I bought the very nice book 'Italian Vintage Sailplanes' by Vincenzo Pedrielli with three views by Francesco Camastra. There are some very beautiful and unusual sailplanes shown in this book. The 'Balestruccio' immediately caught my eye. It is certainly a 'bella donna'! Camilla Silva designed this to be a record breaker which it did. To me, a strut braced gull wing sailplane with a skid, covered in plywood is the most beautiful thing! The 'Balestruccio' has those bases covered in Spades!!! It has a large aspect ratio which will only help with performance. It is a flapped wing so that is helpful trimming for duration and in landing. The full scale had an 18 meter span so that puts the model at 3 meter span or just over 118". It is my second scale sailplane built. I used three views in Vincenzo's book to draw the plans. I met Vincenzo at the Soaring Museum at Elmira, NY. I brought the 'bones' of the 'Balestruccio' for him to see. He was very gracious with his compliments.He signed my book and we had a nice friendly conversation on the museum's front porch. He told me that my model was going to be the first built using information from his book! That was pretty neat to know, too! I used the airfoil on the drawings. It is slightly undercambered on the bottom surface. The airfoil from the strut attach point of the wing to the tip was modified by me as I had it progressively change until it was fully symmetrical at the tips.
I hand drew the plans then made a form in order to fabricate the curved upper and lower nose bows. I stained the wood before using it to avoid 'the pox', i.e., glue not allowing stain to penetrate glue joints. I used H. Behlen water based stain so that the gluing of joints won't be compromised like they would be if using oil based stains. The fuselage side 'ladder' crutches built over the plans. All wood parts put in scale locations as much as could be determined. Why re-invent the wheel?
I hand drew the plans then made a form in order to fabricate the curved upper and lower nose bows. I stained the wood before using it to avoid 'the pox', i.e., glue not allowing stain to penetrate glue joints. I used H. Behlen water based stain so that the gluing of joints won't be compromised like they would be if using oil based stains. The fuselage side 'ladder' crutches built over the plans. All wood parts put in scale locations as much as could be determined. Why re-invent the wheel?
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