Scratch built Pathfinder with mods.

[Perry Rose]

A few years ago someone posted for Gordon Delany about some mods to this design Mr. Delany thought would improve it. Having the Brodak kit plans I built one with the mods and went electric with it. It flew great until the King Orange contest this year. At the finish of the reverse wingover the wing folded. Right behind the judges working the other circle. As I like to tell it "the wing let go and so did the judges". I got a wing kit from Brodak and built and installed the new wing along with new paint. I messed up the rib spacing on the Adjusto-Jig and ended up with 60 inch span. Hence the XL designation. When my wife first saw the new CLC graphics she said "Pathfinder 40?" It took a while to figure out what she was looking at. Anyway the plane flies as good as it did before the wreck. Which was my fault as I butt glued the spars, leading and trailing edges in the center of the span and that's where it failed. I tried the tail dragger mod but didn't like it. Maybe I'll try it again.

[john e. holliday]

Hope you did the center of the spar, leading edge and trailing edge different.   If they don't show ply layer on those pieces I get new wood and make diagonal splices and still put ply reinforcement on the joints.   One of these days I will build the Pathfinder kit Ken Smith sold me and Gordon plus John autographed for me.   

[Perry Rose]

The new wing has a 36 inch piece offset to one side opposite on the bottom on everything. That way I can get by using 3 pieces of wood instead of 4. Leading and trailing edges the same with a scarf joint. This one should hold up.

[Brent Williams]

Nice looking plane.  Perry, you might look into a different method to reduce the file size of photos without making the photo so tiny in viewing size.  You have posted many of your nice planes, but they're extremely small pictures.  Very hard to see any details. 

[john e. holliday]

Click on the link below the picture and you can enlarge it.

[Gary Dowler]

Click on the link below the picture and you can enlarge it.

It's still quite small. I use a service called Tinypic. In there you chose the file size, use the one for message boards   Makes a nice picture on your post.

Gary

[Brent Williams]

Click on the link below the picture and you can enlarge it.

Yes, I'm aware. 

The issue is that his pictures are tiny whether you click on them or not.  It is totally possibly to have a small file size and a large viewing size.  Just a suggestion.

[Steve Helmick]

Yes, I'm aware. 

The issue is that his pictures are tiny whether you click on them or not.  It is totally possibly to have a small file size and a large viewing size.  Just a suggestion.

There are several ways to solve the problem. It takes a little bit of learning to work the software. 500 to 900 pixels wide is a good target to shoot for. Cropping and compressing is helpful.

By the way, the Brodak Pathfinder kit is a fair amount shorter span than the original...I'm not sure why.  Steve

[Brent Williams]

By the way, the Brodak Pathfinder kit is a fair amount shorter span than the original...I'm not sure why.  Steve

Gordan will probably jump in and share his thoughts, but the span was shortened and the tail moved forward to improve various flying characteristics.  Penetration in the wind and tracking in the rounds are two of the things that spurred the reductions.  In addition to Gordan's observations, I know Bart Klapinsky had some direct input that led to these changes.  I have the crashed remains of one of the early versions of the Pathfinder that was built by Gordan (and my brother Curtis) in the mid 1990's and it was quite a bit larger than the current specs.   It's wingspan was 59" and the hinge to hinge was 17-5/8".  Current specs are 55" and 16" respectively.   Specs have been refined and adjusted over the years to where they are now.

Here's a picture of that early Pathfinder and the current version.  Gordan and Curtis.