Has anyone built their kits? I am giving it some thought as a second gasser, one that isnt going to be a scale, ton of time, scared to fly plane. I am looking at their 60 line of tri geared planes that I want to turn into a tail dragger. Any thoughts? Kit's sell for $75.

Two words - buy it. Great kits, good wood. Old style instructions but very buildable.
John

If you go onto the Blue Jay site you will find most of the Bridi designs. You never mentioned what one you were looking at. Last one I built was the Dirty Birdy to replace my old Kaos That I finally killed beyond repair. The DB has a very tight cowl/fire wall so a few mods may be required to fit even a small gasser into. The Kaos has a lot more room.
Great wood in the Blue Jay kit, price is right and the instructions on the DB showed the trike, tail dragger and retract locations. By old school we mean the instructions do not have any photos, just text and the wood type and lengths are not laid out for you. It's up to the builder to do some of that thinking stuff. Great planes and fun builds. If you go into classic pattern forum you can see a number of builds.

It will be either the Krafty 60 or the aircruiser 60. Pretty sure the DLE20 will fit on either one of them. The DLE isnt much bigger than an OS .90 my friend has, and it fits perfectly on the TF GE P-51, so it should do fine on one of those 2 kits.<div></div><div>I haven't flown popper planes in quite some time, just electrics, or whiners as I call them. I want to get my groove back with how the gas works on one of these before I put the P-51 in the air.</div><div></div><div>That plus if I crack one of these up, it is a far less of an oh crap than the P-51 would be. Lighter, no expensive hardware, just 4 servos, an RX and the motor. The 51 will be decked out with full retracts, wheel doors, sequencer, and detail, detail, detail. Heck I may never fly it if it comes out anywhere near as good as I have it in my head! </div>

acdii,my old Krafty 60 flew fast with a OS 40 FSR,I can't imagine a DLE 20 on it.My Pulse 120 is crazy fast on a DLE 20 and its almost twice the weight and size.

Jim.

Everyone at my club extol the flight characteristics of these early pattern planes. Everyone has built them - back in the day. So I decided to build a Bridi Killer Chaos from Blue Jay. I wanted to better understand where these guys are coming from - building and flying (no box pattern). Apparently the Instructions are old school mid 70's - I wasn't into RC back then. Blue Jay assumes that you can connect the dots of construction without pictures with minimal text. The wing is set up for being built an a wing jig - you're supposed to know how that works. Cool, so I built and learned how to use a wing jig. Built up cowl? Yup. Instructions and plans address both tri-cycle and tail dragger options. No laser cut wood here - die cut. Wood is decent.

IMHO GO4IT ...

My Killer Chaos 60 Build Thread

I fully agree with Bladejunkie...I've flown many, many Bridi kits over the years- all were terrific flyers. Built a Krafty not that many years ago for use as a club trainer. You need to remember when these were designed the lightweight and low power K&B 61 was the typical engine employed. Mine began with an OS 61 but was quickly retrofitted to an Enya 45...all the power it needed, and really all it could handle. Needed tail weight with a 61.

The firewall footprint on all of these 60 sized Bridi kits is quite small, not much bigger than the Hayes mount shown on the plans.

DLE 20 in A Giant Scale Top Flite Mustang? Of course it will fit but will it fly?

Oh Isee I made an error, it should be GE, not GS. Its the Gold Edition Mustang. the DLE20 is more than enough power for it. Sounds like it will be too much power for the Bridi planes though, so I will look elsewhere for something in the correct size.

This has been mentioned before but one more time, your DLE 20 is just a 1.20, not some big giant killer. I have run the YS 1.10 in my 60 size Bridi Kaos but I wouldn't use it on a Krafty. There are so many planes in the 120 size to choose from there is no reason to be looking at 60 size planes. You were looking for something to help you get a handle on your P-51, it isn't a trainer. Look around at some of the ARFs that aren't going to cost you a lot of time and money. If you build a nice plane you will develop feelings for it and not want to see it hurt. No one develops feelings for an ARF. An ARF may suit your needs better then a kit built plane. Maybe even a used plane.? I bought a used ARF when I started flying giant scale gas models, an Extra. I was the forth owner of that plane, a great flying plane too. Number five owner was really happy with it too.
Just a thought.

You might want to look at the Bridi Stick for a DL20 throw around airplane. It's a tail dragger and even better a STICK.

http://www.bridiairplanes.com/hangar/bridistick.html
John

Good choice, even the old timer and big bee. They are also showing the 80 inch Kaos. I often flew mine with a G-23. That was long before DLE and even with the heavy slug up front it flew very well.

I have a Shriek Aero Commander kit 80" span that I thought all along it was built by Bridi, turns out it is  Great Planes kit that i would like to sell. Anyone interested can email me

Rafeek