Well Christmas is over for another year (that is Toledo). For three days in April I really go Ape. It's a good thing the show isn't any longer, I don't think my budget could stand it. While there I had a good talk with Jerry Behrens and he was nice enough to give me two sets of his plans to re-view. I have done one set for this issue and will do the other for the Fall Issue. Jerry has one helleva good set of plans with his Travel air "4000". It is a BIG airplane, with a 99 inch wing span and has 2,739.50 square inches of area. I would guess from looking at the plans, that the weight would be somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds. (Jerry's ad states wt. at 23 lbs.) Ed. At 30 lbs., the wing loading is about 25 ounces per square foot, which makes for a lightly loaded, fine flying aircraft.

Travelair has always been one of my favorites, especially the 2000, 4000 and D4D. Three or four years ago the Pepsi Cola Travelair D4D was in Lansing to do some Skywriting, and I went out to look at it. The pilot told me that I was the only one to recognize it as a D4D, that I used to be an old fogy. Well, age does have some advantages. I'll take two wings and a round engine any day over a vacuum cleaner, pardon the expression, I mean a Jet.

So much for Auld Lang Syne and old age, let's get to the plans. The fuselage is built with spruce longerons and balsa uprights, cross pieces and diagonals. The front end and to about the center of the rear cockpit is quarter inch plywood on the sides and one eighth ply on the bottom.

Formers are balsa, and the quarter inch ply firewall is well braced with pine quarter round. The engine block is built up of layered quarter inch plywood to suit the engine used. This looks like the airplane for my big Kawasaki. The tailwheel area is very well braced with quarter inch ply, with a novel steering, using ball and sockets. Fin, Rudder, Stab and Elevators are built up balsa, with laminated balsa leading and trailing edges. Cabane struts are made of one eighth mild steel wire faried with balsa and mounted in grooved hardwood blocks. The landing gear is built up of 3/16 inch music wire, and is the only thing I would change. It has been my experience, that you can not land soft enough every time, to keep this type of landing gear from getting bent out of shape somewhere.

Something has got to absorb the shock. However every modeler builds to suit his style of flying, and this is only my personal opinion. It would not be hard for me to re-engineer the landing gear to take the shock out of landings. Wings are built similar to the Concept Fleet, but you have two options, either sheet the leading edge or use false ribs, depending on whether you want to "4000" of the D4D with the speed wing. Leading edges are made from quarter round. The front spar is box construction with spruce and ply. Very strong. The rear spar is half by three eighths pine. Top wing is built in one piece, but could very easily be built in three sections. The bottom wing plugs into the fuselage with stub spars of plywood, the same as the Concept Fleet. I would do the same thing with the top wing, and leave the center section attached to the cabane struts.

The lower wing leading edge is made from three eighths square pine. The interplane struts are made from pine also with an adjustable diagonal strut.

Jerry furnishes a very comprehensive instruction booklet, with good three views of the Travelair. After reading the booklet, it is not hard to tell that he spent a lot of time putting it together. These plans are available from: BEHRENS PLAN SERVICE, 3127 Healy Avenue, Far Rockaway, NY 11691. A partial kit and a full kit are available also. Glass cowl and wheel pants are available from Fibreglass Master. A good sixty size model of the Travelair D4D and article are obtainable from Model Builder Magazine, these were published in November 1978. The plans and article are by a fellow who restored a full size D4D. Now if you are a real Travelair nut, buy the book "Travelair, Wings over the Prairie" by Ed Phillips. It's fascinating reading and covers every Travelair model ever built.