Radio Control Scale - 2006/08

THROUGH THE YEARS I’ve attended
many Scale contests, mostly as a judge or an
observer, but I have actually competed a few
times too. Scale modeling is much like any other sport or hobby,
except this one I only dabble in.
You can go fishing with just a cane pole or you can go for all the
goodies with the Bass Tracker with a 225-horsepower engine, duel
depth finders front and rear, and all the other electronic gadgets you
might not even be able to imagine—just to catch a fish!
Scale modeling is much the same. Some of us are competitive and
enjoy building (some have more time than others) and others have
the money to go out and buy whatever the latest trend is in carbon
fiber, fiberglass, turbines, seven-cylinder radial engines, jet kits, or
ARFs.
You can easily spend upward of $15,000 on a new turbine scale
kit. I haven’t built one and don’t intend to because, as I told a friend
the other week while watching five turbines in the air, I didn’t want
to have to be sent to a cardiac care unit when it crashed.
Other models won’t cost you as much, but if you add up the
expenses it can scare you. Some modelers will say that if you
don’t have the cash to play, you shouldn’t bother. Fair enough.
But what many modelers dedicate to their hobby/sport is an
The economics of Scale aeromodeling
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Radio Control Scale Stan Alexander
Also included in this column:
• Ikon N’wst has new owners
and has moved
• More news about Don Smith’s
Nakajima Ki-27
• Thoughts on kit cutters
• Review of Brian Knight’s
Fokker Dr.I book
One of Bob Violett Models’ F-86 turbine-powered jets. It’s beautiful in the air!
Tom Poole’s 1/4-scale Piper Tri-Pacer from Ikon N’wst.
Audrey Poole with her grandfather Tom Poole’s Tri-Pacer. Notice
the nose gear; it makes for easy steering. The author’s documentation collection for the Ki-27 Nate.
August 2006 117
08sig4.QXD 6/23/06 10:26 AM Page 117incredible amount of time and a little money for a new engine or
new airplane kit (if they can find an actual kit).
Many Scale modelers build and fly airplanes that are roughly a
half lap ahead of them. If I were to build a jet it would be
something odd or different such as a Heinkel He 162 Salamander
from World War II or a British de Havilland Swallow. They’ve
been modeled before, but maybe not in a larger scale.
Some Scale modelers take a progressive route and eventually
end up thrilled in competition. Tom Poole of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, has been building all sorts of different models, and
for the past two years he has competed in the Scale RC Indoor
Classic at Muncie, Indiana, which is before the Scale National
Championships. Tom has used kits and his own-design scratch-built beauties for the competition.
This past winter Tom was busy with a new
Piper Tri-Pacer scale kit from Ikon N’wst. It
follows a philosophy of getting into
competition at a gradual pace and with
increasingly larger models.
The Tri-Pacer has a wingspan of 87
inches with a wing area of 1,300 square
inches. It weighs only 15 pounds. Tom
covered the light civil aircraft with 21st
Century Coverite, and power is provided by
an O.S. 1.20 Surpass—the same engine that
is in my Super Stearman.
Tom used seven servos in this Tri-Pacer;
two were 1/4 scale, two were heavy duty, and
three were standard. He added a redundant
power supply with one battery pack at 2100
mAh and the other at 1400 mAh.
Tom has flown the model and is getting
it ready to take to the Scale National
Championships this year.
“It flies very scalelike with about half
throttle,” he said.
The little lady in the photo is Tom’s
granddaughter Audrey Poole.
Ikon N’wst has new owners and has moved
from Post Falls, Idaho, to Spokane,
Washington. Emil and Iris Neely sold the
business sometime last year, and I wish
them the best.
The company offers a line of kits
including the Gee Bee Model E Sportster,
Fairchild 22, Monocoupe D-145, Monocoupe
90A, Noorduyn Norseman, Rearwin
Speedster, L-19 Bird Dog, Corben Super
Ace, Gee Bee Model Y Senior Sportster, 1/4-
scale Super Cub, Stinson SR-8 Gullwing, and
Stinson 108.
