Greetings from Southern California

[Crawford Bros. Aeroplanes]

Good day all! My name is Seth Russell Crawford, I've been a tinkerer and aviation enthusiast my whole life and recently decided to merge those two aspects. I have an affinity for old warbirds and a keen eye for graceful biplanes (or even occasionally a triplane). I've already got a few builds under my belt (some more successful than others) and decided I might as well share them with the world and learn a thing or two while I'm at it. I'm a volunteer at the world-famous Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, Ca, working on the B-17 Flying Fortress.


My first build attempt, my late Monster PT-17.
This is a good example of why it's best to start small- it's much easier to fix a stupid mistake in a tiny trainer than it is in this! In my case it was a matter of insufficient powerplant resulting in a devastating crash on takeoff.
Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!
It was a fun build with plenty of lessons learned.


A better first build- a small Cessna O-1 Bird Dog. Much easier to fix than a massive Stearman!
Will be posting more about this one shortly.

Currently working on some balsa models, including a 1942 Cleveland P-38. Will post more when I have something to post.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Welcome to the forums, saying hi from north of the 49th parallel. I do have to say the Biplane looks sharp, smooth and slick. How did you fab up the radial, layered foam board?

 

[buzzbomb]

Welcome! That's a couple great looking builds you've got. If you're into balsa, don't miss the balsa subsection of the forum. Lot's a great projects and techniques in there!

Volunteering at an air museum is a dream most of here would have. You are very fortunate, indeed.

 

[Grifflyer]

Welcome to the forums!!
Those are some great looking birds!!

 

[Crawford Bros. Aeroplanes]

Thanks al, glad to be here.

Welcome to the forums, saying hi from north of the 49th parallel. I do have to say the Biplane looks sharp, smooth and slick. How did you fab up the radial, layered foam board?

The radial is a tube of rolled fb with the cylinders mounted around the outside. Each cylinder is about 4 layers of fb cut to shape with barbacue skewers added for valve control arms. Once it's built just glue it to the firewall with the motor in the center!

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Thanks al, glad to be here.



The radial is a tube of rolled fb with the cylinders mounted around the outside. Each cylinder is about 4 layers of fb cut to shape with barbacue skewers added for valve control arms. Once it's built just glue it to the firewall with the motor in the center!
View attachment 150099
View attachment 150100

I likey, I am going to steal this idea for my next biplane. So simple yet cool AF

 

[Vimana89]

Hello from the high desert, Lancaster/Palmdale area right by Edwards AFB. I've been around planes my entire life but only recently made anything out of it career(or in my case purely hobby)wise. I started the hobby late last year with no experience in RC and no aerodynamic knowledge, aside from having seen/been around cool planes a lot of my life. I'm purely a product of the new DIY foam board era, but learning about RC(and full scale aviation) history as I go. My design and build skills aren't quite at the level of a lot of more experienced people, but my audacity and creativity to try new stuff has been paying off and always gives me something new and surprising to share with the community.

I like all types of planes, but usually, the odder and more experimental the better. Deltas are probably my favorite category, with multi-wing being a close second(that we have in common!), I love my FT DR1 triplane and custom four-wing V tail plane. Warbirds are definitely neat, but I'd consider myself more a "cold war jets" guy when it comes to any specific historical era.

It looks like you took to foam pretty fast, your Cessna is clean and gorgeous, yet from what I see a very simple and straight-forward design. Very nice. Can't wait to see what you will have to share in the future!

 

[Crawford Bros. Aeroplanes]

I likey, I am going to steal this idea for my next biplane. So simple yet cool AF

Thanks, good luck!

Hello from the high desert, Lancaster/Palmdale area right by Edwards AFB...

That's great! The Cold War was such an interesting time in aviation- jets started getting faster and new technologies had to be developed quickly resulting in some fascinating designs, some more successful than others. Take the F-105 and SU-7 for example. Both had a similar role, but took different approaches with wildly different results. The F-86 has to be my favorite jet, with the F-104 and MIG-21 following closely behind.
EDFs are bloody expensive though.

 

[speedbirdted]

welcome to the forums. That Stearman is pretty nice - personally i've got a soft spot for planes that look scale while not going completely all-out in replicating every single little detail down to the rivets and all. You aren't going to see them when it's flying anyway! So far my only experiences with biplanes has been with a 1/4 scale Waco YMF I built from a kit. I don't own it anymore (it took literally 2 hours to put it together whenever I went to fly it, which it didn't do well anyway) but it looked nice in the air (photo credits to my dad lol.) I've wanted to build another Waco for a while (maybe an IBA? though there's a depressingly low amount of documentation for it so it'll be much more of a hassle)

 

[Crawford Bros. Aeroplanes]

welcome to the forums. That Stearman is pretty nice - personally i've got a soft spot for planes that look scale while not going completely all-out in replicating every single little detail down to the rivets and all. You aren't going to see them when it's flying anyway! So far my only experiences with biplanes has been with a 1/4 scale Waco YMF I built from a kit. I don't own it anymore (it took literally 2 hours to put it together whenever I went to fly it, which it didn't do well anyway) but it looked nice in the air (photo credits to my dad lol.) I've wanted to build another Waco for a while (maybe an IBA? though there's a depressingly low amount of documentation for it so it'll be much more of a hassle)
View attachment 150126

Holy hell, I thought that was a real plane!

Just published the Bird Dog today
https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?threads/power-pack-b-cessna-o-1-bird-dog.61182/

 

[Hoomi]

Welcome from Baja Arizona! I used to be a Southern Californian, until I was given the choice nearly 27 years ago of following my job to Tucson, or being laid off out there.

Way back when I worked out there, I had a friend at work that volunteered at the Chino museum. IIRC, he helped out on the small Northrup Flying Wing (the one that crashed a year or so ago, tragically for both pilot and plane).

 

[Crawford Bros. Aeroplanes]

Welcome from Baja Arizona! I used to be a Southern Californian, until I was given the choice nearly 27 years ago of following my job to Tucson, or being laid off out there.

Way back when I worked out there, I had a friend at work that volunteered at the Chino museum. IIRC, he helped out on the small Northrup Flying Wing (the one that crashed a year or so ago, tragically for both pilot and plane).

What happened with the N9M was unfortunate. That was before I volunteered there, but I did get a chance to see it fly once or twice before it went down.

 

[Hoomi]

What happened with the N9M was unfortunate. That was before I volunteered there, but I did get a chance to see it fly once or twice before it went down.

If you make it out to Tucson sometime, be sure to visit the Pima Air and Space Museum. It had a pretty incredible collection of historic aircraft as well.

 

[Crawford Bros. Aeroplanes]

If you make it out to Tucson sometime, be sure to visit the Pima Air and Space Museum. It had a pretty incredible collection of historic aircraft as well.

If I'm ever out that way I definitely will!