PROJECTS AND UPCOMING EVENTS
By Stan Alexander | onawing4602@att.net
THERE ARE A LOT of civilian aircraft. In fact, there are many more civilian aircraft designs than their military counterparts. This would include transport, personal, racing, and working aircraft.
Aircraft from companies such as Curtiss, Piper, Cessna, Fairchild, Stinson, Howard, Stearman, Waco, Boeing, Aeronca, de Havilland, and many others dot the pages of plans being offered by designers and builders, and they’re even offered as ARFs. There are also homebuilt and kit aircraft that attend EAA’s AirVenture Oshkosh every year. Of those, the most numerous are the Van’s Aircraft RV two-place airplanes.
Warbirds always seem to be popular, either for personal taste or for the aircraft’s presence in the sky and the maneuvers of which they are capable. Everyone has a favorite.
It’s getting to be the time of year for you to decide what you are building next winter, so with that bit of wisdom, you might want to take a look around at some of the kits, short kits (that have formed wood parts), and even plans that are available to you.
Scale Projects
Walt Moucha has been busy in the shop for the past several months with his Piper Pacer. The model started out as a Wendell Hostetler Plans Piper Tri-Pacer with a short kit. Walt modified the fuselage to accept conventional gear instead of the Tri-Pacer’s tricycle gear.
The model has a wingspan of 115 inches, with a length of 81 inches, and weighs in at 28.75 pounds. Walt is using a Quadra 75 engine with a 22 x 10 propeller.
He used Sig Koverall fabric to finish the model, along with Stits Poly-Tone paints. It should fly great, and the color scheme will show up well in the air.
John Forehand builds models that fit in his car which, similar to many of us, limits the size of the models that he can construct. The full-scale aircraft was designed and built during World War II in Britain as a proposed trainer by General Aviation Corp. for the Royal Air Force. Known as the Owlet, only one was built. Construction of the model is basic balsa and plywood, power is electric, and John finished it in a color scheme that he found on the internet.
The Owlet came from the July 2016 issue of the British RCM&E magazine. It was designed by Lindsay Todd, who has constructed several models for British magazines. It’s an amazing fact that in Great Britain, they still have four modeling magazines.
The Owlet model has a 55-inch wingspan and uses a 3548 1,100 Kv motor from another project. The propeller is a Master Airscrew 11 x 8 and pulls the model well. John used an 80-amp ESC that was also in his shop. Power is by a 4,000 4S mAh LiPo battery. The plans call for an overall ready-to-fly weight of 5.5 pounds.
John wanted to decrease some of the weight and used smaller sizes of wood, cutting the weight down to 4-3/4 pounds. The pilot figures, which were found on the internet, are the same—just decorated differently from each other.
First flights can be nerve-racking, but John reported that this one was anticlimactic. He stated that he was shaking with his usual preflight jitters, but outside of a few trim changes, the model flew great! The Owlett has almost no stall, a bit of nose drop, and no falloff of either wing. It flies visually—almost flat in level flight.
Upcoming Events
The National Association of Scale Aeromodelers (NASA) Scale Classic will be held September 14-17 at AMA’s International Aeromodeling Center in Muncie, Indiana, with Site 4 for the RC portion and the circles at Site 6 for the Control Line side of the event. Similar to the AMA Nats, static judging will also be held at Site 4.
There will be a NASA banquet on Saturday night, and all raffle prizes will be drawn then. It should be a great time for all. All AMA classes will be available. For more information, check out the NASA website, listed in “Sources.”
If you make it to the NASA Scale Classic, why not check out the AMA National Model Aviation Museum and the Lee Renaud Memorial Library? They have a treasure trove of information on all things model related.
U.S. Scale Masters Championships
The U.S. Scale Masters Championships, hosted by the Arizona Model Aviators, will be held October 11-15 at Superstition Airpark in Mesa, Arizona. There will be classes for every skill level.
Tim Dickey will be the contest director. He can be contacted for information about camping, the schedule, and more general information at the email listed in “Sources.”
Superstition Airpark has a great runway, overfly area, and a covered pits area as well. I wish we could make it out there!
Fair skies and tailwinds.
SOURCES:
Wendell Hostetler Plans
(330) 682-8896
www.hostettersplans.com
U.S. Scale Masters Association
www.usscalemasters.org
Tim Dickey
