Best known as a distributor of Pulso Motors and ESCs, Doug has been around the hobby for 40 years. He was distracted for a while by four wheelers and designing mountain bikes. With a background in engineering, he designed bike suspension forks comprised of carbon-graphite and titanium.  Then brushless motors and modern Li Poly batteries re-ignited his interest in RC. He is a confirmed scratch builder.  He flies with the guys in the Brazos Valley Radio Control club in the College Station/Bryan, Texas. Doug can be reached at: www.aurigaavionics.com

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very scratch builder knows how it is: Their scrap box is full of  parts, bits and pieces, some of

it  remaining from previous projects, stuff   that we never seem to find use for, but just refuse to part with. For me, it was becoming a challenge. So, as my winter project I would design and build an airplane straight out of my scrap box–well mostly anyhow. But what would it  be?

It would be something kinda scale looking but something with which I would have “my own way.”  I had these 38-inch wings from an old Hobbico Fly Zone Park Pilot that I always liked, so it would definitely be a bipe. And there was that bunch of neat carbon fiber bicycle spokes–great for landing gear and struts.  But the final decider were those antique looking wheels that I had designed some time ago from soda can bottoms.

So with  no plans, other than a rather vague idea in my head of what it would be,  I got out some sheets of foamboard,  a calculator, Sharpie, an X-acto knife and dove in.

What turned out was a kinda scale stagger wing of something that might have appeared between the wars but styled with a long “electric nose”.    

I built the fuselage from foamboard. This stuff is light weight, paper backed with a 3mm foam core.  It can be glued with foam-safe CA, but normally I use Gorilla glue or epoxy with never a problem.  Building with foamboard guarantees flat straight sides, and it is as strong as any other material except carbon fiber.  On other projects I have successfully bent and curved this material using moisture

and heat.  Sanding is quick work with with 120 grit emery cloth.

Covering foamboard is easy with sign shop vinyl or any PSA backed film including iron-on types. Foamboard is available from most art and craft stores. I even found a store that had it in half inch thickness.  I reused the foamboard sticker on the fuse side of my bipe.  Looks real sweet. The following photos illustrate how I used foamboard for the fuselage.