Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Is anyone building a Convair 240 / C-131 from Model Airplane News Plans. I sort-of started one but have a few questions to share. I could not find a Building thread. Is there one out there? Open to PM's Thanks

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

You need to be more specific. I worked on one from early on edition of MAN, and has been several now. Which one you thinking of?


Wm.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

It is from the construction piece by Andy Anderson,page 188 of Model Airplane News, August 2008 issue. The story is titled "C-131 Samaritan. I ordered and recieved a set of plans from M.A.N.
My basic question has to do with the wing ribs. It seems that the plans are really just drawings and not plans. Nothing fits and I am not sure how to fix the thing

Richard

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Hi Richard,

I am also building this airplane of the plans of MAM, it is ended that many pieces are not fit in with the drawing, or be in this plans you will have to get right for his bill how to do the construction the most correct possible. I say this mainly in the construction of the fuselage, and it also exists the problem that the measures in some drawings when it will check in another part of the drawing it is not fit, a good example you will discover in the assembly of the box of the lending to frost of the nose, another example is that it went drawing to put two diedro brace and he doesn't have in the plans the drawing of these pieces.
In my case I changed the lending system to frost of mechanic for Air, that will decrease in a weight of servants, and to work the engines I will use two servants mini, I have some pictures of the construction case you wanted can send to you OK.

Have a good luck in the construction of this airplane

Good luck
Sérgio Luiz (JOCA)

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Sergio...Thanks for reply.... Pictures/photos would be great..
I have the fuse. formers made and and thats as far as I have gone with the fuse. I think that after I discovered the fit errors on the fuse everything looks very straight forward.

At this point my problem is with the wing ribs. How did you get the wing ribs right. I like your idea of mini servos on the engines.

Thanks,
Richard

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

That's a shame that the plans are no good. Have you informed the people at MAN and rcstore.com? If they are really that bad, they should be withdrawn from the market. This airplane was high up on my list, but now that I've heard this complaint, there's no way in the world I would order the plans.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

DITTO, Bob!

Soft landings.

Joe

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

I have e-mailed M.A.N. ... awaiting reply ...

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Hey Guys, put me on the list for this plane. i love it. saw the plans, but wanted to finish my current build[ ziroli skyraider 100"]. so keep me in the loop. can the plan errors be worked out? please share any idea's. i really like the plane. i have the engines and a set of air retracts for it from my barron 58, that lived a very short life. airboss

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Hi Guys,

Really I also find a shame the Rcstore.com to put a plans of this level to be being sold, as he already said previously this with some 80% of the complete fuse and I discovered mistake in the size of the stabilizer where has the hole for fitting of the fin, or be the fitting post will be further on of what recommended in the plan, but it is still possible to do some thing. Another point that I discovered mistakes was in the drawings of the formers of the final part of the airplane and among the formers f-9, f-8 f-7 where this the box for the landing gears, in F-7 and 8 distances it frontal is an and in the formers F-9 already this with other larger measure than it should be.
Another mistake is in the nose where the formers of the plans, after colcadas in the place presents difference, or be the plans is terrible in the general, the only good thing is that I am drawing this plans again in AUTOCAD, and as soon as is ready can send a copy for those that are contruindo this airplane so that the construction can finish correctly.

The pictures will send further on
Sergio Luiz (JOCA)

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

I am amazed that Model Airplane News hasn't responded to this by now. What's up with that?

Joe

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

I recieved a reply from Vanessa LaFerriere , Marketing Manager at RCStore..Model Airplane News. She was making nice....... offered to refund price of plans AND offered to give me a free plan of my choice. She also said the they are in the process of removing the plans from the RCStore.
Its a real shame..I saw the picture of the low level pass in the Mag. and fell for it. Now looking for a project for the retracks and engines that I got for the C-131 :^((

I hope someone will do an Autocad of the plans. I think it would be a popular build. Would be with me. Wish I had the skill to go with just drawings BUT I need plans. Hope someone jumps on this one.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Sergio: I've started to build a Convair 580 based on Andy Anderson plans (MAN's plans X0808A) that Andy kindly sent to me because MAN withdrew the plans from their catalog, with several (not too many) modifications involved. In my plans set, I also found some incongruences in measurements, but most of them seem to be related at something that looks like an "sliding" of the master during the copying process, that obviously ended up in wrong profiles/measurements (specially on the wings sheet). That, or the drawings were made incorrectly, from MAN. Otherwise, not even Andy could have have his beautiful model flying or he would have made the proper corrections prior to have the plans inked by MAN.

I also have the plans for Don Smith's Convair 440, but there are no explanations at all on the plans, and the plane would be too large, though. So, I am stuck to Andy's plans. Annoying, but this beautiful plane is well worth. My only piece of advice would be to "check" and "re-check" measurements and fitting before cutting the wood. And after that... check again (specially if you have to draw and cut your own pieces)!. I have been building planes from kits & scratch for more than 20 years, and even in kits, I have found errors in measurements (or even missing parts). So far, I haven't found any "impossible to solve" error on the plans (hope I will not). If I find some other "bug" in measurements or fitting, I will post it.

