One Night In Jail
Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 9:01 pm
Several years back, the O.F.F.C. was having a Legal Eagle contest so I drew one up. This is probably the last plan I drew by hand. My inspiration was some of the ultra-light airplane designs of the 1920s and 30s that had their landing gear right on the bottom of the fuselage.
I showed the drawing to Dave Gee and he said, "That looks like a One Night In Boston." At the time, I had not seen a One Night In Boston, so I looked up the plans. OK, it looks very similar, and although I had been planning to call it the Bail Jumper, I changed the name to One Night In Jail.
I didn't build it that year, but Legal Eagle came around in the contest schedule two years back and I started working on it. After all, how long can it take to build one of these things? I got the wings and tail feathers built and started on the fuselage. I built one side fine, but kept breaking the other side. When I finally got the other side built I broke it trying to assemble the fuselage. Something else came up and I didn't finish it.
Well, Legal Eagle came up in the schedule again for the 28th of this month. Now I have lots to do, like the production prototype and plans editing for the Wright Amount of Wrong, and making sure that the back splash tile is finished behind our new quartz kitchen counters before Christmas, but since my wife and a friend were doing some holiday baking this evening I took the time to drag out the box with the Legal Eagle bits in it to try again.
This time I used some leftover alignment jigs from my Bostillation development to make sure the second side of the fuselage is identical to the first one and used them to assemble the fuselage square. I had the fuselage finished, except for the nose block and the deck, in about an hour and a half, all while keeping up the conversation with my wife and her BFF and giving critical appraisal of the holiday goodies.
Anyway, here's a photo of it on the bench (TV tray). You can tell it's one of my older designs because of the excess truss work in the fuselage. My intention, gift wrapping and other issues permitting, is to finish it in time to test fly it at Wednesday's O.F.F.C. meeting. Let you know if it's any good.
I showed the drawing to Dave Gee and he said, "That looks like a One Night In Boston." At the time, I had not seen a One Night In Boston, so I looked up the plans. OK, it looks very similar, and although I had been planning to call it the Bail Jumper, I changed the name to One Night In Jail.
I didn't build it that year, but Legal Eagle came around in the contest schedule two years back and I started working on it. After all, how long can it take to build one of these things? I got the wings and tail feathers built and started on the fuselage. I built one side fine, but kept breaking the other side. When I finally got the other side built I broke it trying to assemble the fuselage. Something else came up and I didn't finish it.
Well, Legal Eagle came up in the schedule again for the 28th of this month. Now I have lots to do, like the production prototype and plans editing for the Wright Amount of Wrong, and making sure that the back splash tile is finished behind our new quartz kitchen counters before Christmas, but since my wife and a friend were doing some holiday baking this evening I took the time to drag out the box with the Legal Eagle bits in it to try again.
This time I used some leftover alignment jigs from my Bostillation development to make sure the second side of the fuselage is identical to the first one and used them to assemble the fuselage square. I had the fuselage finished, except for the nose block and the deck, in about an hour and a half, all while keeping up the conversation with my wife and her BFF and giving critical appraisal of the holiday goodies.
Anyway, here's a photo of it on the bench (TV tray). You can tell it's one of my older designs because of the excess truss work in the fuselage. My intention, gift wrapping and other issues permitting, is to finish it in time to test fly it at Wednesday's O.F.F.C. meeting. Let you know if it's any good.