Stinson Reliant SR-10
The Stinson Reliant SR-10 — the gull-winged 1930s American cabin aircraft that defined late-golden-age private aviation — captured as a sport-scale RC model.
About
The Stinson Reliant series was developed by the Stinson Aircraft Company in the 1930s as a high-end four-to-five-seat cabin monoplane, sized between the small two-seaters that dominated the late-1920s private aviation market and the larger transport aircraft of the era. The Reliant introduced what became the type's signature design feature: a distinctive double-tapered "gull wing" that improved both ground clearance for the cabin door and aerodynamic efficiency in cruise. The SR-10 variant, introduced around 1936, refined the gull-wing layout and added the most powerful engines in the Reliant lineup — Wright R-760 or Lycoming R-680 radials in the 280-300 hp class.
The Reliant became the choice of well-to-do private pilots, executive operators, and flying-club owners through the late 1930s, with surplus Reliants finding civilian and military service through the Second World War as the AT-19 navigation trainer and as transport aircraft in British and Commonwealth service. Surviving Reliants are prized in the warbird and classic-aircraft community today.
The unmistakable Reliant silhouette — gull-winged high cabin, distinctive radial cowl, conventional taildragger landing gear — is one of the more recognizable American golden-age cabin-aircraft subjects in modern RC scale flying.
In the simulator
A friendly golden-age scale subject. The Reliant has the deliberate, stable handling of a real 1930s cabin aircraft. Use it for relaxed sport-scale flying with the unmistakable gull-wing visual signature.
