Dover Spirit of Saint Louis

[Don Boose]

During the summer, during grandson Don4’s annual visit, we went to Philadelphia to see the battleship New Jersey and the Franklin Institute, where I picked up a couple of copies of Peter Zorn’s Dover book with the model of the Spirit of Saint Louis. It looked about my speed, and having been carefully watching Bomarc building his world class engines for his PBJ-1H, I scanned the engine parts and tried my hand at putting together the simplified Wright J-5A engine, described here: http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/aviation/4807-baby-steps-peter-zorn-wright-j-5a.html.

I have now begun an actual build of the kit.

It is in book form, printed on 0.01-inch/0.254mm paper of decent quality and in two colors: black and silver. There are a few flaws in the silver printing that I have covered up with silver Sharpie (the flaws are still visible, but I can convince myself that they look like patches on the silver-doped fabric, rather than white printing flaws).

There are something over 100 parts, counting the little Model T Ford tender.

The first photo below gives an idea of the kit. The second photo is the test model of the engine made from the scan. Then the first steps: the wicker pilot’s seat, the fuselage center section, and the engine mount.

Don