THE HISTORY OF V.A.R.M.S The Annual Diary 1990 - 2009

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sharp pencil. A pair of dividers is a help, but not absolutely necessary.
Suppose you decide on an 80-inch Schweizer 1-26. First you measure the wingspan of the
drawing, which should come out around four inches by the time the R/C Model Builder layout
people, photographers, and printers are through with it. Four inches divided into 80 will give you a
multiplication factor for all dimensions; in this case, 20. Draw a sharp, thin datum line on the side
view of the 1-26 drawing. This datum line can be anywhere on the fuselage, or even above or
below it. The purpose of the datum is to have a single straight line from which to project all
measurements. I like to make my datum line coincide with one of the major lines of the fuselage,
such as the turtledeck-fuselage joint line in the drawing. But for clarity, I've shown a sample datum
line down below the fuselage.
Second step is to project all major intersections of fuselage lines down onto the datum line
... the tip of the nose, the front of the canopy, the wing leading edge, wheel etc. This done, you just
transfer your datum line, blown up to twenty times its length, onto your drawing paper, and mark all
the intersection points accordingly. Now all the longitudinal measurements of your fuselage are
defined. Next comes the vertical measurements.
Measure carefully (here's where a pair of dividers comes in handy) the exact distance up
from the datum line to each of the intersection points on the drawing, and by multiplying each by
20, transfer it to your big plan. For example, the wing leading edge may be 6-1/4 inches above the
datum line on the big plan. Mark it so, then find the distance from the leading edge on up to the top
of the canopy and mark it also. When you're through projecting all these points, you should have
enough points on your big plan to play "connect the dots," and come out with the outline of a 1-26.
Don't forget to slim it down a bit before drawing it in solid. (If you have more patience at freehand
drawing ability, then you may want to scale the drawings up using graph paper, instead. I'm only
describing how I do it, which is much quicker, but admittedly less accurate.)
Great, you say, I can see how to draw the outlines of a scale model on a sheet of paper, but
that's a far cry from designing a plane that can be built. How do I go about that?
Simple. You steal building ideas from every plane you ever built, every kit you've ever
looked at, every plan that's been published in the magazines. For example, consider the structure of
the (very) semi-scale Schweizer that I built back in New Mexico, years ago. Nothing tricky here;
sheet balsa sides. a few blocks glued to top and bottom, carve away everything that doesn't look like
a sailplane, hollow out everything that's left with your dremel tool. Wings were 1/16 sheet, top and
bottom. Empennage was all sheet balsa. The beauty of planes this size (100 inches) and smaller is
that you can usually find a Sig canopy that will fit, by merely snipping both ends away, and they
look reasonably to scale.
For ships like the Wolf, which were mostly stringer-and-fabric, you can build a solid box of
sheet balsa, like an Olympic II fuselage. to carry the stress of wing mounts, stab, towhook etc., and
glue "half-moon" formers around the outside of it, add a few stringers and some white Coverite and
presto ... you've got a really authentic-looking old timer. With very little. Sound easy? It is!
Leave all that super-detailed scale stuff to guys like Colonel Bob, who have the patience for it.
Build yourself a Sunday Sailplane and go fly.
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