R-80 Tiger Moth Page

Last Updated 7/28/02

INTRODUCTION

This is the Fisher Flying Products RS-80 Tiger Moth. I decided to build my own in June of 2000 after taking a flight in the factory demonstrator shown above. The trip to Edgeley, North Dakota, was a lot of fun and Gene Hansen and the rest of the folks at FFP were great. After Gene gave my wife Laura and I rides, we ordered the wing kit on the spot. (You can buy the entire aircraft or build in stages by purchasing the wing, fuselage and finally the hardware kits separately; depending on how fast you want your money to separate from your wallet!). I'd recommend FFP to anyone interested in a great wood plane kit. www.fisherflying.com

Gene Hanson giving me my first ride in a Tiger Moth

The R-80 is a 80% scaled replica of the de Haviland DH 82 Tiger Moth. The replica has a 23' wing span and is 19' from spinner to tail. Empty weigh of the factory demonstrator, which is sporting a Norton Rotory, is 560 lbs and gross weight is listed at 1150 lbs. The kit comes with two fuel tanks, one inside the upper wing center section and a larger header tank behind the firewall. I found the two tanks hold approximately 23. 5 gallons of fuel.

As soon as I started to work on my kit I decided to join an Experimental Aircraft Association (www.eaa.org ) chapter. I found a great bunch of folks in Chapter 338, in Mountain View, CA. Most of them are building RV's, but I've learned to overlook that! Several of the members, notably Ace Campbell and Gary LeGare (technical advisor) are very knowledgeable about wood construction and have been extremely helpful when I've gone to them with questions. Our chapters take pride in the fact that most members in the group are actively building, or have completed their projects.

While building this project I have been gathering as much information about other FFP Tiger Moth projects out there. Besides the factory's RS-80 (shown at the top of this web site), FFP also has a red and silver R-80. That plane has a Norton rotary (100 hp) engine. Oh, the R-80 has a wood fuselage while the RS-80 sports a steel tube frame. I'm building the R-80. I have found three other R-80's that are currently flying. The builders are Dennis Robinson, Ron Shuler and....

Ken Flaglor. Ken's plane, seen here, was featured on the cover of January 1999's Experimenter magazine. Ken is running with a Subaru EA-81 with an RFI re-drive.

Ron has a camafluage scheme similar to the factory RS-80 and is powered by a C-85, while Dennis's plane sports a red fuselage with silver wings (like the factory R-80). Dennis chose to power his plane with a Geo Metro 1.3 liter and a Raven re-drive.

This is a shot of Dennis' rear cockpit.

I have talked with three other builders, besides myself, who are at various stages of construction. While other kits have been sold, I haven't been in touch with them and they haven't popped up on the "Fishnet". The Fishnet is a on-line builders group which specializes in FFP designs. Laird Lind runs the group and has a nice web page. Check it out at: www.lairdlind.com/fishnet.htm

Please feel free to contact me any time!

Dave Flohr

Tigermoth2@netzero.com

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