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Showing results for tags 'McClary A'.
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Before we continue to enjoy our hobby -as he would have liked-, I want to make a brief homage to James (Jim) Schubert, who passed away just a few days ago. Jim was a very good friend, a Boeing engineer for many decades, with a long and successful career. He was as active at his 85 years old as he ever was, and regaled us all with his vast, seemingly inexhaustible knowledge on aviation and modelling and a plethora of other matters. I knew him for many years, and often, sometimes seriously, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, embroidered his name in my modeling posts, many times here at BM. He was a very, very, very good friend, to me and to many. Aviation and modeling is what gather us here, and that's how I met him, and he was an extremely important mentor for me (and again many others) in those matters. But there is something, for me far more important than his aviation career or knowledge, or his excelling modeling skills: he was an extraordinary human being, a classy gentleman, educated, polite, intelligent, humorous, witty, kind and always friendly and ready to help. His models are extraordinary, but what I admire the most is his true quality as a human being, sadly not very common nowadays. Dear Jim, your laughter and your incomparable, kind, warm, sometimes mischievous smile, will stay with us; even as you fly yonder. This is an old build, from 11 years ago, with the original text: Between 1929 and 1931, Mr. McClary developed a series of prototypes of which not much photographic evidence remains. The Model A is what you see here, according to Aerofiles. It seems that it was considered a motorglider. Unfortunately there is no record of it ever flying, but I am an optimist. Control was obtained mainly by fervent praying, but also through elevators and rudder, and some sort of ailerons protruding from the…-I guess I should say wing, although I am not totally certain. This sort of flattened zeppelin ,although simple in appearance, offers certain challenges, not being the lesser one the absence of 3 views. I concocted one in my periods of lucidity. Areas that will need attention are the engine (55 parts) the wheels (of the spoke type) and the various struts and protrusions. On the engine and its cowling aluminum sheet, styrene, solder and a home-made metalized vacuformed part were all used. Some generic interior was built into the pilot gondola too. It looked simple enough at the beginning, but after all the dust settled down the count of parts surpassed the 140 mark. Nothing a normal modeler can’t deal with. If we could only find a normal modeler. In 1/72 the model has a reasonable size, not too small, not too big, which makes handling easier. Nevertheless, a number of parts had to be made twice or three times in order to get a reasonable result. The unusual shape dictated equally unusual production of parts and assembly procedures, not to mention that you normally make the fuselage and then glue the wings to it, but in this case you make the (only) wing and glue the fuselage to it. Then you glue the tail surfaces to the wing too. Feels strange, but the same can be said of the plane, isn’t it? McClary went on to design other interesting places if on slightly more conventional lines. Is contemplating these kind of designs that I start to see fine art in aviation. A link to some photos of the real thing: https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/Shumaker/6191L.htm
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