Paperplane 1/72 Piper J-3 Cub

PAPERPLANE 1:72 Piper J-3 Cub

Reviewer: Hrvoje Šafhauzer (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: September 2002

M.P.F.C.: "…And NOW – SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!"

Model Details:

Aircraft: Piper J-3 Cub
Scale: 1/72 (originally 1/40)
Sheet(s): Originally 2, downloaded from www.fiddlersgreen.net, somewhere in year 2000
Surface detail: drawn
Decals: none - prepainted

Aircraft History (in brief):

(Shamelessly stolen and summarized from Wikipedia)

The Piper J-3 Cub is a small, simple, light aircraft that was built between 1937 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. With tandem (fore and aft) seating, it was intended for flight training but became one of the most popular and best-known light aircraft of all time. The Cub's simplicity, affordability and popularity invokes comparisons to the Ford Model T automobile. The aircraft's standard yellow paint has come to be known as “Cub Yellow” or "Lock Haven Yellow".

It originated in a Taylor E-2 Cub that first appeared in 1930, and the E-2 was meant to be an affordable aircraft that would encourage interest in aviation. Later in 1930, the Taylor company went bankrupt, with Piper buying the assets. In 1936, Walter Jamouneau altered an earlier Cub to become the J-2. Although sales were initially slow, about 1,200 J-2s were produced before a fire in the Piper factory ended its production in 1938. After Piper moved his company from Bradford to Lock Haven, the J-3, which featured further changes by Jamouneau and powered by a 40 hp (30 kW) engine, replaced the J-2.

The outbreak of hostilities in Europe in 1939, coupled with the growing realization that the United States might soon be drawn into World War II, resulted in the formation of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). The Piper J-3 Cub would play an integral role in the success of the CPTP, achieving legendary status. A number of different engines, air-cooled flat-4 boxer engine configuration and three cylinder Lenape engines were used to power J-3 Cubs, and resulted in differing model designations for each type. The Piper J-3 Cub became the primary trainer aircraft of the CPTP — 75 percent of all new pilots in the CPTP (from a total of 435,165 graduates) were trained in Cubs. In 1940, the year before the United States' entry into the war, 3,016 Cubs were built; soon, wartime demands would increase that production rate to one Piper J-3 Cub being built every 20 minutes. It went into war in US Army and Navy service being designated 0-59/L-4 and NE, respectively. Grand total of 19,073 Cubs were built.

Sheet(s):

I have downloaded a file in *.pdf format from Fiddlersgreen website found accidentally while browsing for some data. They offered a lot of plans for paperplane building, and several of them were free – and I am a budget modeler (read - CHEAP!). File contained the 2 sheets with prepainted drawings of the component with basic assembly instructions and advices. It is in 1/40 scale, totally non standard for us, so I extracted images, reduced them to 1/72 scale, merged together on an A4 page, and kept it in my archives together with some other paperplane files. I have rediscovered it recently while looking for some guidance for a kitbashing of an imaginary high-wing monoplane, using contents of my spares box. So I decided to give it a go…

Construction:

I printed a page at 220g/m² printing paper using a laser color printer. It gave sharp outlines with no blur that could occur if using an ink-jet. Next came scoring the fold lines using used ball pen and a ruler. It is essential for facilitating correct and easy folding and bending. Using both the straight and curved scissors, as well as a modeling blade I cut the parts when required trying to cut close to the black borders. So, the white glue and toothpicks were drafted and things were rolled.

Wing was first, due to the need to be bent and joined, followed by an "engine box" and tailwheel. The transition on the wing upper surface in the wingtip area was somewhat sharp and maybe it would be better to glue some backing paper here next time. Also the tailwheel strut could benefit with extra paper sheet inserted. Other small things, like wing struts, main landing gear legs, landing gear supports, horizontal tail surfaces, and propeller followed after being folded as required, and trimmed next day after dried. Most of them were somehow flattish and parts of them could use additional thickness of same grade paper. Wing central part, containing the painted windows was attached, to its position at wing uppersides.

That left the fuselage, engine cover, and main wheels to be done. Starting with the easiest I made wheels first, using the 7mm diameter punch-and-die tool for creating the discs required for filling the space between wheel outer shapes. Four of them were required per each wheel, and were dully glued one to other and to outer discs. There I found that a strip representing a wheel circumference was designed little short, but folding part covered it completely – meaning that I had to go and modify pattern drawing for a tentative next build(s). Instructions stated that printed windows could be cut and replaced with the transparencies, but with only instrument panel provided it would entail empty interior, and I was not keen to do that. Fuselage was glued from front to the rear, as instructed, ending with fin and rudder, but there I found that dorsal join is not to be in the middle. Since I had no appropriate putty and sanding paper I let it be…

The engine cowling is designed to go around the engine box and it was done with some fiddling, previously I punched a hole using a pin that was intended to be used as propeller shaft. After drying, the holes were punched in the engine box, so the propeller could be rotated. Propeller blades were twisted to give some pitch. Landing gear legs, tailwheel and horizontal tail surfaces were attached, and all left overnight to cure. Wing and wing struts followed, as well as landing gear supports. Cowling was positioned at it place, and windscreen curved and attached with some required trimming. Wheels were glued to their position, and in no time all was over.

Painting & Decaling:

Of all the possible options I used the first and only offered – a "Cub Yellow" painted one with black lightning bolt and USA registration. So, no painting, no decaling, and so on. I only needed to touch up the wheels with black permanent soft tip pen.

Conclusion:

Paperplanes could be fun to build, and quick. And also a nice way to introduce kids into the world of modeling and doing something by hands in general, instead of blowing away aliens on the TV/computer-screen. And if something got messed up in process, the remedy is easy – just print another copy at your favorite color printer. Of course, one should be careful not to cut oneself. Look around on the Net, there could be some interesting things to be downloaded…

Piper J-3 Cub head-a-head with an Airfix 1/72Auster AOP VI,
with a Revell/Matchbox 1/75 Wespe 105 mm S- gun slightly back – just to give scale

References:

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Cub

· Ilustrovana enciklopedija vazduhoplovstva – Savremeni Ikari (An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aeronautics – Modern Icaruses); Yugoslav compilation selected from Osprey's "WINGS" edition, 1989, in Serbo-Croatian.

web hosting • domain names
web design • online games