The next plan is from Jim Pepino's Scale Plans and Photo Service of Greensboro, North Carolina. Jim had a booth at last years Toledo show and did a "Land Office Business" selling plans and photo packs. Hopefully he will be there this year also. People like Jim who perform a service for the scale modeler are to be congratulated, as I know how much time it takes to gather enough info to build a reasonably accurate scale model, and you should have all the documentation before you cut a piece of wood. I know I spent a year gathering information on a Curtiss-Wright Travelair 12Q in the early sixties and then spent 29 months building the ship but it was worth it... come to think of it I researched it in the late 50's, as I flew it in the control line scale event at the 62 Nats. Came in fifth as I recall, or at least in the top ten.

I digress too much. Jim Pepino's latest offering is the Bell P-39 Airacobra. The plan comes on two sheets. Span is 85%" length is 75%" and wing area is 1376 square inches. Weight is not given but the prototype was flown magically in the beginning with an OS .90, so I would guess the weight to be between 16 and 20 pounds. At 20 pounds the wing loading is 33.50 ounces which is rather light. After test flying a Q35 was tried, but ruined the looks. Finally a Super Tigre 2500 was settled on and proved to be the right engine.

After studying the plan for a while, decided if I were to build this airplane, the first thing I would need is fuselage Jig. Formers are cut from the light ply, jigged up true and then the whole thing is planked and sheeted. Engine is mounted on beam mounts but can be changed to a radial mount. You will need good giant scale retracts because of the long spindly nose gear. Full sized craft didn't have nosewheel steering but I don't think I would go that far.

Empennage is built up and sheeted and scale hinges are shown. The canopy is built up from flat butyrate sheet and parts from a commercially purchased bubble canopy. The automobile type cockpit entrance door is also shown.

The second sheet shows the complete wing and its construction is really unique. An aluminum ski pole is used for a spar and the wing is sheeted completely. The split flaps are shown and both aileron and flap assembly have scale type hinging. Wing tips are from balsa blocks.

There are plenty of three views and cutaway drawings with this plan and it can be purchased from Scale plans and Photo Service, 3209 Madison Ave., Greensboro, North Carolina 27403 rolled in a tube for $26.00. Many different packets of color photos are also available. I will say that this plan is not for the rank beginner, some building experience is definitely an advantage.