The Little Fireball 24

Frank Macy has scaled down his stick and tissue design of the Jim Walker classic pre-war Fireball, a pioneering U-Control plane. This model will sport a 24 inch wing when completed. Here are some photo's of the model under construction, with comments and questions by the builder made in e-mails to Frank Macy.

Plans pinned on building tile, plans replicated and patterns cut out, patterns spraymounted to balsa...so far fuselage formers, one set of wing ribs, fuselage crutch, wing trailing edges cut out. I noticed that the stabilizer has airfoil shape but no patterns? Should stab be flat? Same with rudder, but one fuselage former has a rudder spar sticking up which could serve as the airfoil pattern thickness? Wouldn't one of our new bentwood props look super on this little guy?

I think I'll make the wing sections removeable.....any need to make the fuselage where it comes apart like the gas version?

Port wing all together except very front leading edge strip. Starboard wing pattern on plans, 3 ribs attached. The xerox copying did cause some distortion in the rib lengths but this is no big problem, I simply adjusted the spar openings and added a bit of length here and there on the tail end of the involved ribs...you can't tell it at all. With several of the ribs I cut out two openings, one in front of the spar, one in back...this is simply to increase lightness, did not affect strength. I elected to defer putting in the ailerons on this version to save time. If I need any trim I'll add a see thru tab. I am not building in any wash-in or wash-out.

Also, I have a good supply of tissue...I like yellow and red or I might go with black and red. If I pick creme color, almost any other color will work. I may add the US ARMY trainer star with the red ball in the center! Don't know yet.....anyway I am really excited about building this little masterpiece!

I haven't decided upon the wheels yet but I may try to make some balsa ones with my wheel cutter.....unless of course Penn Valley has a set already made!