And the wing had a minimum thickness, I believe the thickness was 1 3/16 or 1 1/4". My guess is that is was 1.188" since the Spickler Quickie 500 was built for whatever class it was as far as I know.

You will see that this plane has a tapered wing. Not all Lil' Bits had tapered wings. Irwin Funderburk flew the constant chord version. Dad and Irwin had different beliefs about low aspect versus high aspect ratio wings. I was there for a classic practice session race between Irwin and Dad flying the fiberglass Lil' Bit planes in the two configurations and the Monroe R/C Club. Irwin was a super smooth pilot. He was leading Dad with his yellow one again this red and white one. Irwin either hit a pylon or got into dirty air and crashed. That was the last time they raced against each other in practice.

Irwin married Karen Helms. They are great friends of ours and my Dad. Irwin is into FPV bigtime in terms of building his own FPV racing quads and is doing his own designs on a 3D printer. I was there Monday night demoing some guitar amps for him and saw a battery case his is doing for FatShark goggles. Very cool and I want one when he is finished with the design and development. He's doing all of the 3D modeling development himself. He's still a deep thinker and tinkerer. I can't get him to race anymore, but maybe as I start getting things done, I think I might get him into EF1. He loves the electric stuff. Just doesn't want to build and fly glow anymore. I call him my "Wonder Friend" because he has fixed so much stuff that I don't have the skills to do. He's built quite a few racing quads for me.