Cessna 120/140 (oz16399)

About this Plan

Cessna 120/140. Free flight scale model for CO2, or electric with KP01 motor or similar.

Vector format plan.

Quote: "The Classic Cessna 120/140. John Watters presents one of America's most prolific post-WWII commercial lighplanes for your CO2 or Electric power modelling consideration.

At the end of the Second World War, the worldwide aircraft manufacturing industry ground down to a crawl and production of new aircraft had nearly stopped, particularly in America. To further escalate the problem, the American government needed to release 30,000 war surplus aircraft for sale to the general public. In many cases, the very companies who had built these aircraft for the government, had hoped for resurgence in sales following the end of the war, needless to say, were hit very hard and a number never recovered.

One company in particular was Cessna Aircraft Company. Owner Clyde Cessna had been designing and building his aircraft since 1927 and had built up a good reputation both with civil and military models. The war years had seen him perfecting monocoque, aluminium construction, so he decided to carry this method of construction through to a new model. For it's time, was a radical idea.

Clyde Cessna, along with his nephews, fought hard to keep the company going. After a lot of hard work they succeeded in obtaining contracts to build parts for Fairchild and Ryan aircraft. Here they gained more experience using aluminium sheet construction. This led his nephew, Wallace, to produce a design for a sleek new model using this sheet construction method. This was the 5 seat model 190. The other radical feature of this aircrafts design was its, single one-piece curved spring-steel landing gear, which became synonymous with Cessna designs.

Wallace saw that a gap in the market did exist for an inexpensive model, which was both ideal for private and trainer use. Cessna drew up this up as the model 120/140, using an all aluminium fuselage shell design with a fabric covered strut braced wing. The original 120 model was a somewhat basic aircraft, replaced as its popularity grew with an aluminium wing design, christened the Cessna 140. These two designs, once more put the Cessna Aircraft Company at the forefront of aircraft production: they did not look back.

The Cessna 120/140 design is on of the most popular of American light plane modelling subjects. It's attractive design and docile flight characteristics, makes it a natural. So, enough said, let's get cracking on putting this sweet little bird into the air.

Construction: As with any model we all have our own ways of building. The following notes are only a guide and in which order you construct the model, is as ever a matter of choice. We will take for granted that between each building stage, enough time is allowed for the glued parts to set. Both Cyano and PVA glues are ideal for use in the construction.

Anyone who has built a scale kit model should find nothing difficult in building this model. Although I have used CO2 as the power source in this model, there is nothing to say you could not use electric or even rubber power.

There are a couple of design points that differ in the model from the original full size aircraft. These however do not detract from this being a good representation of the Cessna 120/140. With the tail plane I have increased the area a little and changed the airfoil section from the NACA 2412 of the fullsize to the old faithful Clark Y, more of this later. I have tried to represent whiat on the fullsize aircraft is a stress skinned body by the use of stringers and tissue, which I think has turned out ok.

Fuselage: Start by putting down the balsa outline pieces ie the shaded areas. Part A should be made slightly longer at F5; this will assist when fitting the formers. The half formers F1, F3A and F6 through to F10 can now be positioned onto the outline pieces and glued in place..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 18/11/2025: Rescaled this plan to correct fullsize at 27 in wingspan, thanks to Simon Blake.

Supplementary file notes

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