Most of these models are 1/4 scale or
larger, and almost all are civil aircraft, many
from the 1930s Golden Era of Aviation.
These aren’t ARFs! You have to build the
kits, which to some of us is still a fun part of
the hobby.
Some of Ikon N’wst’s aircraft are ones
you don’t see all the time at Scale contests,
such as the Fairchild 22 or the Corben Super
Ace. That sort of leads us to the next subject.
Slightly more than two years ago I did a
plans review of Don Smith’s Nakajima Ki-
27—code name Nate. The model has a
wingspan of 111 inches with an all-up weight
of somewhere close to 30 pounds. I’ve been
looking for documentation for this aircraft
and have found a lot in the past couple years
with the help of friends on this side of the
Pacific and in Japan.
The Nate was the first low-wing fighter
for the Japanese Army Air Force, and it
started service in 1936. It looks different from
most fighters because it has wheel pants and
no retracts, which should make the model
have less maintenance issues throughout the
years if it lasts that long.
Don Smith has plans, canopy, cowl, wheel
pants, tail cone, and a host of other parts
available for the Ki-27. I’ll start construction
on it as soon as I can clear off my workbench.
I will build it and finish it as a fighter in the
field, although there will be little weathering
on it; the photos don’t show much, if any,
wear on this particular aircraft. If it were a
late-war Ki-27 it would look used up.
After checking different companies that
specialize in cutting kits for plans producers
such as Don Smith, Jerry Bates, Nick Ziroli,
Scale Plans & Photo Service, and others, I
selected Precision Cut Kits. The company
was listed on Don Smith’s Web site.
Another kit cutter with some great
products out there is The Aeroplane Works,
which cuts Don Smith’s kits. Check it out.
With more than one company available, you
have competition in price and quality. I’ve
seen several Aeroplane Works kits at contests
in the past several years, including the Scale
National Championships, Top Gun, and the
Masters Championships.
Most kit-cutter companies use a band saw
to make most of their parts. This is not the
usual band-saw blade you see at Searsalthough you can find a fine-tooth blade there
also. A company wants a precise band saw
with at least 10 teeth per inch on the blade to
make the cut more precise. If you didn’t have
a blade this fine, it would require more
sanding.
One of the things I enjoy about the sport
kits from Bruce Tharpe Engineering is that
there is little or no sanding involved. The
quality of detail he puts into sport kits is
amazing.
Bookshelf: For books about World War I
aircraft there isn’t a better source than
Albatros Productions Ltd. It has an extensive
list of books about World War I aircraft,fabric, etc., and they aren’t cheap. The
average book with the current exchange rate
costs approximately $33 with postage from
the UK.
The book, or booklet—it has a cardstock
cover—I am reviewing this month is
about the famed mount of the Red Baron:
the Fokker Dr.I. Fokker Dr.I is by Brian
Knight and has 41 pages, not including the
back cover. It is the best documentation for
a Dr.I I’ve seen. The other books I have
from Albatros Productions elicit the same
comments.
The Dr.I history is told briefly. There are
62 photos of Dr.Is in various color schemes
and some in the bare bones. There are pages
of color plates with different color schemes.
The book has a two-page exploded view of
the airframe and scale drawings including
five different views. Another page includes
scale details of fittings for the axles, axle
wing, and tail skid.
The photos also confirm the streaky
paint schemes on many of the aircraft. I
have seen only one modeler correctly paint
his Dr.I this way, and judging from the
photos he nailed it. These books are well
worth the money if you are into World War
I aircraft—especially the Dr.I.
The quickest way I know to obtain these
books is to fax your credit-card order to the
UK. Remember the exchange rate and be
ready for the bill! There are books about
many different nationalities of aircraft too,
including British, French, and German.
Fair skies and tailwinds. MA