The 2nd Meeting of the 2018-2019 Season was opened to the attending 37 members and guests by President Cal Branton.

Larry Sorenson is collecting This Season’s Dues so we can continue to meet at this location.  Be sure to contact Larry to pay your dues!  Email Larry or use the Membership Form

Cal Branton presented Duane Dahlert’s

Scratch Built Grumman Gulfhawk

Duane shared his design process in creating the ¼ scale Grumman F2 Gulfhawk 2.  Duane was inspired during a visit to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. where the full size aircraft is on display.  The Gulfhawk 2 is a special variation of the Grumman F2 build for Gulf Oil for airshow demonstrations.  The aircraft has a F3 fuselage with F2 wings.

Duane drew his own plans by hand and scratch built the unique Grumman F3 retractable landing gear from original Grumman drawings.  The gear is fully functional and Duane spent a lot of time to set limit microswitches so the motors do not stall.

The rigging is with flattened steel flying wires.  The top wing has the scale number of 56 ribs.  Cal has installed a DA-100 as the aircraft weighs in at 40 ½#.  The paint is latex from the Home Depot color matched.

Cal had purchased the project from Duane several years ago and is finishing it for flight in spring of 2019.

SFM Members Honored Duane This Meeting!  He's in his early 90’s and is a long time member of the Scale Flyers of Minnesota.  He’s been collecting his experiences in a scrapbook entitled “80+ years of Model Airplanes by Duane”.  The opportunity to learn from his acquired knowledge and skills is priceless ... THANK YOU DUANE!

Brandon Archer shared his Dynam Models Me-262

Brandon had acquired the Me-262 from another modeler who had done extensive modifications to try to bring the stand-off foam model to be more closely scale.  Modifications included custom engine nacelles to look more scale as well as LED landing lights for visibility. 

Upgraded the EDF fans to Motion Freewing 12 blade 6s to get less of a whine and more of a woosh!  They pull about 60A each.

The paint was updated using Krylon rattle can paint directly over the original paint to create the #8 Paint Scheme (yellow nacelle noses).

Brandon is adding a scale cockpit and pilot. Callie Graphix supplied the markings.  We’re looking forward to getting the flight report!

Next Meeting December 28th

Joe Neidermyr’s Do-217 Flying Pencil Project

Joe gave a great presentation on his latest design project, the Dornier Do-217K “Flying Pencil” Bomber.  This is another beautiful electric design from Joe at about 1/10th scale created from 3-view drawings.  Joe used AutoCAD to design the 1/10th scale bomber to a wingspan of 74” and a weight of 13¼ pounds.

The fuselage was built in left & right halves then joined.  The paint is hand brushed latex.

The Do-217 is powered by (2)

Hobby King T3277 with (2) 4s 2200mAH batteries and a 40 A ESC on each motor.  Joe has measured 750 Watts/Motor so the performance is expected to be good.  Joe had the parts laser cut and had the canopy custom molded.

The maiden flight is scheduled for spring of 2019!

Scott Anderson’s E-flite Boeing Navy N2S Stearman

Scott shared his new E-flite Bind-n-Fly N2S Stearman that he’d ordered on Black Friday and received the afternoon before the meeting.

It is a very good looking model with shock absorbing landing gear and a total of 10 screws to put it together.  Scott says it took less than 25 minutes to read the instructions and assemble.

It has a wingspan of 43 inches and is powered by a 15 850Kv out-runner with a 40 amp ESC and uses a standard 2200-2500mAh 3s Lipo.  The aircraft is designed to be disassembled to it can be stored/transported in its original box making it great to throw in the car for visits to the in-laws!

Scott sent one to his brother Todd in Alabama and Todd says it flies great off of the grass!

Unfortunately the maiden flight will have to wait until the weather improves!

Jan Larsen’s Scales & CG Tool

Jan had brought 3 scales and his own circuit for weighing and calculating the CG for large models.  Duane’s Grumman's Gulfhawk was weighed as an example.  Contact Jan for more details.

Zach Gerogi & Rick Freeman – Report on

Designing & Building Giant Scale Citation Retracts

In addition to their B1-Lancer design project the team has designed and built a custom retractable nose gear for B1-Bob’s giant scale Citation project. Approx. 6 weeks of design prior to machining. Zach and Rick have been machining the components and shared a working prototype powered by an Actuonix 100# capacity linear actuator.

In addition to the gear update Zach gave us an update on designing and building a giant scale B-1 Lancer. They have had conference calls with the AMA Safety Committee discussing the maximum weight limit and trying to determine why the Turbine limit is lower than the propeller driven limit of 125#.

Although you can't expect the teams work as closely as Pedro Restrepo  (above).  You can follow the B1 Project on Facebook and see the video of the new gear operating.