I did mention it somewhere...

I made the cowl from a plastic container... Home Depot... snack aisle. They sell plastic wide-mouth jars, about 1/2 gallon, of all kinds of snacks... trail mix, mixed nuts, pretzels, chocolate raisins, etc. Not sure of the brand, but they have several similar size containers with red lids. I get the ones with no reinforcing lip or ribs at the bottom... just plain smooth plastic jar.... makes a nice cowl. I pick these up all the time... nice to have snacks while I work... and the jars are also great for storing bolts and screws and nails.

The jar is exactly 5.125" diameter... perfect for 1/10-1/9 planes with Wasp Jr motors. To be honest, I built the plane because I already had the jar and thought to myself "this oughtta make a good cowl for something". I've also started plans for a 1/10 scale Grumman Goose.

Other planes I considered building at the same scale using this size cowl:
Beechcraft Model 18
Beechcraft Staggerwing
Canadian Fairchild
Douglas Dolphin
Fairchild 24G
Howard DGA-15
Lockheed Electra
North American BT-14
Seversky BT-8
Sikorsky S-39
Spartan Executive
Stearman Model 75
Stinson Reliant
Vought Kingfisher
Vultee BT-13
Waco SRE (and others)

That should keep me busy for awhile

I'm gonna have to try this one!

I vote for the Lockheed Electra Warhead! What a great looking bird, and with your building skills it would certainly be impressive.

-Mike

Nice progress.. and looking fantastic!
What software do you use for doing your design?

Thanks
Bernie

I just make careful measurements and draw it up with Illustrator. I should learn to use Google Sketchup so I can make sure everything fits together in 3-D. So far so good. The canopy windshield took a little trial and error to get just right, but everything else goes together easily.

I took the plane out late last night during a lull in the rainstorms. The local park keeps their lights on all night, and the parking lot was completely empty for a bit of testing. I taxied around a bit to get a feel for her --- ground handling is excellent... tracks better than anything else I own... the steerable tail wheel gives me great control and seems aligned well to the rudder. I did a few straight runs at about half throttle and the tail was up in about 20ft... she bobbed up into the air a few times but I immediately throttled back to keep her on the ground. I'm 100% sure she'll fly... just need calm winds a a bit more light and I'm ready to go.

Awesome looking Dehavilland Beaver! I can't wait to read about the maiden flight.

I just started using Google Sketchup a few days ago. It is a great tool.

And while researching where my CG should be, I came across this Depron Beaver, about 48". Looks nice, but seems pretty fragile.... extremely lightweight.

From everything I can find, CG seems to have a very wide range... from 25% to 33%. I'm balancing at about 28% with 2x 2200mah lipos Y'd in parallel... that extra lipo is an extra 6oz, but might as well add useful weight instead of lead.

That's depron, but I have to say that it looks more fragile than it really is and not all the parts suffer the same damage; I have broken lots of noses but still have to break a depron wing.
2x2200 should give you plenty of time I suppose, maybe in the range of 40 minutes and that's good for a relax-aimed plane like the beaver.

She flies!

Clear skies, 45degrees, winds steady at 10knots from the East. My runway was a little bouncy because the Park District recently "raked" the beach. I have some video of flight #2 and #3, but one of my flying buddies got the maiden,... mostly uneventful. I did bend one landing leg when I hit a rut... but fixed that in a matter of minutes.

I had to dial in a LOT of down elevator... I will probably cut The H-stab and reposition with +3deg incidence. My first hop she pulled up fast and it took some wrangling to keep her nose down. After I ran out of trim on the radio, I landed her and adjusted the sub-trim instead. Other than that, she's a fine flying bird... absolutely effortless circuits around the beach. No bad habits.

The motor took about 2/3 throttle on take-off, then I throttled back to just a click over 1/2 for scale cruising. I can go as low as 1/3 throttle and maintain altitude. Stalls are straight ahead... but you have to go REALLY slow to stall her. She floats like a glider... but the fuselage is draggy enough to slow her down when I want to. I have her set up with flaperons for now... the actual flaps are just tooth-picked in the "up" position. I think flaps are completely unnecessary, but I'll be adding them "just because it looks cool".

Enough chatter... here are a few pics. I'll post some video after I have time to edit it.

Thats awesome . What an amazing looking bird . One day when my skills improve i hope to try this bird , this has been a great build to follow and has given me alot of great info i never knew . thanx Warhead



Chris

Fantastic maiden!! Uneventful is good! Thanks for letting us follow your build.

I'm sure everyone is looking forward to videos...Again, CONGRATS!!!! Dart

Really nice Warhead. Looks great in the air and a lot of fun.

CONGRATULATIONS! She looks too cool in those pictures and HAS TO fly cool too. Looks like the bumpy sand is no problem, I'd try some bigger, 'tundra' wheels just for fun .

Bigger tires? These should help.............

Well, I was actually thinking something like what he was using, just a couple of sizes bigger, but these should be good enough to 'land' on water