PHOTO: LARRY KRUSE PHOTO: ARA DEDEKIAN
props provided the forward “umph” without the usual torque effect when the motors were wound to about 1200 turns. You can see Vance and two of his early low-powered test flights of the plane on YouTube by typing in “Twin Jenny at Texas Rd.” The video post- ings are courtesy of Tom Hallman. The multi-talented Dave Aronstein is re- sponsible for the little Boeing F4B-2 bipe with its attractive multi-colored tissue liv- ery and huge cowl around its simulated Pratt and Whitney “Wasp” engine. Dave built the model of one of the Army’s most col- orful pursuit planes from a Dave Diels kit. Dave took pains to keep the little 15-inch bipe very light for indoor flying and it has not disappointed in that respect. The carved balsa prop aids in its success.
Our final member of this month’s bipe brigade is a Sopwith 11⁄2 Strutter built from plans by Robert Hauk, who provided photos of his plans-built Baby Bipe in the Septem- ber column. Aside from being an unusual subject because it was Britain’s first two- place fighter with a synchronized machine gun, its unique “W” shaped cabane struts make aligning the top and bottom wings of a model a little more problematic than oth- er subjects. Bob says the model is still in its early flight stages, but he did get some fly- ing time with it a number of months ago at his Willamette Modelers Club monthly gatherings and it shows promise.
The engine is the thing
Two of our bipes in the above segment had round cowls covering radial engines. While we’ve all seen models with just paper cut- outs simulating the engine cylinders, there’s nothing quite like going a bit further and making the simulation a three dimensional effort. Reader Ara Dedekian sent in several shots of his Hughes H-1 built from John Bell plans, but for our purposes here, he also sent in the accompanying photo of his work on the cowl and engine cylinders. Ara was very spe- cific in his construction details, indicating that it was made with Williams Bros. cylin- ders and “bits and pieces of this and that”! Upon closer examination, though, we can see that it has a backplate against which the cylinders (most probably half cylinders) are cemented, copper wire exhaust manifolds,
FLYING MODELS
Modeler Ara Dedekian built this nicely detailed cowl with dummy cylinders (at left) for his Hughes H-1 racer from John Bell plans. Ara used Williams Bros. cylinders as a starting place and filled in the rest with “bits and pieces”. Park Flyer Plastics has a large array of 30 lightweight dummy cylinder scale engines (above) in different sizes that can be assembled into striking detail additions to freeflight scale models.
and a center nose button that appears to be a fitting from FAI Model Supply. In all, it of- fers a great amount of scale detail enhance- ment and adds a lot of character to the plane. For those who want the same level of scale engine detail without nearly as much work, I’ve included a photo of one of Park Flyer Plastics WWI engine assemblies that can be simply cut out and glued together for those needing a full engine representation. They also offer just the radial engine faces that can be cut out, painted and glued against a cowl backplate. They offer some 30 different lightweight engine representations, and all at very reasonable prices. You may contact them at
http://parkflyerplastics.com, and since they are FM advertisers, check out their ad in this month’s issue.
The pressure is on
Turning from bipes and scale matters for a moment, I’ve gotten several communica- tions recently in the form of e-mails and let- ters bemoaning the fact that the pacifier bulbs for pressure fuel tanks are almost im- possible to find nowadays. The pacifier bulbs were the central feature of pressure systems feeding high revving freeflight en- gines for many years and have almost gone away as baby pacifier designs have been changed by new science in orthodonture. A suitable and reasonably priced substi- tute for the pacifier tanks can be found in a hardware item called “The Little Red Cap”, intended to be used to cover opened tubes of caulking compound to keep them from dry- ing out. The “Little Red Cap” provides low- er pressure than a pacifier, but more than a balloon tank, and when encased in a penny balloon for protection against sun and punc- tures, lasts a reasonably long time—partic- ularly when placed inside the fuselage. I’ve found the items at Ace Hardware and on Amazon, but if you are having difficulty finding a source, you can contact the engine man, Bob Mattes, at
www.flyfreeflight.com or drop him a note at Bob Mattes, 190 Hunters Pointe Dr., Saint Charles, MO 63304. Bob also offers tips on his web site on how to set the units up and use them.
A plethora of plans One of the beauties of the Internet is that
it skips across the barriers of space and time and gives us access to items that may have had their origins far away and a long time ago—and for all practical purposes have dis- appeared. One such time and space compres- sion site is just excellent, originating in the United Kingdom and called the “Outerzone”. It sounds like something from the old Rod
Serling “Twilight Zone” TV show, but it’s even better than that for those of us in the modeling world. By typing
http://www.outerzone.co.uk into your browser, you will access no fewer than 3,241 plans that can be called up imme- diately and viewed until you can’t stand to see another plan. Everything is free, everything is downloadable, and it crosses all modeling lines—freeflight, control line, and radio control plans are archived.
As the introduction to the site notes, “Out-
erzone is a listing of free vintage and old- timer flying model aircraft plans to down- load. The listing is free for everyone—you don’t need to register or log in to download plans. Just start by ...well, looking around...” It doesn’t get any better than that, and on that positive note we’ve run out of time and space. Next month we’ll have more great items for and from the freeflight community to make us all better modelers!
PHOTO: COURTESY OF WOODWORKERS HARDWARE
These hardware items called “Little Red Caps” are intended for keeping tubes of caulking from drying out, but can be successfully used as pressure tanks for freeflight glow engines. More in the text.
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