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Old 01-14-2010 | 02:12 PM
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lflf
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From: salt lake, UT
Default RE: If kits didn't exist ?

The internet is a great resource for plans. I just do a search and bring up some plans. Some you can print out full scale like Dave Fritzke's page, others you can enlarge with a calculator and a ruler. Another good resource is the instruction manuals that abound. A lot of them have the parts of the plane laid out-just print that one out and with your handy ruler and calculator-presto-another current design in your hangar. For curvy, hard to reproduce parts-llike a traditional stik rudder-just blow the pic up on your handy computer-lay a piece of wax paper or some other transparent film over the screen, and copy it with a magic marker. Works every time. I've actually just been "lofting up" my own designs for years, but again these are pretty simple stik and quickee 500 types. I do believe (hint to great planes, etc) that if a kit manufacturer came out with a reasonably priced kit, like a stik, that wasn't weird, and had a low parts count, some would start building them. What I mean by not weird is a standard fuse with dural gear, a hatch covered compartment for the fuel tank, and a rubber banded on wing with a bolt on option for the really clever- made from balsa with slab sides, solid tail, and a d-tube wing. My beef with current kits is they seemed to be either designed for builders that have great skill, and have a very high parts count, or they are designs that are a bit weird for your average person, like profile things, or with wings glued to the body-very unhandy. Whenever a kit like a vintage stik or midwest clone of various sorts goes on auction- it is usually now bid over a hundred bucks. That simple kit has little balsa and could be easily produced at low cost, and start a lot of guys new to the hobby building as opposed to buying arfs. Just my two cents and maybe that's all its worth.