Those who know me know of my fondness for the late Jim LeRoy, both as an airshow performer and as a friend and aviation mentor. Some may remember the
scratch build I did 4 years ago of a 33% Bulldog.
While that one was a whole lot of fun, educational, and, given where I was at the time pretty darn cool, to be honest, it never flew well. It was heavy, and reflected the relative lack of builging experience its creator posessed at the time.
But it flew...it flew, it honored Jim in a way unlike any other I could have come up with, and it brought me a great many new friends (including Jim himself, as it turned out) and invaluable experience and knowledge.
Ever since its retirement, the idea of another one has lurked in the back of my mind. I wouldn't, to be honest, mind scratch-building another one eventually. The "downside" to doing so isn't so much the build, as it is acquiring some of the "components" (canopy, cowl, that sort of thing) that, frankly, I just don't enjoy fabricating that much.
I've learned, however, that I have a tremendous passion for "restoring" airplanes (ARFs, usually) that someone else has decided are past their time, or "too wrecked to repair" or what have you.
All that in mind, I was, then, pretty darn excited to come across THIS yesterday:
Its owner and I talked briefly, and came to an agreement that saw my ready-to-fly restored version 1 WH Edge 540 roll out of the trailer for the last time, and put this beauty on my build table.
It's a Great Planes 1/3rd scale Pitts Special, with a Zenoah G62 (With EI) in the nose. It is, in theory, ready to fly in its own right (and did so earlier this month, I'm told) but will, of course, never see the sky again in this scheme.
When all is said and done, mods will include:
Covering/Color Scheme of course. We'll be doing the Bulldog 1 again. I just can't quite bring myself to put a model of B-II in the hangar.
Wings will lose their tip bows, and get lengthened to the scale 78" on top, with accompanying extra length on the bottom.
Ailerons will be enlarged in both dimensions, per the Bulldog
Vertical stab and Rudder will get "squared off"/resized as on the Bulldog.
3 Blade prop and spinner
Flying wires on the tail feathers, per the Bulldog.
Some scale cockpit details, like a scale instrument panel, the JL pilot bust you see in the first photo (from my first Bulldog build)
And, of course, a Pitts muffler belching smoke.
Some equipment changes will happen as well.Servos are HiTec 635HBs, which will have to go away. I'm a big fan of HiTec stuff, but not of flying Karbonite gears on a gasser. The G62 also, while being EI, looks unfamiliar, so it may have to make a trip to RC for some lightening/looking over/etc, or we may even wind up with a DLE-55 in there, ya never know.
In any event, deconstruction will start today with a basic takedown and maybe some covering removal. I'd LOVE to have this done in time to fly this season, but you just never know.
We'll get there when we get there.