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MIKE ROACH’S SOPWITH AVIATION COMPANY
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“As a visitor to Chilliwack (an electric fly-in on the west coast of Canada) in 2010, I think it's only right to bring a model of a Canadian plane. There are some constraints: it has to fit into a box that the airlines will accept, it has to be easy and quick to make and it has to have some originality. Much as I admire the DH Canada Beaver or the Twin Otter, they will be well represented at the weekend.
Last year I made a 6 foot span Canadair CL-415, the turboprop "Super Scooper" and before sending the plan off to RC Model World, I took a 60% copy and have been sketching the piston-engined version, the CL-215 Scooper. It isn't a lot different, just nice fat radial engines and a lot fewer aerodynamic aids to knock off in transit.
At 48" span and 6" chord it will have a wing area of 2 sq ft and I would not want it to be heavier than a pound or so. I like working in Depron and built a similar-sized Westland Welkin myself, and followed Rotorheid's Depron build of a 415 a couple of years ago. Some of his ideas are very different from mine, but the basic idea, of having a model that can be taken apart, travel in pieces and be re-assembled and flown at the other end is the same. Except I want to bring mine back to UK at the end of the holiday!”
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The quote above is from my RC Groups build log “A Scooper for Chilliwack” which you can find and follow here. During the build I was contacted by AmpAce, a modeller from Montana, who had been fortunate enough not only to be on the flightpath of two Scoopers as they flew in to take on water for a forest fire and have his camera with him, but also to be a very talented photographer. I’m indebted to him for permission to show you the photos, which are of course copyright AmpAce, Montana, USA. Please do not copy them without his permission.
The photos were all taken near Elmo, Montana, USA. The planes are Canadian, but the company that operates them often contracts to the US Government, as they are the only ones AmpAce knows that are operating "Scoopers".
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A perfect modellers’ side view, showing that there is a window each side of the fuz, the different door shape on the starboard side, and how the crew sit in the cockpit.
Note how stubby the float legs are compared with other flying boats.
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264 hot-dogging round the trees - obviously a scale manouevre!
You don’t often get upper surface views, and when enlarged, this shows lots of detail.
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...and the best till last. 267 and 264 in one shot! Thanks AmpAce...
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