Sailplanes and fuselages all in one day!

Yes, it was a very busy day on Sunday. I started out by sneaking away with a 2nd place in our monthly 2 channel club contest. It's the best showing I have had in a long time, and not bad considering I fly my plane once a month. The conditions were challenging at times, but best of all I managed 4 out if 5 landings in the points. Not too shabby for a plane with no landing control. My plane is the yellow and white Sagitta 900. Ed Wilson's winning SD100 is in the foreground. 

After getting home and doing some yard work, I managed to also get some build time on the BE12a. The fuselage is starting to look like something finally. Next up, the turtle deck sheeting.....

How about something new.

My first bi-plane of any kind, and in this case, it's a Peter Rake designed R.A.F Be12a from WW1. The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12 was a British single-seat airplane of The First World War designed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. It was essentially a single seat version of the B.E.2.
Intended for use as a long-range reconnaissance and bombing aircraft, the B.E.12 was pressed into service as a fighter, in which role it proved disastrously inadequate, mainly due to its very poor maneuverability.

If interested, you can read the rest here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Factory_B.E.12

One of the primary reasons that I wanted to build this particular plane was it's combination of size, weight, and scale appearance.  I wanted a scale subject that I could sink my teeth into, but at the same time have something that would be easy to fly and relatively docile for those relaxing evenings at the local park or flying field.

So far, I have the wings 90% complete and have just started the fuselage.  I'm learning all kinds of nuances to building these planes, mainly the need to think ahead more than normal. For example, making accommodations for rigging is one of those things I've never had to do and so far I'm enjoying the learning experience.  

I wish the build was going faster, but it is still nice weather which means family, biking and flying.  The build will accelerate as the weather turns sour.

Reset

I am resetting this Blog in attempt to , well, restart it.  Let's call it 'electronic therapy'.

I haven't stopped cycling, I haven't stopped playing with old Porsches, I still have an active Family, and I sure haven't stopped building model airplanes.  But updating this blog somehow took a forgotten backseat to everything else.  It probably occurred when my home PC crashed, and stayed crashed until recently.  With an iPhone, iPad, and work laptop, I really wasn't in need of another computing device, so this blog sort of stayed out of sight, out of mind.

Speaking of distractions, since my last set of postings I'll try to sum it up like this:  I built a new road bike from a bare carbon fiber frame to what you see in the pics, I traded my 914-6 for an original condition 912, and I have built many airplanes.  Unfortunately, the genesis of this blog still sits uncompleted on the shelf.  The Big Gull will get completed one of these days, but for some reason I lost motivation for the project.  It will come back, some day.....

In the meantime, I will start updating this blog again with my current builds in the near future.  Those consist of a 1/4 scale primary glider called the Hol's der Truefel, and a WWI RAF Be12a - my first bi-plane.

-dd