Kits - was PL Prod

[Todd Schmidt]

Buddy,
I know how you feel. Seeing the PL planes is when I was introduced to "Wide Body" designs.  I thought they were so cool, but the price tag was out of reach for me, so I decided to design a Wide Body plane I named the Defiant. PL's website offered a lot of information and pictures of how their planes were made which helped me a bunch.
It's a lot of work building plugs, molds, and finally producing parts, but the feeling of achievement is a great one, especially when your design allows you to do well in pattern. Of coarse, the huge benefit is when you need parts (or whole plane kit), having them available at your leisure. 

When I'm tired of my current design, I'll do another.  Building a good plane is the "hobby" of our sport!

Todd Schmidt    

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: BUDDYonRC at aol.com 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 10:21 AM
  Subject: Re: Kits - was PL Prod


  Earl
  Right on. After going through the availability of a quality kit Jungle I decided to solve my problem by designing my own and building it myself.
  When I started I had to accept the fact that it would be a long tough road as I knew nothing about the process required to do a fiberglass fuselage or epoxy composites at all.
  I posed many questions to several of my friends who I consider experts in the field. Mike Harrison advised me not to do it. Lance and Gray took me under their wing and provided me with many of the answers to my questions. Then I had to make a decision the biggest of which was would it be worth the effort knowing full well that anything that I ended up with would be out of style by the time my design was complete and in the air.
  Mike Harrison the one who told me not to do it provided the answer that spurred me on when he said that with current designs the airplane contributed 10% to success and flying practice and natural ability 90%. Believing this and after talking to several other top flyers I came to the conclusion that the Biggest, Best Latest design was not necessary to be competitive in the AMA classes.
  So off I went on a two year Journey of trial and error building two wooden port types drawing the plans, building a plug, making the molds and finally completing two airplanes of my very own design from start to finish.
  At that point even though I thought it flew very well I still didn't know if I had succeeded.
  Then at the Waco contest I had Todd Bloss fly my airplane. I think you were there. He proceeded to take off made a couple of passes then put it through much of the FAI pattern topped off with a low altitude rolling circle, a rolling loop and a low level knife edge the length of the field. Upon landing I asked him what I could do to fix any problems that he encountered and his answer was absolutely nothing. His advice was to buy a bunch of fuel and work on the 90% part that was required to be competitive.
  At that point I knew it was well worth the effort and you know what the only delivery problems that I should encounter I can control myself and I don't have to worry about shipping cost or availability.
  I don't know if I would do it again but when my memory of all of the difficult time consuming tasks required fades into oblivion you never know.
  Buddy     
     
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