PHOTOS: RAPHAEL LEAO
Raphael Leao built his Pitts Special(above left) with nothing more than 3-view drawings to work from. It never ceases to amaze Pat what a modeler can accomplish when the options are few and the desire is great. Raphael proves without a doubt that, just because plans are not available, you need not give up on the dream model. The “mid-air” design (above center) turned out to be a great looking, great flying little model. Steve Moskal built his very common J-3
PHOTO: STEVE MOSKAL
PHOTO: STEVE MOSKAL
Cub(above right) in the very unusual Flitfire colors. Cubsare everywhere, but you don’t often see one like this. The Flitfireproject was done by Piper to honor British military pilots, and was used to raise money to care for disabled Royal Air Force pilots. Steve’s model (below) is done in the colors of the only original Flitfire still in existence. The scale trim scheme certainly looks different than the standard J-3 Cubyellow.
though only one, NC1776, remains in its original configuration, and that’s why Steve chose that one to model. The model is powered with a HiMax out-
runner with an 8-amp ESC, a 7–6 propeller and a 500 mAh 2S Li-Po battery. The con- trols are actuated by four Spektrum DSP- 60J servos, guided by a Spektrum AR6300 receiver. Cover is silver Microlite with cus- tom graphics from Callie Graphics www.
callie-graphics.com. All-up the Flitfire tips the scales at 10.1 ounces, and as one would expect, flies just like a Cub should—great. Then to top it all off, last month we had a
make a good platform for a K&B Infant .020 that I was marketing at the time, so I scaled it up to about 34-inch span and made a full fuselage for it! I have always been attracted to German pre-war color schemes, and I fin- ished the model in the colors of the Richthofen training wing. Hence the name! It took some time for me to get up the courage to fly it (with its low wing), but it flew right ‘off the board’! A touch less inci- dence and she flies great with the .020 In- fant. It appears large but flies just perfect
for a sport job! Not too fast under power, so she ‘hangs around’, and the slow glide al- lows for nifty landings!” And last but not least is Steve Moskal’s
J-3 Flitfire built from the PCM 40-inch short kit. The model was built basically stock, with the addition of the hand carved wheel pants. Steve wanted to build a Cub, but not just another yellow J-3, so he opted to go with the Flitfire color scheme that graced only 49 factory built Cubs. Thirteen of the original Flitfires built are still around today,
photo of the prop coming off the Fun Cub, so what are the chances of seeing two of those in a row? Well, they’re apparently pretty good, because this month Al Yuhasz from Denver, CO checked in with an equally im- pressive photo taken by Catherine B. Snider that captured the prop blade leaving Al’s Hewitt Phillips compressed air model. The prop inadvertently struck Al’s wrist during a faulty launch resulting in a very shaky flight. Fortunately the flight ended without further damage to the model. Do we see a trend forming here? So how ’bout it boys and girls: who’s going to top this one for next month? And that’s going to do it for now. So till
next time around, keep the great stuff com- ing, shoot some landings, and enjoy the ter- rific flying weather while it’s here.
PHOTOS: BOB LANGELIUS
Bob Langelius built the Pee-Wee(above left) based on an earlier Bill Schmidt U-Control PEE-WEE PUP design to produce a terrific flying freeflight sport model. The Richtoff(above right) is more of Bob Langelius’ handiwork, inspired
FLYING MODELS
by one of Dave Thornburg’s early .020 powered profile freeflight designs and finished in an early German pre-war color scheme. The model flew off the board nicely with a K&B Infant .020.
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