Juno Kit

[Bill Sawyer]

It seems I am seeing a few posts about the Juno being built. Some time back I bought a kit of the Juno and stored it away for a later date. At the time I got it I looked it over by opening the box and seeing copies of what appeared to be copies of magazine articles. I have no idea who produced it so would be interested in finding out a few things. Who actually built the kits? Is the kit accurate to the original Juno? Has anyone actually built a kit that can do the comparisons?

[EddyR]

I have a Juno buid thread started under N-30
Ed

[Bill Sawyer]

Ed,
   I saw that posting and it is part of the reason I posted here. It seems there are so many old designs being modified by people either by accident or intentionally or just plain being built wrong. I was at a contest some time back and saw a plane that slightly resembled a plane that I had built three of from the old kits. The wing was almost twice as thick as the kit version and the fuselage was the wrong length. I asked someone nearby about it and was told that the person took liberties with the design but no one would say anything. I recently saw an attempt to build an old design. Being well aquanted with this plane, I immediately saw 9 bad errors in the construction. I am sure when it is finished the builder will put the name on the wing and pass it off as that model. These are things that bother me. I try to remain true to the original plan/design wherever possible. When Larry Cunningham drew the Playboy plans into Autocad, he spent a year getting them as correct as could be done. When all the rechecking and redrawing was done it was well over a year to produce the first kits of it. Later when Larry did the Tom Warden Continental, which was sold as the Laser continental, we took the same care in production as the Playboy. We spent over a year getting those kits out as well.
   Back to the Juno kit. Not knowing anything about this Juno kit I wanted to see if it will build a copy of the Juno as it really was. I was hoping someone had experience with it that also had knowledge of the original plane for comparison.

[EddyR]

Bill  the plans have been available since 1980 so why not get a set. Billy built several planes called Juno. There is a 35 size for the fox .35 The Juno article in the 1980  Flying Models is very brief. In the article there is a different version sitting in the background. If I remember the kit you are talking about  has flat sheet flaps and that is not how the 1980 magazine article version was built. There was a version with the flat flaps but it used a Ares type rudder and maybe a slightly different wing. "It also has a slightly smaller stab" quote BW.This is the one that he lost  the outboard wing at Lexington. He did repair it later.  The one I am building is all Juno numbers,nothing is changed. I may use the magazine rudder or my version and both are n-30 legal.
   Here are two Juno,s I built both versions are n-30 legal. One has equal panels and one has a dural gear. The dural gear would not be legal but the Ares type rudder is.
NOTE
 I updated this to reflect my corrected memory 9/16/10
Ed

[EddyR]

Bill here is another Juno I built a very long time ago
Ed

[Bill Little]

Billy's dark blue NATS Juno had the ribbed flaps.  His turquoise Juno was Built at the same time and was identical except it had flat flaps.  The turquoise one hit the outer wing on his flight box at Lexington on landing.  He still has both, or at least he did a few years ago.

Mongo

[proparc]

If I am not mistaken, you are the same Bill Sawyer that did that wonderful engineering on the Playboy kit. If that is the case, what's the hold-up on a "Sawyer Juno"?

[Brett Buck]

Billy's dark blue NATS Juno had the ribbed flaps.  His turquoise Juno was Built at the same time and was identical except it had flat flaps.  The turquoise one hit the outer wing on his flight box at Lexington on landing.  He still has both, or at least he did a few years ago.

   Heh! I saw that one!

    Brett

[WhittleN]

Brett
What year was that?  I thought I was there also but it could have been a dream.  I remember Billy stopping inverted and trying to get into position for Randy (last name?) to catch it when of all things his own tool box caught it.

Norm

[fred cesquim]

dear friends,
just got one kit of the JUNO, after some 15 years waiting to find one!
anybody here have scans of the magazine article that was published along the plans so i can benefit from more insight about the model before i start to build it?
thanks a lot!

[Randy Powell]

I built a Juno from the Flying Models plans a long time ago (mid-80s). I copied Billy's dark green paint scheme shown on the cover of Flying Models (at least as close as I could). Great flying plane. I used an ST46.

[Scott Richlen]

There was a company called something like Control Line Classics years ago out of Fruitland Florida.  The kits were hand cut, but the balsa was usually stupendous for those days.  It was much better than anything you could find in the regular kits from the stores.  This is what you might have.

Scott

[Bill Morell]

That's the first time I have ever heard of Control line Classics being out of Florida.

[Scott Richlen]

I might have the name wrong.  But they were out of Fruitland Florida, whoever they were.  And at the time had the best balsa I had ever seen in a kit.

[Bill Morell]

I think they were called Air Classics or something close to that.