Great flyer, rock-steady, nostalgic! 22" span, from the old Easy Built Model Company kit.
Is she in for a major overhaul? Yes.
It's from a kit produced by SIG Models, which I now understand originated from a larger Sinbad in the Berkeley line? All-balsa, Ambroid and/or Duco Cement was probably the glue, and covering is white silkspan from the kit with a bit of orange tissue for a trim color.
My father gave me this kit as a Christmas or Birthday gift, I was about 12 or so and he bought it at the Palisades Hobby Shop in Pacific Palisades, California, a truly old-school LHS "local hobby shop" that was a second home to many of us growing up there at that time.
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Back in the late 1960's or early 70's my younger brother ArthurTheMenace built and flew this great old kit, the House Of Balsa Focke Wulf FW-190A-3.
Well, all these eons later, I have found the actual plans that Art used to build his 190! They were downstairs here in Boston, buried under a ton of aero-things rescued from our childhood back in the Palisades.
36" span, 1/12th scale, this cute plane was an enormously popular 1/2A gas "schoolyard / stand-off scale" model (that's what they called it back then) designed by Fred Reese, and amazingly House of Balsa is still in business, and by popular demand they reintroduced this kit! Price seems a bit higher than I remember it was back during the Nixon Administration.
Of course now this airplane is a happy candidate for e-power, and here's a recent build-review: https://www.rcgroups.com/links/index.php?id=4029
Meanwhile, my PSS glider pal Jan recently told me that he built one and sloped it off Palos Verdes way back when! How cool is this??? What a connection.
So I just might need to make a HOUSE OF FOAM version for PSS.
Well, all these eons later, I have found the actual plans that Art used to build his 190! They were downstairs here in Boston, buried under a ton of aero-things rescued from our childhood back in the Palisades.
36" span, 1/12th scale, this cute plane was an enormously popular 1/2A gas "schoolyard / stand-off scale" model (that's what they called it back then) designed by Fred Reese, and amazingly House of Balsa is still in business, and by popular demand they reintroduced this kit! Price seems a bit higher than I remember it was back during the Nixon Administration.
Of course now this airplane is a happy candidate for e-power, and here's a recent build-review: https://www.rcgroups.com/links/index.php?id=4029
Meanwhile, my PSS glider pal Jan recently told me that he built one and sloped it off Palos Verdes way back when! How cool is this??? What a connection.
So I just might need to make a HOUSE OF FOAM version for PSS.
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The papyrus is intact except for that one cutout ---no problema, amigo, it is just a dihedral template. -
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Because I'm an obsessed nutcase I penciled in some reference lines to create a proper centerline, etc. -
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Yeah a 190's cowl does not droop down quite that much above the C/L. So now that crucial problem can be addressed. -
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Just below the elevator link you can see the C/L running all the way aft. -
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One option is to cut down a 48" L.E.G. wing panel that I happened to have on hand. So here I've drawn a cut line that would work out well I think. -
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Well look what just popped up out of nowhere! -
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Excelente! -
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There's much to love here !!! Brings back great memories.
Taking in the Winter Olympics, and ruining a perfectly used pizza box at the very same time!
