Radio Control: Giant Scale
John A. de Vries, Colonel, USAF, Ret.
4610 Moffat Ln. Colorado Springs, CO 80915
Toledo Bash and a Young Modeler
There's real hope for the future of model building. During a recent sojourn to the Toledo Bash I met a future flier, seven-and-a-half-year-old Aaron Buczkowski of Derby, NY. This precocious young fellow—his father, Dr. Joseph Buczkowski, calls him a "40-year-old midget"—is on a model-airplane vengeance. He's a competent R/C car driver, has gone through the plastic-model stage, and is intent on learning to fly R/C this summer. Aaron's already selecting a trainer and a radio. Although his major purchase at Toledo was a battery-powered 1/2-scale off-road race car, he was instrumental in convincing his dad to buy a Giant Junkers Stuka kit. "That'll be my second model," Aaron declared. "I'll betcha he flies it before he's nine." He's quite a boy.
Dawn Patrol — Chapter 90 IMAA Project Review
Big local news is the annual Dawn Patrol, Chapter 90 IMAA's project review. Fifty chapter members participated and 20 model projects were displayed. The review was more than a super show-and-tell — the day was packed with seminars on Giant Scale modeling techniques and also featured a flea market.
Seminars and presenters:
- Jerry Van Heeswyk (QSAA trophy winner): kitting and scratch-building Giants.
- Buzz Butler: finishing models.
- Greg Tiernan and Roy Murray: foam wing cutting and demonstration of a foam-cutting table that simultaneously cuts both top and bottom surfaces of a wing panel.
- Bob Eson (District IX IMAA director): making decals.
- Larry Stoughton: building safe Giant Scale control rods and pushrods.
- Vail Kinsey: noise control, effective mufflers, and how shock-mounting engines reduces noise.
Thanks to our correspondent Leo Ford for his description of a most worthwhile Saturday.
Delmar Waterson's DGA-15P Conversion
A letter from my friend Delmar Waterson (Dighton, KS) described a project I’ve long advocated: taking an existing A-scale kit and modifying it into a substantially different model. Del started with a Nosen Mr. Mulligan kit and, with documentation in hand, emulated Benny Howard to create a Howard DGA-15P.
Modifications included:
- New-style fiberglass cowling and wheel pants.
- Adding an extra rib bay in each wing panel to increase wing area for the DGA-15P.
- Designing and building a scale fiberglass Pratt & Whitney engine crankcase.
- Producing scale cylinders from 35mm plastic film canisters: Del fit a wood dowel through the canisters and turned cooling fins on the lathe.
- Borrowing a chrome spinner from a Beech Staggerwing kit.
- Power: Sachs .31 with electronic ignition.
A fine example of creative conversion and scale detailing.
Plans and Design Concerns
There seems to be a problem facing the Big Bird community: while we see a wonderful variety of models at fly-ins and rallies, relatively few are being made available as scratch-build drawings. Over 350 different Giant drawings have been made available, but many prototypes are duplicated across plan sets—multiple Mustangs, Hellcats, P-47s, several Bucker Jungmeisters, Wedell-Williams racers, Springfield Bulldogs, Great Lakes trainers, Hurricanes, Fleet biplanes, Pitts designs, and more. This duplication wastes designing talent.
Before committing pencil to Mylar or punching up a CAD program, designers should:
- Check current magazines and IMAA's High Flight to see what's currently available.
- Research the back magazine stacks to find what has already been done.
- Then produce something new, fresh, exciting, and well-documented.
Wanted: designers for less-common prototypes. Anyone for a Giant:
- Curtiss P-40N
- YF-18
- C-46
- Folkerts SK-3
- Lockheed Air Express or Orion
- Bell P-63 or YMF-1A
- Rumpler C-V
- Morane-Saulnier N
- Grumman F2F-1
- Seversky P-35
There are plenty more to choose from.
Commercial & Product News
'Tis logical that after the annual Ohio orgy we'd be up to here with news of the commercial end of our hobby. Recent Giant Scale kit and product items of interest:
- A.H.S. Manufacturing
17 N. Main St., Centerville, OH 45459 Phone: 1-513-433-0752 Offers a neat fiberglass-and-foam 1/4-scale AT-6 Texan kit, among others.
- Ohio Superstar Products, Inc.
11376 Ridgeway Road, Kensington, OH 44427 Phone: 1-216-223-1950 Produces a Kraft Super Fli in two Giant sizes — both in fiberglass and foam — and other kits.
- Quay Barber Models
27106 Butternut Ridge, North Olmsted, OH 44070 Phone: 1-216-777-6172 Specializes in largish Goodyear racer kits; five fiberglass-and-foam kits in the line. Upcoming: Art Chester "Swee' Pea" with a V-tail. Quay is active in large-scale Pylon Racing — contact him if interested in giant-sized speed competition.
- Radial Engine Technologies, Inc. — Mike GR6-120 radial engine
7 Greenwood Lane, Valhalla, NY 10595 Phone: 1-914-686-9373 Specs: six .20 two-stroke cylinders, weight 5.25 lb., turns an 18 x 6 prop at 8,150 rpm, output 2.1 hp. Notable feature: needle valve may be remotely located for convenience or safety. Price is reasonable compared to other Giant radials.
- Robart
P.O. Box 1247, St. Charles, IL 60174 Now building scale retractable landing gear for B-17 Flying Fortress models.
Wendell Hostetler's Triple Plan
Wendell Hostetler has produced a triple plan to celebrate his 10th year in scale model design. The drawing set permits building:
- Long-wing J-3 Cub (127 in. span),
- Clipped-wing Cub (102 in. span),
- Super Cub.
Accessories (cowls, bent gears, etc.) are available from Wendell. He also has Giant Scale 60-in. Edo float drawings.
Contact Wendell Hostetler: 1041 Heatherwood Lane, Orrville, OH 44667 Phone: 1-216-682-8896
Closing
Fly safely—we'll meet next month.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
