Wake up all you old timers!! Especially if you knew or were familiar with Lew McFarland and his designs. The basic list for Lew was the Shark .45, Shark .15, Ruffy, and Dolphin that most are familiar with. While going through some old magazines I saw an article by him on "Flying Stunt for Beginners" that was in three parts. This was in the old, original Model Aviation newsletter that the AMA put out, but was also reprinted in M.A.N. I think. The first part showed a rib outline full size and then a smaller outline for a profile model that it was for. It is obvious to me, that this was to become the Jetco Shark .15. No name for the model design was mentioned. I don't think this model was ever published in any kind of construction article.
The next was in part 2 of the series and again showed a full size rib, and an accompanying small drawing showed a full fuselage airplane with a constant chord wing and was called Poorboy. This also has a familiar look to it and it I think it became the Dolphin. The Dolphin was published in a magazine, again I think it was M.A.N. and an unusual thing about that was that the issue that it was in also featured and add for Jecto's release of the model as a kit offering, ( which in itself isn't that unusual because that has happened several times, ) but if you had purchased the magazine at that time, and went to the back pages to look for the add to buy the plan set the M.A.N. usually offered for all the designs that were published in that issue, it did not offer the Dolphin!! It was not listed in following issues of the magazine either. Just another little model aviation historical mystery.
If anyone has any other history behind these designs, I'm interested to hear it, just for my own entertainment. I built a lot of the Jetco free flight kits as a kid when money allowed, and lusted after the Shark .45 and the Shark .15 while growing up. I finally found a Shark.45 kit and copied it to build my first one and followed it up 10 years later with another one that I called Jaws-2. The Jecto kit is just a bit smaller than Lew's original airplane, and I got to view mine next to his at VSC one year. Another example of a kit manufacturer altering a design to get a model to fit into a standard box! It took a few more years to find a profile Shark.15 kit and was really disappointed in how small it was. I, for reasons unknown thought it would be closer to a .35 sized airplane. So to have what I wanted, I took a standard SIG Twister kit and kit bashed into my desired Shark .35 profile I had always wanted. It was built using all the kit wood, with the Fancher modifications employed on it and extra wood was added to give the airplane the desired outline. l was getting ready to draw up some "sharkish" wing tips for the wings, when I grabbed the tip from the Shark.45 kit and held it up to the wing and it was a perfect fit!! The trailing edge of the tip hung over the trailing edge of the wing, so I just made that blend into the flaps. The finished model came out at 45 ounces, I thing, powered with a FP-40 and then the Brodak .40 when they became available. It still hangs in my garage and is in need of some TLC to the covering and such but is still airworthy.
I'm glad I got to meet Lew McFarland at an early VSC and we talked about the Shark a lot but never though to ask about the other two. The Dolphin is on my build list just because I love the look, and it's a smallish model that doesn't use up a lot of wood to build or room to store when not flying. I have the M.A.N. plans for the Vega, and P-38, and have an Akromaster under construction. Retirement better last a while for me so I can have a crack at all these long awaited projects!!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee