Ed,
I have been looking for the real Papoose plans for over a year. The one I am looking for is the original Poy-Wog airfoil ship (this would be OTS legal). It seems no one ever built this or had the plans. If you find them please post.

Best,    DennisT

Ed,
I did a search on the Original Papoose and found that Jim Thomerson had a set of the original papoose but unfortunately he passed away several years back. I don't know is anyone got them from his estate. Does anyone know if Joe Wagner is still around? He did the redesign at VECO and maybe he has a set of the old plans.

Best,    DennisT

If my eyes and memory serve me right the Papoose and the Squaw are two different airplanes.   I built the Squaw back in the early 60's and got one flight before pushrod soldering job failed on an attempted wing over pull out.  I have the Papoose kit on the shelf that if some local would like to replicate the kit to a plane like most are used to these days, I might be talked into letting them use it.  Back then the thought was to sell more kits if plans were not full size.   Yet the kit plans like Sterling gave a good lesson on building the design.

By the way now I remember the Squaw and Brave were same design.  Brave showed movable flaps.

Dennis, sadly, Joe Wagner also passed away recently.

Steve, sorry to hear that. Joe was quite a character, I was E-mail corresponding with him directly and through an E-mail styled forum back 17 years ago. It regarded small flight (half-A and A stuff). We'd E-mail our builds and flights with photos, he with the help of a friend would collate the E-mails into a monthly or bi-weekly newsletter with responses. I also enjoyed his engine articles in the magazines. He was a very humble, good natured down to earth guy but with a lot of practical knowledge and advice.

He will be missed.

Back then the thought was to sell more kits if plans were not full size.

No, actually the reason why only partial plans or less than full scale plans were with kits were to reduce kit production costs to keep competitive (i.e., sales). I don't remember which designer mentioned this to me, may have even been Joe Wagner, when he was still alive. Printing paper costs money, and a smaller sheet is cheaper to produce. Thus, information was sufficient so a modeler could still build a model successfully from what was printed.

They also did kit engineering, which may explain why sheet balsa fuselage sides may have been in several pieces, like with the Goldberg half-A Falcon R/C and some Sterlings. Larger Comet models like 32 in. span Sparky rubber powered, one spliced fuselage longerons and wing leading edges and strip stock. They made use of as much balsa as possible to reduce waste. Boxes were packed as full as possible. A smaller box meant more kits could be packed in a box reducing warehousing and freight costs.

We are spoiled by later kits, which take more volume but have proper length balsa and complete full size plans.

There is currently a Veco Papoose kit on ebay.  Looks to be complete.  $180.00

Keith