So I acquired this U Can Do 60 in a trade with a friend. it had been stored in a loft area above his garage. when I got ahold of it, it looked to be okay so I decided to go ahead and fix it.

once I started though, I discovered that it was kind of a wreck. it had a lot of little things wrong with it and a few big things. I knew that i would have to tear it down and start from the bones or just throw it away.

Im not much on trashing planes, so I decided to go ahead and fix it. Once i started covering this beast, I realized exactly how big of a plane this really is. I have much respect for those guys that build those really BIIGG planes and cover them. when it came time to cover it though, I discovered that all I really had was a few primary colors in Econocote.. and most of it was Yellow circa 1997. oh well... I decided to use it anyway. I figured if I took my time it would come out okay.

A few weeks after I started, I finally have the structure and the covering done.. so here she is..









as you can see i decided to split the ailerons to add some small flaps. I know flaps are not necessary on a big fun-fly model like this, but id like to leave the option open for some crow mixing.

Not bad for some glue, a few rolls of Econocote circa 1997ish and some time..

going to use a DLE20 for power. I have to order a new canopy from tower as the one that came with the model is trashed.. they are on back-order however.
I have not decided on wheel pants. the only thing left of the ones that came with this one were the plywood mounting plates. I may order some, though. as far as a cowl goes, i would need a new one of those too. i haven't decided if i will forgo the cowl...

I will be updating this story on my blog in the coming days/weeks as I finish out the airplane and take the maiden flight.

OH.. and that Econocote from 1997 - it still worked perfectly. in fact, I found it to be one of the best rolls of covering ive used so far. it went on easy and shrank up tight. I would venture to say that its even better than what TF is marketing as MonoKote now-a-days.

Looks great! Stating the obvious - geez, that's got some serious control surface area!

thank you! and yes, i agree. should be lots of fun. :P

I like your philosophy on ... not trashing planes. I have a fair amount of planes that will need repair. That's Ok because I don't mind repairs .. I enjoy carefully removing the damag and rebuilding. Some are minor, others are at the point of "non-repairble". I have repaired planes with fantastic results and yet others were ... "so - so". IMHO.

Your plane looks nice ... I'm glad you rescued it. I have a 40 size U-Can-Do that will need to go all the wat down to the frame for repairs. I ain't ready to jump into that project yet but after seeing yours ... I know that I will definately want to get to it soon. Thanks for the inspiration on that.
I hope to hear the updates when you get her up - n - flyin' ... Maybe a video if you can? Do you have any pictures of the sugery during your restoration process? I like to see how other people addres their challenges ... it gives me ideas and inspiration.
How much time and money do you have into it so far, ... and how much time and money when your completed? ... If you don't mind me askin? Just curious.
Some of the repairs I've made took a rediculous amount of hours and pushed the envelope on skill level, ... but virtually no exspense ... until I get to the "covering" . The experience was well worth the cost and the results were quite impressive .... IMHO.

Great job .... Kind regards, Sean.

Sean, I tried to use as much of the materials i had on hand to complete the plane. A few things i will have to buy such as the canopy, wheel pants, etc. I had to buy a motor for it. im guessing all told i will have ~ $200 in it when its ready to go.

Well here she is at the field today, all done up. i put the old canopy on temporarily. the new one is on backorder at TH.

No maiden today as I couldnt get the DLE to idle. seemed like it was sucking air. it had an intermittent idle, and even when i backed the needle out a good ways i couldnt get it rich enough to stop. hmm...