A little bit of history first, when i was in my early teens my brother and i would get packed off to our grandparents in Hadleigh, Essex (UK) for two weeks during the school summer hols, i was building the usual Keilkraft rubber models and gliders back then. My brother and i were both interested in aviation and our days were spent either over at the modelling strip on One tree island or at Southend airport, the main carrier there being British Air Ferries. The main aircraft in and out were Viscounts and Heralds but the aircraft that we most looked forward to seeing were the BAF ATL Carvairs, what`s not to like, 4 noisy radial engines, an interesting lumpy front end (years before the 747) and most of them had interesting names, Porky Pete, Plain Jane, Fat Albert, Big Bill and Big John are a few that i remember. You could hear them coming anywhere in the Southend area and we would lay awake at night listening to them growling in on a low approach to the airport.
Since getting into r/c about 25 years ago i have always wanted to have one to fly, no chance of a manufacturer producing one and no plans around to build from, besides a lot of drag and probably marginal on weight using wood unless it was built VERY big. About 10 years ago i was lucky enough to purchase a 100" control line Carvair that was built in the early 60`s by two guys who ran a model shop in Leigh on Sea just outside Southend, this was flown at a number of Country shows before being retired and hung up in their shop `Wings & Wheels.`It was eventually bought by a full size Carvair Captain and hung up in his dining room, i purchased it from his daughter who was selling stuff for her mum following his passing, getting it home was a challenge as it is one piece! Again thoughts turned to building a flyer but the practicalities and lack of plans put it on the back burner again. My flying buddy John who sadly passed away last year knew how much i hankered after one of these and having seen the control line model a number of times set about drawing up some plans for a depron version scaled down, he had scratch built several much smaller depron models which at that time i had not attempted. He was at the time of his passing working on a revised set of plans as he thought the originals he had done may not build up correctly but he was gone before he could complete them so i will have to work from his originals.
So here we are, my new foamboard project, 55" span, he had drawn them for retracts and flaps but using the lessons learnt from the ME109 i hope to build it light enough to not need the extra weight and complications of flaps and it will be a hand launch, again to save weight. If this model proves to be successful i will scale it up and add the retracts and flaps, if it proves unsuccessful it will be repaired as necessary and hung up in my house.
The picture here is of the Control line one hung above our stairs to start the thread off and i am now a good way into the build so will post more pictures of the progress.
Since getting into r/c about 25 years ago i have always wanted to have one to fly, no chance of a manufacturer producing one and no plans around to build from, besides a lot of drag and probably marginal on weight using wood unless it was built VERY big. About 10 years ago i was lucky enough to purchase a 100" control line Carvair that was built in the early 60`s by two guys who ran a model shop in Leigh on Sea just outside Southend, this was flown at a number of Country shows before being retired and hung up in their shop `Wings & Wheels.`It was eventually bought by a full size Carvair Captain and hung up in his dining room, i purchased it from his daughter who was selling stuff for her mum following his passing, getting it home was a challenge as it is one piece! Again thoughts turned to building a flyer but the practicalities and lack of plans put it on the back burner again. My flying buddy John who sadly passed away last year knew how much i hankered after one of these and having seen the control line model a number of times set about drawing up some plans for a depron version scaled down, he had scratch built several much smaller depron models which at that time i had not attempted. He was at the time of his passing working on a revised set of plans as he thought the originals he had done may not build up correctly but he was gone before he could complete them so i will have to work from his originals.
So here we are, my new foamboard project, 55" span, he had drawn them for retracts and flaps but using the lessons learnt from the ME109 i hope to build it light enough to not need the extra weight and complications of flaps and it will be a hand launch, again to save weight. If this model proves to be successful i will scale it up and add the retracts and flaps, if it proves unsuccessful it will be repaired as necessary and hung up in my house.
The picture here is of the Control line one hung above our stairs to start the thread off and i am now a good way into the build so will post more pictures of the progress.