Verville Air Coach (oz3640)

About this Plan

Verville Air Coach. Free flight rubber scale model.

Quote: "Here is Walt Mooney's Verville Air Coach from Model Builder issue 12-83. This is a two-for-one plan. The yellow 'centerfold' plan is peanut scale, the other scaled for the 26 inch FF version."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 21/02/2021: Added complete article, thanks to rocketpilot.

Quote: "In the January 1979 issue of Model Builder, Colonel Hurst Bower had a three-view of the Verville Air Coach published. Because Mr Alfred Verville was a friend of mine in his later years (we became acquainted during the building of a couple of replicas of the Curtiss A-1 for the celebration of 50 years of naval aviation), this three-view of the Air Coach was put aside to be converted into a model. In early 1980, a drawing was completed for a twice Peanut-size rubber powered scale model of the Air Coach.

Three years later the model structure was completed. About the same time, I met Pete Glor at work at Convair and mentioned the project. A few weeks later, he was sent on a business trip to Washington, DC and set himself up to get a short time at the research library in the Aero-Space Museum. While there, he got the project in a little trouble by getting copies of data on the Air Coach. There was good news and bad news. As Bill Hannan would say: Don't trust photographs, either. Nevertheless, Colonel Bower's three-view was proved to be reasonably accurate, but the side-view did not represent the Detroit diesel engine version, but one with another engine. The small three-view reproduced on the drawing is Colonel Bower's modified to more nearly match the photos of the diesel powered version.

Even the articles obtained by Pete, one of which was the original sales brochure, are a little questionable. For instance, it says that the color scheme was black and vermillion with aluminum painted struts. The top of the wing, the fuselage, and the vertical tail are black, the bottom of the wing is vermillion. The photos clearly show that the top of the wing and horizontal tail are lighter than black. My suspicion is that the wings and horizontal tail were red, and the body and vertical tail were black. The sponsons are black and the struts are aluminum. The Verville logo is blue and white.

The model is pretty much constructed in the standard fashion for an airplane of this vintage. Laminated wing tips and surface outlines are used because they are strong and lightweight. Except for the root ribs, all the ribs are of sliced construction.

Balsawood wheels obtained from Old Timer models are also used. The engine cylinders are primarily Williams Brothers plastic pieces. The exhaust stack is a bendable plastic soda straw. The instrument panel reproduction of the actual diesel engine Air Coach panel, and was copied directly from the sales brochure as was the vertical tail logo. By the way, that logo was also used on the wheel hubs which stick out on the outside of the wheels just like the soldered washers holding the wheels on the model.

The fuselage is started by making two fuselage side frames directly over the plan. Use hard 1/16 square balsa sticks for the longerons. This is pretty important because this fuselage is relatively large for this size structure.

While the sides are drying, start the wing structure. Strip several 3/32 width sticks from 1/32 sheet. (Select hard balsa for these sticks.) Build the wing bottom directly over the plan. Pin the leading and trailing edge sticks down over the plan and cut the bottom of the ribs to length and cement them in place between the leading and trailing edges. Slice the forward and rear spars from 1/16th sheet. Note that the top of the spar sticks should be beveled to match the top of the ribs. Cement the spars in place.

By this time, the fuselage side frames will be dry, even if you use Ambroid as I do. Remove them from the plan and with a thin, sharp blade, separate them from each other. Now, assemble the two side frames into the basic fuselage box frame..."

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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