PLANS____________

There is something special about getting your hands on plans. Well there is to me. As a kid, the first thing you pulled out of the box was the plans. It was the first step, stare at the plans and do an imaginary build. I remember a kit for a 3 foot span scale FW190 control line, it was complex and the cowl needed to be calved from balsa blocks. I was about 14 in 1970 and the kits were all balsa and ply with templates printed on them for you to cut around. The good kits had undercarriage legs and wheels but not much else.

Today, mostly due to the reduced costs of manufacture, the trend is to buy 'fly out of the box' aircraft. Call me an old fart but when I look along the flight line and see all these foam and plastic Mustangs, Spitfires and B17s they leave me flat... Now, show me a tattered old semi scale Piper Cub that the member built from a kit or scratch and you've got my attention. I know about the time and effort that was put into building that machine and the satisfaction of achieving the build, flying it, and having others show an interest.

At a club I visited recently, I discovered that there were only 2 scratch builders out of a group of 20... 1 in 10. I'm not critical of those that like to fly out of the box however; I do feel that they miss a satisfying and important part of the adventure of flight.

Although I could never fly commercially, (slight loss of vision in one eye) I've always stayed close to aviation flying gliders, GA, LSA and RC. I do not consider RC aircraft to be toys. They are subject to the same laws of physics as all other flying creatures and craft. RC aircraft have always been a source of leading technology and provided a great teaching and learning platform. Although technology is advancing at a blinding rate, the same principles of flight will apply tomorrow and forever. Designing and building RC aircraft is full of rewards and I will always encourage our kids (and adults) to get a simple plan, buy some balsa and glue and give it a go.

The plans have been created on Photoshop.

Now to climb down from my pedestal and talk to you about my Twin Comanche plans. This project is aimed at those who have at least some experience in model building. It is probably a little complex for those with no experience.

I do not intend to offer these plans as one great 3 meter x 2 meter sheet, rather they will be a downloadable PDF book with A4 size pages. The parts templates on the sheets and if they are larger than an A4 then you simply glue or tape the pages together. I have been using this method for some time and it is simple, cheap and effective. Depending on the task I either cut out the paper templates or use carbon paper (useful old technology) to trace the template to the material.

When you need to layout the build, as with the wings and fuselage, I simply print out all the joining pages and tape them. PDFs can be printed with crop marks to allow you to accurately line up the A4 sheets.

If I have awoken an interest and have you keen to download the plans then I must apologize... Although I have drawn the plans I feel I must complete the build and fly the aircraft before I offer them for download. As the build progresses I find a continuous need to alter the drawings and I have natural concerns, as always with scratch built aircraft, over weight and balance issues.

 

Please follow the project and thanks for your patience.

(This article was last edited on 20/04/16)