Tim,

I took all the outlines from the Mendenhall drawing as closely as I could, except that the fuselage is narrowed to about 2/3 of the "museum scale" thickness so it's a little less draggy and follows the same width-to-height ratio as the model Formula 1 racers we're used to such as the Terry Prather kit. Call it a semi-profile if you like; this one is still 4-1/2 inches across at the cockpit, which leaves plenty of room for the radio gear. And the height of the fuselage is reduced just enough to fit the formula specs, but the difference is barely noticeable.

One oddity I've noticed since posting the plans is, Mendenhall seems to have increased the height of the vertical fin. A recent photo of the Ballerina, one of "Little Toni's" sister ships, in a British museum (thanks to Don Stegall for forwarding it to me)shows that the fin on the real airplane is unquestionably shorter than on the drawings. I've seen other folks' models that appear to have been based on the drawings rather than the real airplanes, and they, too, seem to have a disproportionately tall fin. The extra fin area does no harm, of course, but last Sunday night after I got home from flying it, I whipped out my Zona saw and chopped an inch off the top of the fin. It now looks about right compared to the photo ... and, more importantly from my point of view, I can now slip it in and out of my Subaru Legacy wagon without bumping into the cross-beam that I set my wings on.

For anyone who just tuned in, the plans and the proposed formula specs (which recently passed the initial vote of the AMA R/C Racing Contest Board) are posted at the following site:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~stinger4/

Sorry about the remedial site design -- I've been so busy pulling together airplanes for the "real" AMA events at the Nats in July that I haven't yet trotted out the Web page software to make it look like anything. But the "Readme" file explains what it's all about.

DHG