Phillip Kent

I became aware of the Buhl Aircraft
Company during the late 1950s;
one of my American friends, Steve
Ditta, sent me a Berkeley kit of the
Buhl Pup.
This interesting little Scale Free Flight
model was a fine flying machine. On one
occasion, it hooked a powerful thermal and
flew out of sight.
My next contact with models of Buhl
aircraft was through an article in our
Aeromodeller magazine, which featured a
Buhl Sport Airsedan designed by American
modeler Hurst Bowers.
From those plans—scaled up to a 72-
inch wingspan—I built my first Radio
Control model years ago. The model flew
well, but it was not very accurate. When
some information about the full-scale
aircraft came to light, I did a complete
redesign of the model.
The Buhl Sport Airsedan was a
deluxe three-place sesquiplane with a
36-foot wingspan. Being a highperformance
aircraft aimed at the
sportsman pilot, it had limited appeal;
consequently, few were built.

I had a problem when building the Alexander Bullet (November 1995 Model Aviation). I chose to model the version with fixed undercarriage; no problems there, but what about the cowl panels behind the five-cylinder Wright Whirlwind engine? The panels were covered in louvers (exits for cooling air), and that was the problem. How could these louvers be reproduced on the model? Perhaps they could be made individually and attached to the cowl panels one at a time. This did not seem to be a good idea, since there was a considerable number of louvers; making and fitting them would be a time-consuming task.