Photos by the planes builder
Text by Bill Rutledge and Tom Hintz
Posted – 9-28-2016
One of the founding FlyingRC.net Texas Bill Squad “Bills” doesn’t do a lot of stuff half way. He makes a living piloting a commercial airliner to places like Lima Peru, winds up in Alaska pretty regularly and finds time to keep a string of texts coming my way from wherever he is laying over.
The other day he mentioned going to Connecticut to see a Ziroli DC-3 that was made from Ziroli plans by an obvious master builder, had been flown and was now for sale. Bill bought the completed plane and then had to get it back to Texas. The picture story that follows shows what it takes to build a shipping crate that will get such a valuable plane across half of the country and hopefully still be valuable when it gets there. The crate is based on two pallets and considering all of the wood and structure needed to hold the DC-3 during transport the estimated weight of the loaded crate is about 150lbs.
If you are not familiar with the Ziroli DC3 it is 8’ 5” long, has a 140” wingspan and weighs 44 lbs. The plane comes with a pair of Zenoah G-38's already installed and run in. It is a 1.5” to 1’ scale model of the original DC-3 that continues to fly around the world. The Ziroli plans cost $70 and there are few who will quibble about that price because of the quality of the plans and instructions.
Visit the Ziroli Plans site - Click Here
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