p-47 razorback pilot

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im thinking about enlarging a set of balsa usa plans for there 1/3rd scale j-3 cub to 50% making it around 18foot wing span and 12 foot fuse... saw it on an england rc site, it was really cool powered by a 3w twin, ive never seen balsauas plans, are they the "build ontop of " plans? also who could i get to make me a glass cowl for it after enlarging? thanks

stomper

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Look here > http://stansfibertech.com/

HTH

scalebirdman

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Yes they are; at least their Citabira Pro and Northstar are. I bought just the plans, which show all the formers; ribs etc needed, and away I went.

the-plumber

Balsa USA 1/3 scale J-3 plans are indeed 'build on'. I'm in the covering stages on one of those now.

As for blowing those plans up, I wouldn't. There are enough oops! spots in the plans to keep you guessing, particularly in the fuselage. E.g. figuring out where the fuse sides register on the top view. Not marked at all, and you have to draw projection lines from the side view up to the top view to locate the sides.

The design of the upper cabin is all wrong, scale wise. The wing attachments are dowels which socket into the root rib/airfoil shapes in the cabin top, and the wings are retained by two # 10 bolts/T-nuts. That works for the 1/3 version, but I wouldn't trust it for anything larger.

I bought my Balsa USA J-3 kit based on a couple of recommendations; after the fact I discovered that those two particular gents don't build anything better than 'stand-sorta-close-scale' and are primarily sport flyers. That's not a bad thing of course, and the Balsa USA J-3 is a pretty close to scale offering and does indeed fly very well. It's just that their design for the upper cabin is almost impossible to convert to true scale, structurally.

If you do opt for the Balsa USA J-3 plans, you should also snag the Frise aileron plans which are an option - they're not part of the standard kit/plan set. Much _much_ better than the 'toy airplane' ailerons in the basic J-3 plan/kit.

I would suggest looking farther afield if you really want to build a large J-3/L-4; someone here has mentioned a set of plans that are true scale, down to and including brazing up all the internal tube structure. Lotsa work, but apparently a truly fine model when done. Sorry, but I can't recall the designer right now . . . brain fade.