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From 9 years ago, a scratch that will introduce us to the next historical aviation era: The Golden Age. Baking the Brown Potato (A Ben Brown design from 1932) Calling a plane a “potato bug” doesn’t seem to be very polite, does it? In any case, the prominent canvas surface ribbing caused by the underlying tubular structure in a sort of beetle-like fuselage prompted the nickname. Unusual and beautiful are two qualities that seem to go together when dealing with designs from the Golden Era of aviation. These unrecognized, sometimes ridiculed daring steps into the unknown spawned decades later “cutting edge” designs and in doing so ridiculed the ridiculers. The Ben Brown SC Diamond Wing is, as part of its name indicates, a jewel. Aerofiles has some notes on it: http://www.aerofiles.com/_bo.html scroll down once there to find the entry. Long hours on the Internet finally paid off when I found this Youtube clip showing the SC flying wonderfully, among many other creative designs of the time: Funnily enough, in doing the research some sources stated that the “Potato” –and many of its clip companions, by the way- never or barely flew. Or perhaps made a “hop”. Well, hop my building board, if I may say so. These guys REALLY flew. Structurally an aerodynamically sound (hey, have a look at the “new” designs around) the so called Potato Bug also flashes its attractive lines that make it a wonderful scratch project. As you can see in the accompanying images first a Sculpey master was made, then detailed, and promptly Vacu-Mattelized. A 15 minute engine was fabricated to replicate the inverted Cirrus and an interior was added, taking in consideration that the control column was hanging from the roof, as seen in the clip. The flying surfaces of this biplane…sorry, tandem…err..triplane? well, whatever this may be, were made from styrene sheet and rod, as well as the vertical stabilizer. Wheels came from a generous vac donor and metal tail wheel and prop were acquired across the ocean. Struts came from the same source. In the clip you can see the SC with registrations at least on the fin (X682H). The fin/rudder area and presumably the flying surfaces are of a lighter color than the fuselage. In other images it appears of a uniform color and has a very light color stripe running longitudinally on the fuselage sides, ending in a diamond at the nose. As they say: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds