Jim Walker's Interceptor Plan

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Levent, Looks great so far. Is A3 a special thin (tissue like) paper? Or sticky on one side? I have been thinking of building these planes based on your super color cutouts, but thought if using regular copy paper it would be to heavy. Plus, I haven’t figured out how to make or install the dihedral brace. If you complete the glider, please show how those pieces are made and installed. THANKS!

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Update: Plain paper is unsuccessful because tail is heavy. Too much lead weight needed for nose weight. Using marker pens is a must for coloring folding wing gliders. Contest grade very light balsa must be used in construction.

Mine looks "OK” it printed out on a standard letter sized sheet. Windows upgrade took away my printers ability to do poster or tile printed plans. The Interceptor Drone will only be 9” long and 10” wingspan! I think I’ll wait til I can get a full size printed out.

Perhaps printing directly on balsa sheet is better than marker pens which is time consuming.

Try two small neodymium magnets for nose weight instead of lead. Practical.

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Marleysky wrote:Levent, Looks great so far.  Is A3 a special thin (tissue like) paper? Or sticky on one side? I have been thinking of building these planes based on your super color cutouts, but thought if using regular copy paper it would be to heavy. Plus, I haven’t figured out how to make or install the dihedral brace. If you complete the glider, please show how those pieces are made and installed. THANKS!

A3 refers to the size of the paper (metric), A4 is the nearest size to "letter" and A3 is like two A4s side by side.



I hope we return to Imperial measurements now that we are leaving the EU.

This just an untested W.A.G. (wild-ass guess), so try at your own peril:

Stick some tissue to a sheet of regular computer paper with a coat of nitrate dope and allow to dry. Then print your designs on your laminated tissue. Detach the tissue from computer paper with thinner and re-attach to the desired surface with more dope.

I just finished building four of these, what I call the Thornburg Interceptor . Dave Thronburg of Bird of Time R/C sailplane fame, Old Buzzards Soaring Book, and Do You Speak Model Airplane fame designed this and did the article. I have several of the Macey replicas, a few of the originals 404 Interceptors and the Thornburg model is larger. The model used in the movie "Best Years of Our Lives" was the Army Interceptor that they used in the Army as a "target drone" for gunnery practice targets. I have a few of the fuselages for these and I'm looking for accurate wing outlines or drawing so I can build up some of these. These are great fun and fly VERY well. VERY thermal worthy. I think the tail surfaces on the Thornburg model are a bit too big so I reduced them to about 80% of the original size and the look much better and still fly very well. I used dollar store markers, sharpies and ink pens to color mine. I made templates of the trim designs from the plans and used those to eyeball the outlines , then colored them in with markers. I just sprayed a very light coat of clear lacquer on the wood first, then when finished decorating them, gave them another really light coat to help seal it. I just used hardware store spray lacquer. I'm going to try and post a picture or two if I can remember how!
  Stay safe and healthy everyone!
  Type at you later,
 Dan McEntee

In the first photo, the Thornburg model is next to a Macey replica 404 Interceptor. The tail surfaces below them are the original sized stab and the reduced size so you can see the difference.

   

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