You can never have too many planes under construction! In my case it helps me from getting bored. I'm currently building a Hobby King "Red Swan" motorized glider, another balsa build for a Model Airplane News contest, plus this bird. This one has taken a temporary back-seat to the two others, but I plan to keep plugging away at it as time permits. And now on with the show!
Back in the early 60's my dad was looking at building some balsa planes so he purchased plans for a few different birds - the P-40, a Navion, the Cessna 130, and a few others.
Then came marriage, a house, kids, a career, and other associated issues to change his priorities. The plans were boxed up and forgotten. I remember as a kid in the 70's looking at the plans and thinking about someday building the planes. Then I grew up, started a family, and my priorities changed as well.
Now the kids are old enough to have their own interests and I'm free to re-kindle some of mine. Last year I got into RC planes and assembled a few foam birds (thanks to Flite Test!). That led to ARF balsa kits (pre-covered) and then a few other laser-cut balsa kits, and now I have a decent hanger of planes. But nothing built completely from scratch.
A few months ago my dad stopped by and had the plans that he tucked away so long ago with him! A couple of them really got my attention, and I figured I'm far enough along in my abilities and patience to try building one. The easiest of the bunch is the P-40 control line, as it's a profile fuselage and pretty simple wing. The tail surfaces are simple as well.
First thing to do is get a set of plans I could work with since I didn't want to destroy the originals from 1962 (Model Airplane News). I looked and found the plan was available on the Outerzone, no original plan was actually required, but I work in the construction industry so our Estimating Department could have scanned it for me if needed. They took the .pdf from Outerzone and printed a copy. I checked the scale on the newly printed plans (the scale isn't on the original plan page, by the way) and found it was too small. Turns out the original plan is also slightly smaller than it should be. I had one of our estimators re-print it to the correct size and found the original was also the wrong size. I don't know why they'd have done that back in the 60's - it's not like you could easily take the drawings in and have them scaled up at the local shop...
So now I have 3 good prints at the correct size. I don't want to build this as a control line plane - I get sick just thinking of spinning in circles! My plan is to convert it to RC by adding ailerons and a functioning rudder to go with the standard C/L elevator control. Possibly just bank & yank as well, we'll see what happens with that. I'm figuring it would run well with a 1000mAh battery as it should end up a little heavier than my Mountain Models Switchback.
I'm starting with the wings, since they're the most involved part of the build. To make them I could start with new balsa from the hobby store, but I figured it would be fitting to start with some balsa my dad picked up a few decades ago. I have a few small sheets so I'll mix a few pieces in here and there.
As of this time the port wing is about 75% done. I'm deviating from the plans a bit, using some of the ideas I got building the Switchback. The leading edge isn't made from 1" wide strips of balsa as called for on the plans, it's carbon fiber tube with a couple 1/8" spars between the CF and the main spars. Ailerons will be added once I have the main wing structure complete.
I may be walking blindly into a mine-field with this conversion, but I have high hope that it turns out well and flies acceptably well considering it was never designed for this kind of flight!
Back in the early 60's my dad was looking at building some balsa planes so he purchased plans for a few different birds - the P-40, a Navion, the Cessna 130, and a few others.
Then came marriage, a house, kids, a career, and other associated issues to change his priorities. The plans were boxed up and forgotten. I remember as a kid in the 70's looking at the plans and thinking about someday building the planes. Then I grew up, started a family, and my priorities changed as well.
Now the kids are old enough to have their own interests and I'm free to re-kindle some of mine. Last year I got into RC planes and assembled a few foam birds (thanks to Flite Test!). That led to ARF balsa kits (pre-covered) and then a few other laser-cut balsa kits, and now I have a decent hanger of planes. But nothing built completely from scratch.
A few months ago my dad stopped by and had the plans that he tucked away so long ago with him! A couple of them really got my attention, and I figured I'm far enough along in my abilities and patience to try building one. The easiest of the bunch is the P-40 control line, as it's a profile fuselage and pretty simple wing. The tail surfaces are simple as well.
First thing to do is get a set of plans I could work with since I didn't want to destroy the originals from 1962 (Model Airplane News). I looked and found the plan was available on the Outerzone, no original plan was actually required, but I work in the construction industry so our Estimating Department could have scanned it for me if needed. They took the .pdf from Outerzone and printed a copy. I checked the scale on the newly printed plans (the scale isn't on the original plan page, by the way) and found it was too small. Turns out the original plan is also slightly smaller than it should be. I had one of our estimators re-print it to the correct size and found the original was also the wrong size. I don't know why they'd have done that back in the 60's - it's not like you could easily take the drawings in and have them scaled up at the local shop...
So now I have 3 good prints at the correct size. I don't want to build this as a control line plane - I get sick just thinking of spinning in circles! My plan is to convert it to RC by adding ailerons and a functioning rudder to go with the standard C/L elevator control. Possibly just bank & yank as well, we'll see what happens with that. I'm figuring it would run well with a 1000mAh battery as it should end up a little heavier than my Mountain Models Switchback.
I'm starting with the wings, since they're the most involved part of the build. To make them I could start with new balsa from the hobby store, but I figured it would be fitting to start with some balsa my dad picked up a few decades ago. I have a few small sheets so I'll mix a few pieces in here and there.
As of this time the port wing is about 75% done. I'm deviating from the plans a bit, using some of the ideas I got building the Switchback. The leading edge isn't made from 1" wide strips of balsa as called for on the plans, it's carbon fiber tube with a couple 1/8" spars between the CF and the main spars. Ailerons will be added once I have the main wing structure complete.
I may be walking blindly into a mine-field with this conversion, but I have high hope that it turns out well and flies acceptably well considering it was never designed for this kind of flight!