I had planned to do an Aeronca Chief for some time now. As luck would have it, a friend just bought a recently restored 1946 Chief in Ohio, so the plan is to model that specific airplane.

The plan is for a 1/8 scale model (54" wing span)with brushless power and 4 ch. control. Power will be provided by a Himax 2808-980 with a 9-4.7 prop on 2, 1320 cells with a Castle Thunderbird 18 ESC. Control will be Rudder, Elevator, Aileron and throttle using 4 micro servos. Target weight is 15 oz. With a wing area of 390 sq. in. that will put the loading in at 5.5 oz./sq. ft. That, coupled with a power loading od around 50 watts/ lb. should deliver some very scale like flight performance.

The drawings used were taken from the "Aeronca's Golden Age" book which includes some fairly crude drawings for the Chief, along with Paul Matt's very detailed drawings for the 7AC Champ. As it turns out, the wings, vertical and horizontal tails and the cowl are interchangeable from the Champ to the Chief, so the Chief drawings were used only for the fuselage, the rest came from the Champ.

The outline is accurate to the 3 views, with no enlarging of the tail section. The only deviation is that I did not go with scale rib spacing. With the wing loading this low, and with a couple degrees of washout, there shouldn't be any stability problems even with the vertical tail at scale size. I am also working with several detail photos of the full scale airplane that were sent over by the owner as reference for those areas that don't look quite right on the drawings.

So far, the plans aere about 70% done and most of the parts are pulled out. There are still a couple of cross sections and details to worked out, but for the most part, the preliminary work is nearing completion. The build should get underway within the next couple weeks.

PAT

Good choice Pat, my 6+ year old 54' Comet conversion was based on that color scheme with knock-off gear legs and pants heldon with velcro. Mine is currently plugging along on a S400 7.2 volt brush motor in Mini-Olympus gearbox using a GWS lipo friendly speed control and 3s 2200 or 1320 lipos, 9x5 APC E- prop. I like the old Mini-Oly because it give a scale-like 4-banger clatter sound. Mine flies fine without ailerons but always wondered how it would do with. Even at 28 ounces it will thermal with prop ticking over.

Great choice Pat! Seems like it's Aeronca month around here. Oh I've stared at those Paul Matt drawing enough lately, they're very good indeed.

-Sky

Sky, Back before I was flying R/C I built several 1/32 scale plastic civilian type 2 seaters. One of my favorites was a 1947 L-16/7AC Champ that was parked at a little airport sounth of town. The fuselage frame was worked up from the Paul Matt drawings and was actually intended to go into the finished model, but when it was all done I just couldn't bring myself to hide it inside the airplane.

The full scale Champ was built from parts from both a Champ and an L-16, and was registered as an L-16. I actually got almost 2 hours logged dual time in that airplane, about half of which was learning spin entry and recovery. It was a BLAST!!!

PAT

Holy smokes Pat, that little plastic model is just insanely well done!!!

It would have been a crime to cover up that fuselage. It really needs the wings... you know you want to...

yeah pat--i am gonna just throw all my old plastic models away after seeing how nice yours are!!

wouldnt it be neat if we could make the airframes that look like that and then cover them and still be super light??

T

Z, Don't go pitching anything too soon! I built a whole bunch of 1/32 scale 2 seaters in the late 80's before I got started in R/C and haven't done much since. Back then, plastics was about all I was doing, and like anything else, if you don't do it all the time you will get rusty. And where plastics are concerned these days, I'm RRUUSSTTYY!

PAT

Pat,

Gimme a break. You being rusty on plastics is far better than most of us at our best. Besides, I saw your recent boat builds If that little freighter isn't plastic I'll eat it.

charlie

Wow!!! those are nice, Pat!

Thanks Guys. I really enjoy plastic modeling but time is so limited these days with so many projects that I just don't get to do much of that kind of thing anymore. Those 1/32 scale models like the Champ, J-3, Taylorcraft, Super Cub biplane and a few others in that class averaged about 300 - 400 hours to build, so to attemp something like that again these days would be about a 5 year project -- and my attension span just doesn't work like that!

PAT

This build-off contest has blown my mind! You guys are saturating me with endless future projects (I hope they all get kitted). Look here, I'm 46...I don't have enough time on earth to build everything you are tempting me with. Seriously, where do I begin?

Yak

Yak, I'll definitely be offering a short kit for the Chief. But don't clear the boards just yet, it'll be a month or two before the build is even close to done on this one, much less the "paper work".

PAT

It will take me five years to clear the boards.

Yak