The Cessna 170 flies again!
I first built the Cessna 170 while I was in college 1989, at 21 years old. It was 3-channel, throttle, rudder and elevator only. It made only one flight because it had too little dihedral in the wings to permit adequete directional control with the rudder alone. I carried this model around for 19 years until it flew with ailerons for the first time today, January 20, 2008.
January 2008, I installed an OS .25 LA engine, ailerons, and beefed up the wing for more weight and speed. The wingspan of the Cessna 170 is 50". The wind chord at the center section is 8". It's about 353 sq in. wing area. It's 37" long spinner to tail. I scratch-built the 170 with balsa wood without plans. It's covered with Monokote. I modeled it after a photograph of the actual N4654V. The photo was black and white, so the color is probably not the same as the real plane. After 19 years, I wouldn't be suprised if the full-size 54V has been painted.
Here is the actual original photo I used to build the model. It was a cutout from an old magazine article:
Before the first flight, per the new engine instructions, I ran out three tanks of gas to break in the engine at a rich mixture setting.
Wow... none of the planes I built along side Steve in a basement in Grand Forks have lived this long!
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I like this post, because she said I'm an engineering genius: http://socio-path.blogspot.com/2008/09/stephen-loves-his-toy.html
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