Mounting Wheels
MODELERS who like to do things right know that probably the most secure method of attaching a wheel to a wire axle is by soldering metal washers to both sides of the wheel. The only hitch is that solderable metal washers with the proper size hole in the center can be difficult to find. The following photo essay shows how to avoid that problem by custom-making your own metal washers. This technique can be used with wire axles of any size.
Simple Instrument Panel
A sport airplane - especially one with an open cockpit - always looks better with an instrument panel. Light planes from the Golden Age of aviation, as well as a number of homebuilts, get by with rather simple instrumentation that includes little more than an oil-pressure and temperature gague, tachometer, altimeter, compass, airspeed, and turn and bank indicators. The photos show how to duplicate these simple instruments in a panel that dresses up an airplane with little effort.
No-cal J-3 Cub
MR. PIPER'S J-3 CUB has been used to teach a lot of people to fly full-size aircraft, and this J-3 Cub model has taught a lot of people to fly No-Cal Scale. It has been built by novices, Juniors, old-timers, RCers, Free Flighters, etc., and all have been Curved outlines of the wing tips, rudder, and stab are formed around templates of cardboard or wood. Soak the strips in warm water; form them around the templates, and hold in place with strips of masking tape. Tall surfaces are too filmsy to withstand any shrinking of the covering. A simple trick is to build a frame, cover it with tissue, shrink the tissue with water, and then cover the tail surfaces with the tissue still in the frame. The results is wrinkle-free covering with no warps.
Stroker
THIS DESIGN is the result of an effort to match an airplane to the beautiful .40 to .45 four-stroke engines now available at reasonable cost. I feel the match is a good one. Although there are many excellent kits on the market that will do quite well with the four-strokers, it seems a shame to couple these engines to the mundane, for they have a personality all of their own. Stroker tries to capture the romance of open cockpit flying and combine it with the four-stroke personality to produce an efficient flying machine. It does just that. This is an airplane that will perform with the best of them and still be gentle enough for those of us barely out of the learning stage.
One, Two, Three, Kick
The Conga line has little in common with the four-cycle model engine, but it does have the right rhythm. Our author helps us get better acquainted with this increasingly-popular, quiet power plant.
