Wizard

Great Job, and cheers to the Spirit of Building , flying and having fun



I often come across plans that have been copied a number of times thru various means.

Even plans in new Kits with copied plans and they are in accurate, recently a set of plans out 1/8 inch over 16 Inches, in the direction of the wing panel length

I get it most don't care, but for those later that come across your plan, I thought it would be nice to have some dimensions shown on the plans.

Perhaps, bulkhead width and height, rib pitch

Chord width, panel or lower spar lengths, just a few dimensions, that will help future Builders more clearly understand where they can improve their GE Build, If they have your plans.

Thanks again for the effort, and they are considerable, in getting these plans drawn, as who knows If one can ever get a Kit of this fantastic plane.

whacker

Amen to that...

Thank you. This drawing is already very crowded, but I have added a 12 inch/30 centimeter reference scale to each sheet to use as a base line.

I have converted a number of old school sailplane plans hopefully giving them a new life, they have been posted on Outerzone.
Here is the list: Bridi Flipper, Gnome 60”, Gnome 2M, Gnome 3M, Olympic 650, Olympic II, Pussycat, Shuttle 78, Soar Birdi 2M, Square Soar 72, Step Two, Wander 72 and the Wander 99.

Alan

Wowee Alan! that's long list! Thank You!

Wizard

Did you work from some known lengths to do the lines.

Ie 24 inch spar length.

2 Inch wide formers

32 Inch long boom

or you taking an existing drawing, (unknown origin) and measuring and drawing to the nearest 1/16"

are dihedral and polyhedral angels noted anywhere on the drawings you have , ?

I do not know the various sizes myself but have a number of original Airtronics Prints that are still very accurate, and one could measure the essential info of them.


Most lines are really not of much use to a scratch builder, as long as you have a good set of ribs to start with on the wings for example,

on the fuselage a key would be width, height and length in a few locations, and then one can join the dots.

Of course just the fact you have something with straight lines is a blessing, unlike scanned crooked prints that have been reprinted

whacker

I work from known dimensions, length, wing span, material sizes called out on the plans, instructions, and magazine articles, whatever I can find. Sometimes I just have to just make my best guess. Some information is only available in the instructions. I have a hefty kit stash so sometimes I’ll pull out the parts and work from those. Most plans that come with kits are missing key information as they were never intended to be used for scratch building. I square up everything, fix the drafting error that I find, make it symmetrical and straight and call it good.

At some point I want to get a CNC setup or laser cutter and a 3D printer so I can make my own parts from the CAD files. For the time being the CAD files make great templates for hand cutting, for ribs I slap the drawings on aluminum to make my templates.

I also do the drawings for stress relief, with two teenage boys, stress and I are well acquainted.

Alan

Originally Posted by whacker

Wizard

Great Job, and cheers to the Spirit of Building , flying and having fun



I often come across plans that have been copied a number of times thru various means.

Even plans in new Kits with copied plans and they are in accurate, recently a set of plans out 1/8 inch over 16 Inches, in the direction of the wing panel length

I get it most don't care, but for those later that come across your plan, I thought it would be nice to have some dimensions shown on the plans.

Perhaps, bulkhead width and height, rib pitch

Chord width, panel or lower spar lengths, just a few dimensions, that will help future Builders more clearly understand where they can improve their GE Build, If they have your plans.

Thanks again for the effort, and they are considerable, in getting these plans drawn, as who knows If one can ever get a Kit of this fantastic plane.

whacker

It cost me lots of money to legally receive the sole Mfg. rights to the Airtronics kits, a notification list was started many months ago to those wishing to be notified when I would start accepting orders. My long time laser cutter passed away and I am finally getting back to normal production of my Sky Bench kits . I have had free help with the CAD work my deceased laser cutter used to do from a very dedicated Woody enthusiast and others have also helped me keep Airtronics kits and Sky Bench kits available. Rest assured, I will be accepting orders for the Grand Esprit and others soon.

Please understand Sky Bench has a huge number of kits for sale, it is not possible to have kits on the shelf. My order form explains shipping time. Yesterday, I notified my web master to delete the “not taking orders notice “ on my web, soon there will be another announcements.

Thank you all for your patience.

Ray
Woodys Forever
www.skybench.com

That is indeed excellent news Ray .
Thank you for all you do.

I get it Wizard

Your doing those plans for most that don't have 150$ to shell out for a Kit, let alone have a clear path to get the 150 $ Kit, into their Den

Those folks have a few bits of balsa , and ply hear and there and over time are able to cobble together a plane, and perhaps years later outfit it with some electronics salvaged from another wreck

These "scratcher's" are a unique bunch , perhaps forming a large portion of the builders out there.

Some of them like me do wonder though when they download a plan from outerzone where the info comes from.

It is not trivial whether F-3 and F-4 are 2 inch or 3 inch wide.

Know 2 or 2 1/8 inch may be no biggy, but was rather curious how you come up with the numbers.

I have build Sagitta's et al from ATX Kits and have found original Plans to accurately present the size of precut parts in the Kits.

That being said most of us will never spend the money on one of these Kits, and someday all that will be left is "scratching" from plans preserved thru the efforts of people like you.

In the Spirit of this Thread and having fun building

Thanks

whacker

Here are the final version of the Grand Esprit plans. I did my best to stay true to the original.

Revised drawings posted on 5/21/2020 - I had to make some changes I found some minor errors in the rib templates.

Originally Posted by wizardofflight

Here are the final version of the Grand Esprit plans. I did my best to stay true to the original.

An extremely nice work produced! Talented you certainly are... Those of us who with the passion to transform balsa trees into flying art will appreciate your accomplishments. Ed

hi wizardoflight,

Thanks for the GS plans.
Is it possible for you to convert the dxf template file to pdf format for computer dummies like me to download in an accessible format.

thanks

Michael in Ontario, Canada

DXF to Pdf


Likely other ways as well

https://pdf.wondershare.com/pdf-know...xf-to-pdf.html

Thank You so Much Alan! Beautiful job!

Both the full size PDF and the DXF have been posted above. Looks like the PDF is the first download link.

Alan

Originally Posted by 2michaely

hi wizardoflight,

Thanks for the GS plans.
Is it possible for you to convert the dxf template file to pdf format for computer dummies like me to download in an accessible format.

thanks

Michael in Ontario, Canada