Spirit of St. Louis (Ryan NYP – NX211) – All the free downloads

[Rubenandres77]

Hello my friends.

Since now I have more time to build some models, I can finally present another batch of kits. Since they are all the same subject, I decided to make a single thread, in the same way I did with the Fokker Dr.1 last year.

Some of this models were made during the course of the year, in the little free times I had between my parent’s health problems, the work at home, and other real-life distractions.

The scales I give for the kits are the ones of my own builds. I slightly reduced some of them to make them fit in the pages I used.

- o -


First we have the most simple, and oldest, of the free Spirit of St. Louis kits.
This was downloaded from Toto’s site when it was available.

The kit is very old, I believe it dates back to the 1950s and was edited by a company called “Marabout” in France. And it is oversimplified. Print is only black ink and there is a dark oblique band on the fuselage representing the wing’s shadow. The roof window is drawn very simply.

The scale of this kit is around 1/55 or 1/60.

I printed on silver cardstock, and duplicated the wing and stabilizer so that the undersurfaces would be printed too.

The assembly of the landing gear is not so simple, but it is a good solution to represent the original.

The attaching points of the struts to the wing are not accurate, struts are shorter than they should be. So keep that in mind before making the holes in the wings.

Propeller is fixed in vertical position.

I tried to build this kit in the simplest possible way, to have an experience similar to the one a person in the 50s would have had. So I didn’t care much about precision in cuts and some edges were left unpainted. Although I like to have movable wheels and propellers, in this case that would have been just silly.

An enjoyable build. But you must be conscious it is far from being perfect. It is the charm of the old kits.

[Rubenandres77]

Now there is another simple kit. But unlike the previous one, this was no joy to build at all.

The kit is by “paper models inc.” and can be found here: http://site.papermodelsonline.com/fr...tofstlouis.pdf

But before you download it, please consider it very carefully.

The kit is ugly. The shapes are all wrong. The graphics deviate too much from the original plane. Some fits are incredibly bad. The structure is too weak and flimsy. There are no instructions of any kind, and the landing gear struts are a nightmare to build (no diagrams, no tabs, no folds, no anchor points)… you have to guess almost everything to be able to use all the parts, and make them fit in a more or less reasonable way.

The scale is 1/60 (wingspan) and 1/52 (length). No proportions at all.

This is the first kit in my life I really regret to have built. The effort and time spent is just too much for such a poor result.

Before I took the pictures a book fell on it, crushed the struts, and I really didn’t feel any pain.

This kit was also printed on silver cardstock, which was good because it is thick. And for this kit you need some good cardstock because the overall structure is too weak.

I swear I will never again build this kit, or any other kit by this designer.

[Rubenandres77]

The third kit I would like to present is a very nice kit. Simple, but very beautiful. Not 100% accurate, but a joy to build.

In the year 1986 a company called “Broderbund” released a box containing a book and a cartridge for Commodore 64 with several projects to print and build. There were 20 projects, and of them was the Spirit.

You can read more about the contents (and download the files) from here: paper-models | Paper Modeling With The Toy Shop

This is an interesting kit. Simple, and box-like. The graphics are computer one-colour graphics from the 1980s. There aren’t many parts. The scale is about 1/55.

Again, I printed the kit in silver cardstock. I laminated the wing and landing gear struts, and that helped the model a lot because it added a lot of structural strength.

I could have re-painted the graphics by darkening the letterings, but I thought it would look nicer to leave it as original as possible.

The details are enchanting. The brushed metal of the engine cowling is simulated with simple circles, and it even has “flags”. The limitations of the software at that time didn’t allow for much detail, but if you have seen photos of the Spirit with the flags painted, you can see they tried to make a good job. And you’ll appreciate the effort of the people who designed this.

The instructions are clear, the parts fit very well, and the result is a very strong model. It can be handled without worry. The instructions suggest using pins to make the movable wheels and propeller, and that helps the kit a lot. You can really play with it as if with any toy. In fact, my 5yo niece asked to have it. I didn’t let her my kit, but I built another one for her, with a pink hue all over. And she was happy with her paper toy.

[Rubenandres77]

There is another free kit. This time it is more oriented towards the educational aspect.

It is a layered kit that assembles into a flyable model. The inner layers show a profile of Lindbergh seating. This will be lost once the outer skin is glued. But I find the concept to be very instructive: the person building it will always remember how it was to be inside the Spirit. The scale is about 1/50.

