Lucky Dog
Posts: 364
Joined: 8/7/2002
From: Columbus,
IN, USA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: abufletcher
Great photos Mike!
Thanks Don! Credit goes to Rhonda Shelton for the photography.
Todd,
I'll PM you about plans.
Yes, especially depending on how you fly, the flying wires are functional. Mose of us used Dubro 4-40 pull-pull cable (the nylon coated stuff) and regular 4-40 clevises. This typically hold up pretty well.
Most of us that built them (in our group) have not cared for the design in how the cabanes mount to the fuse, and beefed up or redesigned that area using aluminum stock bolted to the fuse sides instead of the heavy gage piano wire mounted to the formers. How is yours done?
It's heartning to hear that your Nieuport has such a long career. A few in our group who have built them will find that interesting. The history of our 13 has not really been a successful one, if you consider only longevity a measure of success. It has been commented that 13 was a bad number, and we should have stopped at 12 or done 14.  Of the 7 completed and flying (6 of those shown on the web site), all have crashed (a few very early in their flying lives) with substantial to serious damage, to total destruction (one three times), and only 3 are still in existence, and only two of those are still flyable, my SSWD1, and Art's captured one (which resides in Texas now). Two more may take to the air this summer, a couple are partially completed but on hold, and I've lost track of the others. However, non of the crashes could be attributed to the design, but to dumb thumbs (in a couple of cases by very competent pilots), errors in building (in one case by a very competent builder, who now works for a major kit producer in the US). And partly to newcomers to giant scale (like me, forgetting that this plane's not a "floater"  , and just bad luck with a few odd equipment failures.
I have proposed that the few of us still flying them (or soon to) go in together and purchase back one of the original 13 kits that is yet unbuilt, and burn it as an offering to the Rc gods.
That being said, the "Project" can be considered a success I think, in that it did get some new guys in to giant scale and "Dawn Patrol" flying. While the design of the kit is an old one, and a bit heavy perhaps, it is a sound design. A couple in our group (Art Shelton and Billy Thompson) put theirs to the test in mock dogfights, really putting on a hell of a show on numerous occasions. They can attest to the good flying qualities and general robustness of the design.
Cheers,
Mike
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Cheers,
Mike Bealmear
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HELP scratch-a-plane nieuport 17 - 
