Last year in late Summer I had the opportunity to buy a second-hand Nexus Twin Otter. I love these aircraft. As they were out of stock everywhere I grabbed the chance to acquire one. It had been already built by the first owner. I did not look it over too much when I picked it up as I was excited to get hold of one. After getting it home and looking it over, it was a mash up.
Length 1120mm, Wingspan 1800mm,Engine – Saito FA-40a, 4 function RC
The full-size Cub was apparently ‘the 1st light plane ever to have been built literally by the thousands’. An interesting snippet – the American military used it as a trainer and in its green livery it was known as the grasshopper.
In selecting a subject to model, I was looking for something a bit different to my usual ‘sport’ models, something interesting, with easy flying characteristics and hopefully it’d keep me occupied on and off for a while. I alighted on the Cub and started looking for a kit or plans. It seems that virtually every major manufacturer makes an ARTF version and there’s quite a few kits as well but I was drawn to building from plans.
Wots Wot once an electric then a four stroke glow and now - electric again? I have flown this Wot Wot for years after I first acquired it when the model was released. It was then powered and built as per the instructions using an Emax GT 3526 motor which quickly got replaced by a SK3 5045. Running on five cells it was a joy to fly although you had to power it all the way to touchdown, it did not glide and too little airspeed and it would drop like a brick. Two of us found that out quite quickly. Way back though in the last decade I decided it boring as it made virtually no noise.
When I moved house last year, the old loft needed to be cleared of 32 years of accumulated stuff including of course a hoard of models that had had one too many crashes but at the time seemed too good to throw away and the thought was - who knows, one day I might get round to repairing them. They say you’ve got to be ruthless when a loft is to be cleared and so in short order it all went into the skip. Well I say ‘all’; in amongst the bits I found a tail plane and fin assembly plus a very broken mono wing, two ailerons and the rudiments of a wire undercarriage from a Flair Magnattila.
A Lockdown Project. Hopefully by the time this is published, ‘lockdowns’ will be a fading memory. In mid-2020 like a lot of us, I was stuck at home (we weren’t allowed out) and everywhere was shut, including our flying field (I was a member at Sevenoaks & District MAC then) and the model shops. To pass the time, I decided to build a plane from my box of spare and offcut balsa and plywood, plus other bits and pieces I’ve accumulated over the years.