Trev, yeah that's the book. I just love looking through it and thinking of all the possibilities. In the forward of the book it states that all the drawings in the book are avaible at "full scale" as well but I've done a lot of checking into this and apparently this is simply no longer true. A small number of these plans are available through MAN but even the Smithsonian does not appear to have copies. I wrote and asked about plans by William Wylam and was sent copies of some of the drawings photocopied (badly) right out of the MAN book! And even then the librarian admitted that some of the pages were just no longer there -- they had been cut out. Sorry state of affairs. Sad also that these little copies in the book are apparently the only trace left of the glorious full-sized drawings.

Anyway, between these sort of drawings, what's on the web, Replicraft plans, datafiles and Squadron publications I suppose we should find enough to keep us busy!

On the flying, partly these are teething problems at my new club. The field is much smaller, has some tall brush growing just alongside the dirt and grass (and mud) runway, has a pretty much constant light crosswinds, and I have to do everything in Japanese! The first crash was on the maiden when it wasn't balanced right -- I was lucky to have gotten it down at only the cost of the landing gear. The second flight I clipped some weeds on take-off and torn off the wing and cracked the horizontal stab. The third flight as a reasonable success but short (a couple of circuits and then in for a landing). I immediately sent it up again and just after the first ciruit it went deadstick. I was able to get it back over the field (a terraced plateau) just barely but again torn the wing off on a rough landing in the brush. To tell the truth I'm not expecting this plane to last too long.