Small Flying Arts

Howard, thanks for the info, I never saw this colour scheme on a Cessna before.
Keep us informed how it flies.

rgroener wrote:Great Cessna with a nice finish.
Is the colour scheme from a "real airplane" or is it a phantasy scheme?
Roman

Roman,

It was from a real airplane, but it crashed in 2014 and was written off,

Howard

Great Cessna with a nice finish.
Is the colour scheme from a "real airplane" or is it a phantasy scheme?
Roman

For those who haven't followed this build elsewhere here is a little history on it.


Every summer we have our grandson with us for a week when he goes to Science Camp at the California Science Center in Exposition Park. (His parents get a week to themselves.) I had to drive him past downtown Los Angeles, on weekday mornings, and it made no sense to drop him off, drive home, and drive back to pick him up. As I did in previous years, I brought my portable building board and sat in the Science Center food court to build a model airplane while waiting for his class to be over, thus making myself a living museum display for about two and one-half hours every morning.

Last year I started my "G" Challenge entry, a #309LC, Cessna 150. This is a new, laser cut, kit and since I decided to make it a nearly out-of-the-box build (except for a removable nose, of course) I expected it to go rather quickly despite the fact that people would interrupt me to talk about what I was doing, as they always do. The interruptions are welcome since it gives me the opportunity to promote the hobby and myself by passing out some business cards.

On Monday I got the basic fuselage framed up and the stringers on down to the part where I had to put the landing gear wire on. On Tuesday, I had to bend the wire, giving some amazed onlookers a virtuoso performance (If I do say so myself.), installed the landing gear, and the rest of the stringers. Wednesday was for wings and tail feathers. I had some long conversations (and passed out a few business cards) so I did not get the wings finished. Thursday, I finished the wings, did some general sanding, and started on the structure for the inside of the plastic nose. Friday, I finished the nose and did most of the general sanding and cleanup for covering. Once I got the components completed it was easy to assemble it, temporarily, with three Scuncii clips so that people could see what it looked like assembled. (I have aluminum tube pins in the wing roots to locate the wings.)

The remarks from passers who did not stop to talk were interesting. The little kids said, "I want to do that!" The teenagers said, "Wow! People actually BUILD those things." The adults said. "Wow! People STILL build those things. And, the senior citizens said, "I admire your work."

All in all, it was fun. Our grandson had fun with us. His parents got some time to themselves. We enjoyed our grandson even if it does remind us of why we are to old to have kids, and I got the years entry started along with some free advertising. Not a bad week!

Unfortunately, life has a habit of getting in the way so I did not finish the model last year.

staubkorb wrote:Howard,
re: stance issue. The rake angle of the main gear might be a bit off (too far forward), placing the axles at, or too near the "balance point". Bending the legs back a touch will ease the problem.

Might be like telling Gran'ma how to suck eggs...

staubkorb,

Yes, it might.

The build is per plan. The plan shows the main gear behind the C.G., and it is, but not quite far enough. I have bent the gear back a bit and now it does sit 3-point, but since it's being flown outdoors in a grassy area as long as it balances for flying this is a moot point. The performance with the six inch Ikara prop is good, but it's even better with a seven inch, Guillow's "black prop" so no R.O.G. anyway.

Howard,
re: stance issue. The rake angle of the main gear might be a bit off (too far forward), placing the axles at, or too near the "balance point". Bending the legs back a touch will ease the problem.

Might be like telling Gran'ma how to suck eggs...

The wingspan is 24 inches.

nice one. What's te wingspan?

I finally got my Guillow Cessna150 together. It's not one of my better efforts, but it's done and it flies. It is a straight out-of-the-box build except for the removable nose and the locating pins for the wings. Now, here is a comment on the quality of the current Guillow's wood...it weighs 48 grams! While not contest material, at that weight (It would be no trouble to get 10 grams out of it.), with that much wing area it is a more than adequate sport flier on four strands of 1/8" tan sport rubber, about 1-1/2 times the hook to peg length. That's quite an improvement over the die-cut days, the last 300 series model I built out-of-the-box weighed 78 grams ready to fly. Don't get me wrong, the old one flew, but not as well as this one.

Interestingly enough, with enough ballast in the nose to fly well (8 bb shot) it still doesn't have enough weight in the nose to sit on the nose gear...curious.

There is one other modification. I used a rather aggressively pitched, six inch, Ikara propeller instead of the five inch "red prop" in the kit. This gives more thrust and still gives enough prop clearance for R.O.G....or at least it would if the model would sit on its nose gear.

The flying surfaces are covered with yellow Esaki tissue. Having run out of silver Esaki I covered the fuselage with kit tissue, misted on some Krylon #1305 and sprayed it with metallic silver, Design Master floral spray. The color scheme is taken from a real Cessna that was, unfortunately, written off in a hard landing accident in 2014.

I had a minor disaster when I used a new paint pen to draw the door outlines on the fuselage. The line bled badly on the floral spray painted tissue. It looked terrible! The paint in the pen is waterproof and I was about to respray the fuselage when it occurred to me that the paint might not be alcohol proof.. Sure enough, 91% alcohol and some Q-tips took the paint right off. Unfortunately, it also took off some of the floral spray leaving a smudged outline where the bad door outline had been. I still had to re-spray the side of the fuselage but I already had markings and windows in place so I had to mask. This is where I first used Frog Tape For Delicate Surfaces. It worked beautifully and did not damage the tissue or painted surfaces at all. I would have normally used air brush frisket, but I had no spray bleeding at all with the Frog Tape. It's something I'll be using from now on. (No, that was simply a tip, not a paid commercial!


Keep 'Em Flying!

Howard