This kit was available from: New Mexico Wing Aerospace Education

And the direct download link was: http://nmwg.cap.gov/santafe/Activities/index.html

But beware: the site is gone. You may want to use the Wayback Machine to get this kit in case you want it.

The instructions call for a coin to be glued on the nose for weight to get a straight flight. I glued the coin but haven’t thrown it in the air yet.

As it could be expected for such a simple flying model, the landing gear is very simplified. Something good if you are using this kit in a classroom activity.

Besides the shapes and proportions not being 100% accurate, there are only two other notable mistakes: The nose is yellow, as it is the current state of the plane exhibited in the Smithsonian. As you know, the original plane was all metal, and the yellow color is from the poor varnish they used to preserve the flags that were painted after Lindberg’s historic flight.
The other mistake is the statement under the wing saying Lindbergh was “the first person” to fly over the Atlantic. He wasn’t the first, but he was the first to fly alone. Besides those two mistakes, the kit is enjoyable to build.

[Rubenandres77]

I’ve left the Canon kit for the end, because you all know good things are saved for the last.


The Canon Spirit, is a very well designed kit. It has lots of details and great graphics. This is undoubtedly the best free kit of the plane. And I’m sure it is even better that one or two pre-printed paid models.

The scale of this kit is 1/28. I reduced it slightly (1/35).

The download is from this link: Spirit of St. Louis - Vehicles - Paper Craft - Canon CREATIVE PARK

This represents the plane used to cross the Atlantic after the promotional tour with flags of the countries visited, without ventilation louvers, without the yellow nose. One detail on the nose is inaccurate: the flags are wrong. There should be a Colombian flag somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. But the rest of the graphics are really outstanding.

Some parts are strangely designed: the wind meter on top of the fuselage could be scratch built with wire or rolled paper to make a better detail instead of the flat one provided with the kit. I’m not sure about the paddles of the propeller. And the engine cylinders are definitely a point to improve. I didn’t like the presence of dashed folding lines all over the parts. They are too visible and spoil the finish.

But there are also very good points in this kit: the control surfaces are all movable thanks to simple but effective paper hinges. The textures are really wonderful, and the overall look of the kit is excellent. Very good proportions and detail. It even comes with a figure of Lindbergh! (I forgot to take a photo of it).

This is not an easy kit. It is a bit challenging. But the more you are into this project, the more you enjoy every part of it.

I printed this kit on the same silver cardstock I used for the previous kits. Which was good in terms of surface finish, but proved problematic in terms of fitting. Since this silver cardstock is thicker than the paper recommended in the instructions, some parts like tabs of the formers and small pieces were difficult to handle.

The mistakes you se here are not a fault of the kit, but my fault by printing on a thicker medium.

The most noticeable mistake is the wing. A small deviation in the formers of the cockpit meant an unleveled wing. And those formers were poorly glued because they were too thick, and I had forced them into the skin… it usually happens: small mistake in the beginning results in big mistake at the end.

I also hurried towards the end, and the landing gear suffered from my impatience. I glued backwards the shock absorbers.

The kit doesn’t specify moving wheels. But I tried to use pins to make them movable. Bad idea. I thought I could do the same I did with the Broderbund kit, but the Canon kit is so detailed and accurate, that it just doesn’t leave too much room for thins kind of experiments. This weakened the wheels and the joining points too much. And this is a critical part of the plane.

This is definitely one kit I wish to build again, properly. Is so good I feel a little bad to leave it like that, with the mistakes I made. Maybe next year I will try again, when I have more free time.

[Rubenandres77]

Hope you liked my review of the free kits of the Spirit of St. Louis

Kind regards,

[richkat]

These kits are very cool...thank you....I have heard talk of the "way-back machine"
but don't know what it is or how to use it......help!.......Rich

[SCEtoAUX]

Internet Archive: Wayback Machine

If you have a URL that does not work anymore go to the Wayback Machine site and enter the URL. Sometimes a snapshot of the site is stored for a particular date or set of dates and you can get information and download files. In the case of no longer working paper model sites you can sometimes get some of the models that were originally on the site.

[richkat]

Thanks my friend......Rich

[Vermin_King]

Thank you very much for this review. Wayback Machine can be your friend. One really poor, but fun, model of this can be found at the Canon site from sometime before 2004. It was in a small vignette with the plane sitting on a base which is a hand-drawn map of the Atlantic with the Americas to the left, Europe and Africa to the right. There is a 2-d statue of liberty to put on New York and a simple Eiffel Tower to put on Paris. It is a kids model. Very simple, but the inaccurate plane is 3-d. It is rather charming. It also included a 2-d Lindberg figure.