Bellanca Aircruiser (oz4497)

About this Plan

Bellanca Aircruiser. Scale rubber model.

Quote: "A flying Bellanca Aircruiser. How you can build a flying scale model of a famous cargo plane that includes many fine details of construction. By Jospeh Kovel.

THE Bellanca Aircruiser Cargo Landplane, to give it its full title, was designed and built for trans-port work. Modern trans-port needs require ships that are fast, economical, yet capable of carrying high pay loads. The Bellanca Aircruiser meets these requirements very nicely. Its single engine and cruising range of 1000 miles assure economy. The high speed of the ship at 7000 ft is 165 miles per hour, while the cruising speed is 155 miles per hour. (Imagine a freight train cruising at that speed!) The ship weighs 6115 pounds when empty and is capable of carrying a pay load of 4021 pounds. This high weight pay load ratio may be attributed to the unusual design of the ship. Note that the wing struts serve not only to brace the wing structure, but also contribute to the lift of the ship. This two-purpose design of the strut results in a considerable saving in weight, which is reflected in the weight-lifting ability of the ship.

This ship is well adapted for model work. The long nose moment allows the model to he built with a natural balance - that is - the finished model will not require any additional weight in the nose to balance it (providing of course, that you use the proper grade of materials.) This eliminates dead weight, which detracts from the efficiency of the ship.

This model is very stable due to the large dihedral angle formed by each lower wing stub and the lifting strut. Two other important factors that con-tribute to the stability of the ship are that the center of lateral area is almost exactly on the thrust line, while the center of cavity is slightly below the thrust line. The cathedral angle, formed by the lower wing stubs and the bottom of the fuselage, permits easy landings, due to the cushioning effect of this arrangement. Not only is the model a good flyer, but it also looks good, as you may judge from the accompan? inn photo-graphs.

Following is the suggested pro-cedure for building the model. General Instructions. Study the drawings and read the instructions before starting actual work on the ship. Strive for accuracy and neatness of workmanship. When building the ship, he sure to use the grade of materials specified as this has a great deal to do with the balance of the finished model. Sand each piece of wood that goes into the model. This will remove the 'whiskers' which have no structural strength, yet burden the ship with useless weight.

In order to build the fuselage, you'll have to round up a soft board (about 8 in x 24 in), some drawing paper, pins and some wax paper, or better yet, a wax candle. Tack the drawing paper to the board and lay out the fuselage side..."

Note this is not a full-size plan, this is a scan of the original magazine pages as printed in 1937. Thanks to Alex for sending in a link for this plan.

Supplementary file notes

Planfile includes article pages.

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