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Geoffrey Siers was a former RAF pilot and engineer for Boeing developed the Barracuda in the 1970’s. Its all wood construction and Geoffrey was inspired by de Havilland Mosquito For those with an EAA membership you can check out all the sport aviation articles online for this aircraft. here is the EAA page on the Barracuda: https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/kits-and-plans/00—c/barracuda According to the EAA web page plans and kits are no longer available but existing projects may be on Barnstormers (www.barnstormers.com), Trade-A-Plane (www.trade-a-plane.com) Not too many videos on YouTube for it due to the development fan fair being decades ago and not too many are built.
Sun-n-Fun in Lakeland has had one on display for decades now:
When I was in EAA chapter 99 (Vero Beach Fl / 04 – 08′) one of the chapter members Ernie was building one, here is a few under construction photos from him:
I could not find any RC options on outerzone but with a good amount of photos of it on the Internet Cad’ding one up would not take too long for someone with the right skills.
With the recent War in Ukraine I was thinking about how the A-10 is still a very relevant and highly effective weapon system. While I’ve worked on several military aircraft the engineering behind the A-10 has always impressed me more than anything I got a chance to work on. It was born from bloody lessons learned in the Vietnam. The design was driven by the needs of the solders on the ground, the aircrews and maintainers. A lot can be learned from this mindset when it comes to military hardware design.
The first flight was in 1972 and it entered service in 1977, the production run was only 8 years with over 700 built.
The Seabee was introduced just after WW2 with over 1000 examples built. Not the most common sea plane built. Most may know it from 1974’s 007 Man with the Golden Gun. James Bond fly’s a Seabee in south east Asia to Scaramanga’s hide out on a Island. N87545 S/N 105.
While working on Engine component designs for FlyCorvair, one of the guys name Gus had a Seabee restoration project going, it was very interesting to see the construction of this aircraft in its disassembled state.
Quite a few YouTube videos of this aircraft can be found, here are a few captivating ones;
For RC options, Outerzone has 4 plans listed but the 1977 from RCM is likely the best:
With global shipping challenges this may be a difficult product to get into the states however for readers down under it’s a good option.
Of course with modern CAD systems, a ton of images of the aircraft it would be an easy job for a modern 3D printer to make a very detailed RC version. The Anycubic Chiron is an excellent large format 3D printer for PLA, LW-PLA, ABS and other filaments. I did a write up of this printer almost a year ago: https://gouldaero.com/2021/01/06/anycubic-chiron-3d-printer-product-of-the-month/
Quite the interesting article on the history of many airports in the Denver area that are no longer there. Growing up in the area it’s impressive to see the rich aviation history. Most of the airports in the article have been take over by urban development.
An excellent Amazon find for anyone who needs to use multiple hard drives. A great option for YouTube content creators that need to manage a large amount of video files.
Grabcad.com is one of the best open sources for cad models, I came across an impressive find for anyone looking for detailed electronic components for a circuit board.
Hobby king put out a great article on storing lipo batteries, there are some steps needed to reduce / eliminate fire risk as well as making a sable condition for the batteries to reside
Gould Aero 