I needed a replacement airframe for my D.J. Aerotech motor/gearbox after destroying my Thistle which was using this equipment. While rummaging about on the internet I found the Guided Mite on Paul Bradley's page. Paul and his brother have scaled this plan up and down to work in several configurations.

This is an old design originally made in the 50's for free flight with a small cox glow engine. Paul has some 80% scale plans available on his site. I have also found some scans from the original plans on Dave Fritzke's R/C Plane Page.

If you're interested in other mites, I also found some nice photos of another guided mite on the Raynes Park Model Aircraft Club site on their R/C pics page.

My mite has a 22" wingspan, GWS receiver, 2 MX-30 pico servos and is powered by a 9-vold NiMh battery held on by velcro in a compartment on the underside of the plane. The motor is a N-20 with 4.2-1 gear drive driving a Gunther 5x4 prop. Covering is Crystal Renolds Wrap held on with glue-stick.

Test hops from hand launch successful. Won't ROG mostly because the small wheels don't roll over asphalt much at all. I'll be making some larger diameter balsa wheels ASAP to fix that problem.

Put enough flight time on it to run through 4 9-volt batteries. Motor needs more downthrust, under power it gets twichy, trying to climb too much. On glide it is a great flier, very docile and landings are a breeze. No amount of adjustment of the CG would get it to fly under power without putting itself into a overly-high angle of attack that's why I think I need downthrust. Turning and climb control is good. This one will be a winner. The N-20 is a bit weak for it so I'll find something a bit stronger to mount in it since I have to add the downthrust anyways.

With some more power this plane will be quite nimble. With the N-20 I could do a deep dive and coax it into a nice tight loop. I might go for a GWS with carbon brushes direct drive, or something else. Will have to research it a bit. With the ability to try different wings easilly this might end up being my test bed plane.

This plane is just too small to put functional gear on that will work when flying outside. I'm losing the gear and I'll fashion a landing skid to protect the underside of the fuselage.

Put GWS carbon brush motor in with 4x2 prop left over from my Cox Viper conversion. I temporarilly mounted it in an adjustable manner. After a couple flights I settled on 3 degrees of downthrust. Any more pulled the thing down too much. With the new power system this thing flies AWESOME. It's slightly faster than a lite stik, but more responsive. Can maintain altitude on a little over 1/2 throttle and climbs well on 3/4.

The only thing left to do is permanently mount the motor and re-cover the nose. It has one flaw I'm still working out. Over 3/4 power it wants to nose up abruptly. I'm not sure how to correct it yet - maybe less wing incidence? As soon as I get that fixed I'll cad up some nice plans for an original design based on this prototype.

Update 6/15/01

New design airframe has been finished and is awaiting instalation of electrics and test flights. Read more about it on my Electric Mite page.