I thought it was time to start on my Fall/Winter project....

Earlier this Summer I finished my plans for an 1/8 scale Bellanca Cruisemaster, had some parts laser cut and started today.

12/30/13 Deisgn work details added:
I purchased the scale documentation for the Bellanca Cruisemaster from Bob Banka and scanned the Cruisemaster three view to a JPG file. From there I imported the JPG file into Smartsketch and sized for 1/8 scale. The full sized Cruisemaster has a 34' 2" wing so 1/8 scale worked out to 4' 6". This size works good for me for transportation and the power setup will be the same as my LoPresti Fury. Once the JPG was sized I traced around the airplane three views and then started adding the firewalls, formers, etc. For the wing design I used Comp-U-Foil. I made some cut files for the firewall, formers, ribs and landing gear supports and had them laser cut. The rest of the parts where hand cut from balsa stock.

The construction will be similar to my LoPresti Fury that I built 2 years ago and shares the same motor and battery combination since it worked well in the Fury.

It will have a 53 1/2" wingspan and have about 403 square inches. I am going to use the Scorpion 3014/1040Kv SII motor with a Cobra 60 Amp Esc and plan to use a 3S3800 battery. The Fury weighs 3 1/2 Lbs and I expect the Cruisemaster to come out at a similar weight. I am also going to use E-Flight 15-25 90 degree retracts.

I cut out the tail feathers from 3/16 balsa and the sides from 1/16...

Here are some pictures of the Cruisemaster that I am going to model. I found it on ASO.COM, a website for aircraft sales.

I'll follow along!

James

Nice rainy day in Michigan so built the fuse....

I glued the F1 and F2 to both sides and made sure all was lined up then placed the fuse on the plans and shimmed up the back of the fuse to check the stab incidence at 0 degrees, then used a triangle to check and align the firewall..

I had planned on wrapping the fuse sides around the front of the fuse and found my F1 radius is wrong and need to rework, then resheet or plank...

I got a chance to continue work on the fuse and start on the cowl.

I finished sheeting the forward section of the fuse and also made a template to make the openings for the side windows. I glued 1/64 plywood inside the fuse where the windows will be cut out.

The cowl is made up of stacked pieces of 3/16 balsa assembled over 1/8 music wire. The cowl will be held on with magnets and aligned with dowel pins.

I sheeted the top of the fuse with 1/16 balsa and wanted to see what it looks like with the tail group pinned on....

....looks like a Bellanca...

Looking good Denny Always enjoy following your builds

Al

Al,

Good to hear from you, hope you are doing well? You flying season is just getting started huh? Our weather just starting to turn sour...oh well, I enjoy the building season.......

Denny

Do you sell short kits of your designs (through one of the laser kit cutter businesses)? Your swift/Speed Fury was very impressive.

Originally Posted by jonquinn

Do you sell short kits of your designs (through one of the laser kit cutter businesses)? Your swift/Speed Fury was very impressive.

I guess at this point they have been one of designs of airplanes I wanted to model....maybe I should think about cleaning up the plans and fixing some bugs then build a new proof to make sure everything works? No promises at this point but I will think about it.

Thanks,
Denny

Glad to see you are finally getting around to building her!

How do you find the smaller retracts holding up? I moved everything up to the aluminum type.. my thoughts are you can never have too large of retracts

Originally Posted by mrittinger

Glad to see you are finally getting around to building her!

How do you find the smaller retracts holding up? I moved everything up to the aluminum type.. my thoughts are you can never have too large of retracts

Mark,

So far the smaller 15-25 retracts have been holding up fine. Not sure how many flights I have in the Fury but so far so good. They started cutting the Midwest field shorter which helps my smaller birds take off....

I remember the day you planted the seed for me building the Cruisemaster.....

Denny

She's a nice bird, rarely modeled....and you do a great job of capturing the looks and feel of a bird like that.

This is one I've wanted to build too. I even got some factory drawings from the Smithsonian. One of these days... Meanwhile I'll just watch yours.

Geoff

Mark and Geoff,

It is a not often modeled subject so hope I can create my own version of "N524A". I am going to use white and teal Ultracote for covering. The teal matches pretty good from the pictures I found on the web.....

So far the fuse and tail feathers looks good...

Denny

I worked on the cowl today. I am using magnets on the cowl and firewall and two alignment pins. I am going to use a 2" white CB spinner. Right now I have an old one on for rough shaping and sanding.

I am using the three views I purchased from Bob Banka plus some pictures from the Web to try and carve the cowl to shape....I need ot shape some more but starting to look like the picture.

Denny