Sig Morrisey Bravo Build
 

With the cold weather already here, I have been wondering what I would like to build this winter.:confused: Looking over the many possibilities of kits and plans, nothing had really caught my eye, that's when my attention was redirected towards a kit that I had purchased a few years ago off of E-Bay. The Sig Morrisey Bravo, always a favorite of mine and very hard to come by today was just the project that I was looking for.

This will be the second "vintage" kit that I will have built, the first was an equally rare kit made by Sig, the Ryan STA. So here I am again building and upgrading this kit to "todays" standards. I will power this plane with a DA50 or maybe even a DA60, I will also include flaps in the wing, other than that, I will try to build this plane faithfully as intended and include as many scale features as my talent will allow me. So...if there is enough interest, I will do the best that I can by taking as many photos and giving a narrative of the events as they happen. :cool: Any takers?

Update 9.20.17: If you are considering finding a kit to build, or already have a kit, I have tried to assemble as much information that exists on the Morrisey Bravo here in this thread. The information that your looking for is probably here, but you'll have to read through my thread pages to find it. Good luck to you and happy reading!

I'm in !

I'm looking forward to watching this build.

I really like my Bravo. I think you will, too.

Welcome Tom, your Bravo was the reason I searched for this kit. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.

I never built the kit but I did a rebuild on one so it will be fun to see it made from the start to finish. I had a G-38 for power but I think the new DLE is a better choice.

I'm in! Should be a good flier too.

I'm envious. I built this kit many years ago when you could walk into a hobby shop and buy it off of the shelf. I eventually sold the aircraft, but it was a great one, looked great
in flight and was easy to fly. Back then I powered it with an OS 2.70 Gemini.

Welcome aboard Grey Beard, RDJeff and JCOKEEFE!

I was lucky to have found this NIB kit so many years later. Good lesson... buy a kit when they are in production and put them on a shelf for future building when the budget allows. So many times kit productions are very short lived... Does anyone remember what they cost from Sig? As a lad I used to love to go to the "hobby shop" and look at all the kits on their shelves, now you're lucky to see a few on one shelf!

This will be a good one, can't lose with Sig.

Vince,

So glad your back in the saddle. This plane exudes fun:cool:.
I couldn't tell from the box. What is the wing span ?
Also what is the date on the plans/build book ?

I'm in like Flint ;)

Kevin

Subscribed!!

I am in. I always learn so much from your build projects.

Welcome cubcrasher, Kevin, Hawkeye and cardinalflyer! So nice to see some familiar names...I guess the thread is a go! ( I didn't think there would be enough interest in this plane.) Cardinalflyer, I hope this thread won't disappoint!

Kevin, the wingspan on this plane is 86" and it has a weight of a whopping 19 lbs! This plane is a bit over 1/4 scale, it will be by far the largest plane that will be in my hangar.The date on the plans reads 1985, also hand stamped on the box is "modified tail". (This is clearly visible on the cover of the box in photo #1) I don't know a lot about this plane other than some of the basics, so it will be fun to do the research on it as well. Glad your along for the ride...

Tomorrow, I will be sending the plans out to get reproduced, I can't build on folded plans, especially plans that have been boxed and folded for 29 years!

In 1985 I was a 2nd year apprentice cabinet maker.
Boy would I like to be teleported back to 1985 with a couple of grand in my pocket and cherry pick the hobby shop kit shelves. :cool:

Kevin

Just a guess, but this kit was probably priced $225-$275 off the Action Hobby shop shelf in Memphis in the mid 1980's. My wife bought it for me. How did she know that I wanted that kit?? What a woman!

Research is always fun! I will try to post as much info as I can find on this illusive bird...good reading!

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1985/1985%20-%200170.html


If you want to know where an actual full scale Bravo is, here it is.

http://www.antiqueairfield.com/apm/c...iseyBravo.html

Update 9.20.17 : The full scale version of the Morrisey Bravo is no longer on display for public viewing at the Antique Air Field. Unfortunately the plane has been disassembled and put into storage. The person that I spoke to at the airfield said that they had no plans to further display it and were considering selling it...

If anyone has any actual photos of a full scale Bravo, it would be great to post them here.

That's cool, I had no idea about anything on this plane. I was just given a busted up model and asked to repair it for an event.
Due to the lack of kits these days it's good to see other planes being built. I'm following this and one other build and it's a breath of fresh air.
When I first joined RCU we still had kits at the hobby shops but it was the beginning of the ARF age and kits and builders were becoming a thing of the past.

Vince, Thanks for the history. Keep it coming as you find it. :cool:

Is the kit a 1, 2, or 4 seater ? Looks like you have some options and could get creative.

Kevin

There is a NIB kit for sale in the classifieds right now for anyone who is interested.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/ite...itemId=1007274

From what I can tell Kevin, this is the two seat version.

Before the snowstorm hit here, I went downtown and picked-up my plans which I had copied, as you can see the new plans now lay flat on my build table. It was worth the money to have them copied. I also went down to my local lumber yard and purchased a 4' x 8' x 5/8" piece of sheet rock which I cut to fit . I prefer to use sheetrock on top of my build table, it holds push pins well and I can cut right on top of it. It should last me the entire build before I have to replace it.


First on the build agenda was to sort through my wood pile and select four pieces of 1/4" x 1/2" x 24" Spruce, which I glued shorter length Spruce doublers to. I used 30 minute epoxy for this to give me maximum strength for the spars. Feels good to be back building again! :)

Happy Thanksgiving Vince.

Kevin

Thanks Kevin, and a happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and everyone following this thread! :o

For those like me that buy there plans folded to keep cost down I use a steam iron on them. I first open up a paper bag from the market then place it over the plans on the ironing board and use high heat. No, it doesn't shrink the plans but it does remove the folds and wrinkles. I have been building from plans for about the last 15 years and you can get them either folder or rolled. Folded saves about 5 bucks but sometimes whoever folds them doesn't do a very good job. My local Kinko's does a very good job of reproducing them too so I have a set to cut up or build over.

Welcome Skylark-flier!
Greybeard, I have heard of that trick, local copier does all of my copying for me. They did the plans for the Bravo, which there are 3 large sheets for $17.00! I think that's a pretty sweet deal...

Released all of the wing's ribs from the sheets, it's always a crap shoot when it comes to die cut parts. They all came apart surprisingly easy! :o You can see the large pile of scrap. Now it's time to clean up and size all of the ribs. What I mean by that is, I will stack all of the ribs that are of the same size and sand them as one so they will all take on the same shape. I will photograph what I mean later.