Cessna 170 building for postal contest

[sneill]

My name is Steve Neill and I'm a long time modeler of both free flight and RC. I was deep into free flight before a flood hit my home 3 years ago and set me back. Lucky for me most of my tools and free flight kit survived because it was all at my Studio shop not far from my home in Ventura CA.

Now that the dust has settled I'm set up again in my backyard shop for building free flight and I just started a laser cut version of the Cessna 170. I started my block sanding the wood sheets taking down the formers and ribs from 1/16 to 1/32. I'm also removing as much wood as possible from the formers and leading and trailing edges. This has so far reduced the weight significantly.

​I have to say after building a 14 foot wingspan 1938 Slingsby Petrel glider for RC this is a real break and joy to do.

I have to say after building a 14 foot wingspan 1938 Slingsby Petrel glider for RC this is a real break and joy to do.

I have to thank Tom Hallman for his instructive videos regarding the reduction of weight of a Guillow model. I have always loved these kits and after reducing the formers down to 1/32 I found them to be very strong as a result.

I was so glad to find this forum because Face Book does not work well at all and you can't post build threads there which always causes confusion.

[sneill]

Here's the rest of the pictures.

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[sneill]

Basics of the Cessna 170 framed up. 17 grams so far AUW. If you notice the trailing edges and inside edges on the tail feathers are ruduced byt half and the fomers and ribs from 1/16 to 1/32 using a jig and block sanding.

frame up.jpg