SB2C Helldiver
Above: The business side of the Helldiver. The model has ample area in every direction. The engine, tank, and pushrods almost get lost in the expanse. Natural moments make the Helldiver an ideal design to translate into scale dimensions. Right: The engine and tank installed and ready for another torpedo run. It's an O.S. .35 and is quite sufficient for powering it through all the maneuvers. Don't forget to install the inline fuel filter to ensure many trouble-free flights.
Laird Solution
THERE YOU ARE, just minding your own business reading an interesting book on air racing. Then-bam!-they do it to you. Suddenly you've fallen prey to an irresistible urge to create a Scale model of whatever captivating airplane has just leapt off the page and into your heart. In this case I was innocently reading through the excellent book, September Champions by Robert Hull. It wasn't till page 33 that I lost my head. The Laird Solution had always been a favorite of mine-and there it was, the full-size aircraft in all its beauty! The caption infected me, too. It seems that the Solution was built in less than a month, just in the nick of time for the 1930 Thompson Trophy Race.
Profile AT-6
If you, like our author, live in an area where the wind never lets up, this CL Profile Stunter is the ticket. It's rugged and easy to build. Choose either foam or built-up wings. Don't you just hate it when the wind blows and blows? I had no idea when I moved to the Midwest just how much those skies can bluster. After two years I'm convinced that calm is the anomaly and wind is normal. So what's a guy to do? Build models that fly in the wind, natch. The AT-6 was designed to do just that. It's clean, rugged, nimble, and able to penetrate a typical midwestern Saturday wind. Certainly one of the most popular and frequently seen propeller-driven aircraft around, the AT-6 seemed a good choice as packaging for my Stunt practice ship. The full-size plane still flies at air shows, air races, fly-ins, and, of course, in the movies. My aircraft file includes examples of AT-6s in everything from Japanese to German colors.
FockeWulf FW90
NOT EVERY aircraft is created equal. Some have a certain indefinable character that sets them apart from the rest. The Focke Wulf 190 is one of those. It's very name evokes a memory to most every aviation enthusiast. Having been designed around the unconventional radial engine, the FW 190's profile is distinctive. One author called it elegant lethality; others called it simply awesome efficiency. In a time when the majority of fighter aircraft were being designed around the sleek in-line engines, the Focke Wulf was rather unique. The future obviously belonged to the sleek, or at least the designers thought so. Little did they realize that the FW 190 would marshal in a stream of new fighters that would prove them wrong. Brute power elegantly faired into a rugged airframe that was light and smooth to fly-these were the attributes that set the Focke Wulf 190 apart from even the classic Spitfires and Mustangs.
