Hi,
I have been picking up various books on Air Racing so that I can build some Midget Racing planes. This involves the scaling up of the 3 view drawings.
Often there is a scale on the drawing and I start by focusing on that portion when I scale up the drawing on the computer. The issue that I am finding is that the "Scale" ruler on the 3 view is usually not accruate. Some are close and others are not. (Some drawings have the WS and L numbers on them but the ones I have do not....so this is all I have to go by.)
What I have found to be rarely accurate is the published length of the aircraft. These always work out to be shorter than what the "sources" say this number is. Often the Wingspans listed are the same between sources but the the overall length often differs. One to 1.5 feet is alot on these small planes.
SO FAR I just use the Wingspan number for scaling the drawing. This appears to be a good practice.
What I would like to do before I start making saw dust is compare numbers on the actual 1-1 aircraft. I am sure that all of you have libraries of aircraft books (I just started mine... 2 books) and could reply with the numbers you see published in your resource info.
I am looking for the Wingspan and Length on the following planes.
1) Shoestring (Original plane)
a. WS 19’
b. Length 17’ 8”
2) Lil Mike
a. WS 17’ + ?
b. Length ?
3) Cosmic Wind (Original low wing version on the 1st 3 planes, Minnow etc)
a. WS 18’ 11”
b. Length 17’
4) Ole Tiger
a. WS 14’ 1”
b. Length 15’ OR 16’8” OR 17’ 2” (I think 15 is probably accurate)
5) Buster ?
6) Bonzo ?
Thanks for the help and sharing of information!
Mark