Guillows sheetwood flying models - the Zip nocals.

[simpleflyer]

These were cut apart and became cutting patterns for Lullu-Belle.

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[simpleflyer]

Here is the 'Zip" model kit of Lullu-Belle. The fuselage, wing, and tail are 1/32 sheet. Nose doublers are 1/16 sheet. Wing span is 11 inches. Information about Guillows 'Zip' models may be found at:

http://balsamodels.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1646

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[simpleflyer]

Fuselage and vertical tail glued, also the nose doublers. The slot in the nose will be for balance weight if needed.

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[simpleflyer]

Doublers are sanded and ready to be attached to the fuselage. When they are glued to the fuselage, they will surround the nose slot forming a cavity into which balance weight can be inserted if needed.

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[simpleflyer]

Fuselage is ready for attaching the wing and tail. The horizontal tail is temporarily slid into position and the wing is held in place with pins. Checking for the CG location shows it to be even with the wings leading edge at the tips, so nose weight will probably not be needed.

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[simpleflyer]

Here is Lulu-Belle's wing dihedral being formed. The tissue covered wing in the 'wing shop' is from a modified Guillows Gold Wing in need of repair.

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[simpleflyer]

After the dihedral is formed, the wing mount and capture strips were cut.

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[simpleflyer]

The wing mount was clamped to the wing and the capture rails were glued in place. The mount with the wing attached is glued to the bottom of the fuselage. This helps to align the wing to the fuselage and glue it in place.

Working with the model revealed a weakness in tail attachment, so a thin ply reinforcement plate was added at the bottom of the vertical tail.

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[simpleflyer]

It was a bit windy today, but we tried a few flights, anyway. Lullu-Belle wants to fly, but is very sensitive to wind and gusts.

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[simpleflyer]

A few comments about Clarence"Kelly" Johnson, Milo Burcham, and LulluBelle. In 1943 the USAAC contracted Lockheed to build a jet aircraft, pronto. Lockheed in response, gathered together a team of 23 engineers led by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and 103 shop mechanics. In order not to interfere with their other aircraft contracts, Lockheed bought a shop full of machines and put up a temporary facility and in 143 days "LulluBelle" was completed and ready for flight. This temporary facility became the legendary "Skunk Works' and the rest is history. A biographical article about Kelly Johnson that more fully tells the story of the XP-80 may be found at:

http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/kelly1.htm

Milo Burcham was chief engineering test pilot for Lockheed when the first XP-80 was completed and made the first flight of the aircraft. Prior to the test flights of the XP-80, Milo did much of the test flying of the P-38 and developed and conducted special training on this aircraft to the Fourth Air Force. A few months after the first flight of LulluBelle, Milo lost his life in a YP-80A, when the aircraft lost power on take-off. More can be found about Milo Burcham on these two websites.

http://www.airracinghistory.freeola.com/PILOTS/Milo%20Burcham.htm

http://www.dmairfield.com/people/burcham_mi/index.html

More can be found about the first P-80s on these pages.

XP-80

http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p80_1.html

XP-80A

http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p80_2.html

YP-80A

http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p80_3.html

Surprisingly, LulluBelle survives today and resides at the NASM.

http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19600296000

[simpleflyer]

Beautiful weather today, sathurday. So we were able to take LulluBelle out for some flight time

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Here she ran into a bit of rough air and went wing low.

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Otherwise, she flew well.

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[Scott]

She looks and she flies great.

[simpleflyer]

Thank you, Scott, for your comment. LulluBelle does fly fine, but is sensitive to wind and has a narrow optimum speed range. At lower speeds, she is stable enough, but a higher speeds the flight tends to a roller-coaster pattern.

By the way, what are you building/flying now-a-days?

This past weekend we took some of our swingers to the neighborhood school playground to fly. They have a good size field there. It was a fairly still day but warm. We were flying next to a line of trees, and I guess that the afternoon sun was forming some risers in the open field. Ever so often a gust of quick air would come over the trees and make flying a bit interesting. On one of the profile Mustang's flight we had a hard nose first landing with this result.

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Apparently, the sheet of balsa used for the fuselage had been been partially cut into at one time and I had changed my mind and did not notice it when building the Mustang. The partially cut side broke cleanly and the other side is jagged. However, the repair will be easy and the Mustang will soon be flying.

[simpleflyer]

So we took a small brush and liberally applied some elmers wood glue thinned with water to both sides of the break. Carefully fitted the broken ends together, wrapped them in saran wrap and clamped them.

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In a few hours the Mustang was flying again.

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[simpleflyer]

Like the tortoise in the old fable from our childhood, we continue make slow but steady progress, one day at a time. Income taxes are done, we are making progress in boxing up some old plastic for the IPMS ModelMania show in April, and yard work is under control. So today, being a sunny cool day, we flew some of smaller 'swingers' this afternoon. A few breezy gusts, but an enjoyable experience just the same.

The profile P-40

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The profile Yak-15

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The profile A-26

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