Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

The glider I mentioned did have an engine, a .15 as I recall but it was usually only at idle when in the air.
The big yellow Prime Cut I built was with wood from Lone Star and I had also posted a thread about what total crap the wood was and when I tried to speak with the owner about it he wouldn't phone back. The wood was long blocks and so soft you could put a finger through it. Looked like they were using it for a sword fight too, lot of dings in it plus deep cracks in it. When I ripped it those cracks were so deep the sheets would split. It also cost me all my modeling money to buy it so I was forced to use the total crap.
Lone Star is no longer in business from what I hear so I suspect they were getting rid of all there crap wood at that time. It was soon after that they closed there doors.
I haven't bought wood from anyone else sence, just haven't needed to.
I haven't gotten any bad wood from National. There are other good wood suppliers I have used in the past and some not so good. I found Midwest wood to be hard and heavy but it's carried at my local craft store and there when I need it. They just over charge for it but are cheaper then others with there ply sheets.
I don't buy raw balsa so I just need to keep my eye on the grain when cutting.
have cut blanks from trees, Walnut, when I was making gun stocks. You just use a chain saw and remove small pieces until you can see the grain then you cut the blanks, wax the ends and age/dry. We cut black walnut trees for farmers in the central valley and only asked for the crotch wood where all the limbs came together and the figured wood was.
Only reason I have all these wood working tools is because I live in a large community that has a club for everything you can think of. The Wood Chips is the first club I joined when I moved here. It has everything you could think of, we can even custom cut our own crown molding if needed. We have some very talented men and women here.

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Gene! Love all the positivty surrounding the Bridi designs...

You talk a lot about the Dirty Birdy. Kinda like the one shown below? Just finished it last month but haven't maidened it yet.

(edit... RCU not allowing pictures??? sorry)

My favorite trainer is the Bridi Advanced Trainer. Building another one of those as well. Covering it now.

The UFO is next to build.

Did you know there were at least 3 revisions on the DB the Bridi put out? If interested I will share. Nothing huge. My DB are built ocf the RCM plans... Sligtly different than the BJ and Bridi kits.

Enjoying this thread a lot!!!

Brian

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Hi Brian, I knew there were two versions of the DB and one kit had the glass fuse but I really never saw one in use, I think I read about it in the pattern forum? I couldn't keep up with all the different mods to the Kaos I have seen. Yours was one of them.There is a shot of my DB in my gallery but it wasn't fully shaped because that dumbass married to my wife forgot a couple of stringers and was afraid to remove anymore of the fuse side. They are more oval then I was able to get mine, won't make that mistake again.
The other kit I'm cutting is for Cliff, Daddyoh57 I think is his handle. He finished his last Kaos a few weeks ago and hasn't had a chance to maiden it yet either. NV and CA have been having strong winds for weeks so we have both been grounded . You know how fast I build so when I get into this one it should only take a couple weeks to have it framed up. I'm also working again so my time is a lot shorter.
This DB is an exact copy of the BJ kit but I have some extra touches for it so it should be a lot better then my last one. I have built and flown a lot of the Bridi planes but most of them were for customers. I only build for myself these days.
Gene

gmeyers

This is an old thread but would like to see it revived somewhat. I was able to find a copyshop nearby that is very reasonable for scanning and saving plans to a thumb drive and then printing them in any size you want as long as it will fit on a 36 inch wide (any length) piece of paper. The owner has been very nice to me and she said she could print my airplane plans on two pieces of paper or 72 inches wide by any length. I found that most 40 sized plans can be enlarged to 60 sized at 120% and will fit on 36 inch wide paper and I like that option. She will also print from emails so last image I received via email she was able to print it 72 x 36 and it worked out great. Since Bluejay seems to be shut down, plans copying may be another way to revive old models.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Plans sharing and the making of templates is how a lot of the old designs are kept alive.the old RCM plans are closed up but they had some great designs so the copy and share is the way to go. Last I heard MAN plans from model airplanes news is still in operation. My last ones were bought from there Web site.
before I moved back to Californication I was using Kinkos that was bought by FedX.
if you have someone willing to work with you then your lucky. Kinkos was usually very good but sometimes the employees operating the machines were not all that good.

gmeyers

Yes and my lady only charges $2.50 for a 5 foot by 3 foot wide copy. Kinkos was seldom under $9.00 for essentially the same size. and they seemed to always get it wrong. I like to make three copies now that it's cheap enough save one as a back-up use one for patterns and another for working copy. It's the same cheerful person who knows what I am doing and she always makes my copies the way I want them. Kinkos not so much.

Bax

My Feedback: (11)

A lot of old plans from a wide variety of sources can be found here:

Outerzone : Free plans : Collection of free vintage model aircraft plans to download

If you search for "Bridi", you'll find a lot of his designs. You can download the plans and then tile print them on your home printer to get plans to build with. You really don't need them on a single sheet of paper when you have nice tape available (heh, heh).

gmeyers

WOW - lots of good stuff there on that site. THANK YOU, I'm an old scratch builder so I will likely find something in there that I will build. As a kid I designed and built a few 1/2 A control line planes but never drew up plans - I definitely should have done so. Thanks again for the info.

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

Does anyone know what "UFO" means, other than the typical definition? Or did it mean anything? I have plans coming for this one and will do a scratch build. Going to get foam core set from Eureka, to save some time.

gmeyers

I'm a Bridi fan and have always thought it meant the standard definition. I personally have never seen otherwise.
Bride was good at giving his planes fitting names - like chaos etc..

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

How does the UFO fly? Looks great to me. I am a taildragger guy. I am hoping I can make it this way without the stab dragging. Otherwise I will bite he bullet and build it stock with retracts.

gmeyers

Back in the day the pattern flyers tended to copy one another so if a flyer won an event - in the next event everyone's planes had the same look. Trike gear, large ailerons, tuned pipe etc. The UFO was no exception. as an airplane it flew as good as any of the pattern planes of the day and in the hands of the right pilot would have won all the events it competed in. Retracts aren't essential for sport flying but if you want to do large loops in a pattern contest you need less drag and more speed. With retracts and the right engine the UFO is a 120mph airplane.

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

Thanks for the info gmeyers. Did the anhedral on the stab work out as expected? It would seem to have been a passing trend, but pattern has changed a lot over the years and the designs need to keep pace with the rule changes I suppose. Watching the little wing in the cockpit area grow in size makes me chuckle a bit. At what point will they just start flying biplanes?

gmeyers

I don't know how the anhedral worked on the UFO or if it was more for appearance.. At one point the theory was that the prop wash was spiraling along the fuse and large fuse sides for knife-edge flight there would be part of the stab in the airflow at all times. I didn't buy into that but then again I am a sport flier so what do I know except that at the speeds I fly at the spiral is about 6yards behind and unable to have any effect.

jester_s1

I read a while back that Pretter had used the anhedral stab on the Curare because he had theorized that the stab was being blocked during stall turns, making recovery take longer. So yes, I think it was originally about trying to make sure that at least some of the stab was in the airflow all the time. I'm sure a secondary benefit was changing the pitch coupling behavior in knife edge flight. An anhedral stab essentially acts like a down elevator mix in that situation.