Had to find a home for my screechy Parrots what with having to wear Hearing Devices full time. The man who took them has an Aviary full of them. Finches, African Greys, Quakers and Indian Ring Neck Parakeets species as well as some Cockatiels sitting on eggs.
Anyway he’s an R.C.- Airplane NUT and R.C. Car- NUT! Before we left, he gifted me with the above named kit. The Decals are Gorgeous! The Copyright on the instructions is 1970! My gosh I haven’t seen this kind of kit in years. BUT, he challenged me to send photos by Phone or FaceTime to prove I am building it!
After looking it over I decided it would be fun to build a Rubber powered Aircraft to fly at the park. Me, the Paper Ship, well, just plain Ship NUT! Oh, my ! this takes me so far back. I remember a small Aeronca ( High Wing) airplane.The Fuselage was four pieces and the nose a block you carved and sanded to shape. Then drill a hole in that glue it on . Put on the one piece, each side Wings and Stabs and Tail. Put in your Rubber band and lock it in place with a little dowel, pull to the front and attach to an oversize prop. Cover paint and Fly! It flew though!
I actually thought Stick and Covering went the way of the DODO! Well, Toby Correon showed me otherwise. See through SheetMaterial in red and a wingspan of six feet.That’s what he is working on now, With a SAITO -FOUR - STROKE ! Engine. MY Gosh! after seeing the JETS at a model fly in I didn’t know Model Prop planes had come this far. This little kit is definitely a step back in time.
I was looking at the side of the Box-It signifies Rubber, Gas or Electric Power. Oh My!
I am still having fun with flying models, along with plastic. Here’s my 108 inch span electric Benny Boxcar, a Hank Struck 72 inch model from the late 30’s.
I have several times done a flying model kit as a non-flying scale by fashioning a cockpit and using coated thin cardboard or thin styrene sheet as covering. Engines are the big issue in something that big- no resin engines. I want to do Guillows Stearman that way, but creating that big engine would be a major project. I have their Piper in my stash. Doing the cowl close with just a couple of cylinders visible through the cooling vents looks to be much more doable.
I tried that link- it started to load and then returned server not found.
Balsa kits are definitely not dead. Die cut kits have given it a new life. In addition to Guillows (the first kit I ever finished- 1947- was a Guillows Aronca) both Easy Bilt and Dumas have extensive lines of kits. I still love to fly rubber models- must less hectic than starting a cranky, noisy glow engine or continually recharging an electric one. I still remember as a kit watching a rubber model catch a thermal for the first time, chasing it as it eventually landed in the middle of Livernois avenue in Detroit, a major divided road. I was so lucky- when I got there it had landed on the island.
Sorry the link didn’t load, I’ve never had a problem. Try again and when you get in, check out the posts from Heywooood - his scale builds are amazing. He uses balsa in-fill. Another amazing site is FFscale.co.uk.
I LOVE Balsa airplanes just got tired of smashing them into the ground. I aint no captian sully. Still love to build them and I still fly the little "parkflyers once and awhile
While I do occasionally build them for flight, I usually build them for static scale. The bigness of the kits- 1:20 - 1:16 allows me to really add detail to interior. I am not the only one in my model club that does that.
I haven’t built a small Guillow’s or Comet kit in ages. But I do love balsa! And I have a couple of kits in my stash. It’s been so long, I’ve lost touch with some of the supplies. My LHS does not have any dope or tissue, where does one find these things nowadays?
OH YEA Just look them up. We die hard balsa builders still have a few resourses out there I havnt built a balsa kit in a few years but I still have dozens of resource sites to order kits and building supplies
Last year I built a Sterling Peanut Scale SE 5A. Couldn’t get it to fly well. But, that gave me the bug to build a Herr Engineering Fokker D-VII. The D-VII was an easy build. The first flight was going well until the rubber snapped and tore 2 holes in the sides of the fuselage. That’s what I get for using rubber that has been sitting around for years. Fixed the holes and have a supply of new rubber on order. I still have 6 more kits in the stash with all the other plastic kits. They were a great change of pace build plus I have a very large flying area in the retirement village where we live. We are surrounded by farms owned by very friendly people. No noisy engines, no problem.
