Hello everybody,

I am building a pattern plane from scratch since I love to build as well as to fly (and my budget is very low []). I wanted to start this thread in order to share my work with you guys and also receive some input . Here I am posting some pictures of the first steps and I will keep you up to date with my progress!!!!!

After days of drawing and research I have finally finished the plans and started to cut the formers and sides of the fuse...mmmmm..I think the pics are worth a 1000 words....


Manuel

Very nice, keep posting pics! How big is this plane?

Looks v. nice, what engine, gear etc you going to use.

Nice to see your post. You my be the last of the few....

A thought for today, "If the accumulated experience of all of us scratch builders and designers actually gave birth to the modern ARF, what will the accumulated expereince of all of the ARF assemblers and fliers give us in the future?"

Not quite the last, but definitely one of the few.

I sure hope you are putting that fuse in a jig??????

I'm interested as well, I have a little sumpin sumpin on the table myself [8D]

-Mike

It is a 2M plane and I am planning to put a YS 140FZ on it. The radio will be my Futaba 9CAP and I am not sure what servos I will use yet but I guess they will not be digitals for budget reasons. I am taking a mix of the smaragd and eclipse lines for this plane since I like the look of them. The plane will be all balsa with foam wings and I am trying to select the balsa as much as I can to keep the weight low. I do not have a jig fo this fuselage size, and I am trying to figure out a way to build it straight. I would have to build a jig myself but I am not sure, is there another way to keep it straight?. I will post more pics as soon as I make some progress.

Manuel

there are pics and direction for a very nice fuse jig on gwair.com, I built it and it seems to be a very good one

If you're gonna build a wood 2 meter plane, you MUST make a jig of some kind and be SURE it's straight. It doesn't take much of a bend or twist and that thing will never fly straight no matter what you do. Just get creative, take your time and think about it. But jig it up before you EVER come near it with glue.

That's just my little piece of advise, I hope you do this. It will make you MUCH more successful in building this thing straight.

-Mike

That is a nice looking jig...FUNCTIONAL. I probably will build one of these myself. I don't do a lot of scratch building but if I had this...maybe I would.

I really like the hoizontal stab attachment for it.

I ordered the plans for the wood version of the Gator Giles. Even though I plan to do a bit of !QUOT!Plan Bashing!QUOT! (i.e. doing some things my way) Having a plan like this really helps. Ron Chidgey sure has some pretty good ideas when he designed it.

I would recomend that anyone who wants to dabble in pattern plane design do something like this.

He designed the fuselage so that it could be built really straight with nothing but a good, flat building board. First, a central section is built like a box, or an Ugly Stick. I have about 20 2!QUOT! x 2!QUOT! SQUARE steel blocks that I use to hold every thing straight.

Once you have a square and straight box structure, you can add the curved portions and sheet it.[8D]

Sigue adelante y esperamos ver más fotos del avance de tu avión!!!!

Remy y Marcel

Dreadnaut, Did Gator have the cowls, cores and canopies for the 202? That look's like a very good plane to build but I readf on here a while back they had some supply issues.

All I ordered from them was the set of plans. I plan to cut my own cores, and to mold my own cowl and canopy. Cowls are no problem, I've done several starting with a Goldberg Ultimate.

The web site, http://www.gatorrc.com/ lists canopy and cowl sold separately. I do not know how their stock situation is. The business is in fact run by Chris Lakins kids. I experienced some communication issues, but under the circumstances I make an exception.

BTW. The plans show a built up wing.

Yeah I know they are shown as built up but they also say they are the same wing as the T2K so you could buy cores if needed.

I have a complete 'kit' for the Gator Giles: plans, foam cores, wing tube, cowl, canopy, and all the fuselage formers (professionally cut). If interested PM me or email me direct. I don't have the landing gear as I planned to use the large Bolly gear (much cheaper). I think I have the wheelpants, too. I have more projects than I can handle right now, but I still like the looks of the airplane (this version!)
-Will B.