Another issue is that I missed sheet 3 of 3 of Andy's plan set. I could draw it and make my own pieces, as long as I move forward, but it would take some extra time. Would you mind to share it (or anyone else out there)?.

Good luck and let's keep in touch.

Saudos

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Saudos,

I tried to send you a PM but system said u don't receive PMs!. Well i'm interested in buying ot trading your Don Smith CV440 plans with Nick Ziroli's P-51D Mustang, AT-6 Texon or 71"WS Bearcat plans. I can also buy yours if you decide to let them go if ur not doing anything with them. Let me know.


Sam

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

I see the plans are still for sale on the web site Has the problems been fixed???? Would love to built this one but do not want to waste money.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Well guys wait a sec here, i have not seen these myself but i can say one thing for sure, that these MAN CV 240 plans can't be as bad or difficult to fix n build from as Palmer 1/12th C-130 plans are!!!. Now if certain ppl can build Palmer C130s from those planes with numerous errors, then i'm sure guys can build from MAN plans also...

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Has anyone figured out the solution to fix the illfated plans? I have a set purchased in June 2010, and would like to build it.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Some careful measurement would need to be done to find where the source of the error is loacated. If it's that a whole page is just too small then scanning in the parts and expanding the image to produce correctly sized parts is one option. If the scan of the master plan slipped and there's a foreshortened "band" running down a page then scanning that area into an image file and separating the foreshortened part and stretching it to the proper size and then joining up the good parts on either side again would be an option.

Or there's the option of just re-drawing them over to make parts that fit.

Andy of these is obviously a lot of work. Correcting things such as this is seldom an "easy" fix.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Thanks!!  I'll keep it in mind as I dive into the plan..  I'll post the results whem i have them.  Dave

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Yes I agree Ater looking a little closer at the plans. I wrote MAN, but they seem to be a little Duh to the problem and very slow about saying anything. I don't think they have a clue what to do.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

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RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

I just stumbled on these plans on the M.A.N. site and got all excited. That is until I did a search and found this thread. I don't mind having to make a small correction or two but it sounds like I'd have to basically re-design the plans that I had to pay $25.00 for. That stops me from clicking the order button. Has anyone done any plan corrections that can be shared with other builders in .pdf or other form? Or does anyone know of any other twin engine trike geared early airliner plans that are done right.

Joe

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

No I haven't gotten to it yet, but it seems that the problem is a scaling issue when the plans were copied. If that is the case, we should be able to take the plans to a blueprinting store and have them recopied with the scale adjusted.

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

I took some time to reflect “Do I really want to fight this war” and came out with a yes. I hung the plans/drawings or what ever you want to call them, on the hallway walls heading to our computer room (the lair). This allowed me to study them in some detail before I committed to an action.

Grabbing a ruler and checking some of the dimensions, wow, between shrinkage and skewing, it’s quite a mess. <shrug> It’s a plane, it has wings, a mode of power, blah blah. Joe, since it is a stand off scale, and you have a desire, find a standard on the drawing and call it “home”. I have built one wing panel to see how many problems I will run in to and then I started the fuse to see how many issues I would find there. So far it hasn’t been that bad. Matter of fact, some of it has a tad of humor. On the wing I cut the drawing up to create the wing ribs (using the drawing as the template); when starting the single wing panel build, I was sorting and placing the ribs on the board and ended up with two sets of ribs marked as #6 (different).. I checked the templates (they still had the cut drawing attached to them); yep, no mistake when they were “inked” they were incorrectly done. One set is supposed to be rib section 8, not 6.

Okay, so I’ll throw my perspective out here; I started to put a thread out and changed my mind, we are in a builder/common modeler forum as a group. If one of my partners had given me this drawing as a starting point or just a project in the rough, I would be very happy with the amount of work I “didn’t” have to do at this point. If you are fully aware you are going to have to check any structure before the glue hits the wood you will not have any foreseeable problems. As stated above, working on the wing panel, there is a numbering error; laying the ribs on the plan and checking lengths I had to add to a couple and sand to fit some. So make your own judgments, and I will keep you posted as I go. Myself, I am more concerned with “how” I am going to power it, how I can save weight (dumping the mechanical retracts and using a pneumatic (3 less servos)). How can I hide as many control horns as I can (internal for rudder and elevator); awh crap, now I need a service hatch to service the rascals …. The saga continues (while avoiding the tree of woe)

Roger

RE: Anyone building a Convair 240/C-131 from MAN plans?
 

Thanks for the post Roger. Those pictures really help! It looks like a straightforward build as long as attention is paid to part sizing like you mentioned with the ribs. Of huge importance to me is that the fuse is sheeted so it doesn't have that typical "starved horse" look of a fuse built with stringers. These plans are now going back on my must have list thanks to you. I'm getting ready to start on a Partenavia twin from Ivan Pettigrew plans. His plans are hand drawn and it's definitely going to take tweaking on some parts but it's an uncomplicated build so should go rather quickly once I get into it. After that's done I'm fairly certain this Convair will be a strong candidate to go onto the building board. Please keep posting your progress.

Joe