Month: February 2018

New PIK-7 Harakka II get’s maidened

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Another PIK-7 Harakka II got it’s maiden some time ago. For rather nice video see below.

This marks really interesting milestone as normally large scale gliders are being aerotowed up or flown at slope. This is the first time I have seen successful winch launch and it is slightly hair raising. But then again, originally Harakka’s were bungee launched from slope or car-towed. So this video presents Harakka returning to it’s origins.


Here is nice vintage video of one of original Harakka’s being auto-towed. You must fast-forward to approx 2:00.

VL Sääski

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VL Sääski is one of my all-time-favourite Finnish biplanes. It has simple, yet sleek lines and it looks rather light. Name Sääski comes from finnish, meaning mosquito. This post contains pics from three sources listed below and it is extremely long. It is not really walk-around, it is 3x walk-arounds. Great.

VL Sääski was designed in 1928 (see Wiki here). You can see original sales- & information material at finnish national digital archives. It was originally built in float, ski and wheel variants. Only surviving examples are float ones and to mu knowledge there are no plans around for wheel version.

To the actual VL Sääskis. One should note that there is an VL Sääski at Nors Luftfartsmuseum @  Bodø, Norway. It’s replica and the story behind (and it’s owner) is intriguing.

First, you should visit Maritime Centre Vellamo @ Kotka. It ia incredibly nice maritime history museum containing among other things seaplanes. They have VL Sääski in maritime customs livery hanging from ceiling, id LK-1. This is so nice…

Second, you should Aviation Museum @ Vantaa.

They have VL Sääski at display, bearing identification SÄ-122.

Last, but not least

Some years ago, I was visiting Vesivehmaa Aviation museum, obviously @ Vesivehmaa. They had some VL Sääski wings in rather derelict mode in one corner of museum.

 

 

Getting better scanning results from vintage plans

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Now with better time I have been tuning my processes for better scans. For mini-review of scanner see here. This is continuation article of that mini-review, but these comments apply also to any scanner.

1. First, if plan is really vintage, try ‘Document type : Grayscale CAD/map’ instead of normal colour. For example, see below:

with colour

with Grayscale CAD/map

This is rather counter-intuitive, but idea is to let scanner do automatic removal of yellowish tint. It performs rather nicely.

2.  Do not use high resolution.

Changing resolution from normal (300) to fine (600) dpi creates rather large files and makes things much more complicated. Using 600dpi resolution creates A1-scans of PDF-size 16mb. And if you open that file and make some changes you end up with 200+ mb workspace and 150mb files. Which are just too much.  Using 300dpi has enough resolution for normal model aeroplane plans.

3. Use backing paper if plan is really fragile.

Use normal A0/A1-roll paper as backing if plan is almost schreds. Just tape leading edge of plan to paper with small pieces of tape (3M Magic Scotch). Note that use as small amount of tape as possible and only on leading edge. By leading edge I mean the edge which goes into scanner.

really brittle plan with all kinds dents.

taped to paper, nicely and safely waiting for scan

4. If plan is vintage drafting paper then do following

  • scanner can do wonders with yellow tint removal, but it cannot help translucent drafting paper hue. You can try to use backing paper to make effect smaller, but it does not work well enough

Plain Grayscale CAD

Graysale CAD with paper backing.

  • Get adobe photoshop, elements is just fine and use Levels-tool. Move white end from right side to the left part of black curve. See below.

Using levels

And then you get much more clear plan.

Good enough.

The plan in question and further info of this nice -30’s biplane can be found here.

VL Tuisku @ Ilmailumuseo

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Here is an classic Finnish biplane. It is an  Finnish trainer aircraft designed and built in 1930’s.  Approx 31 was built and this example is nicely preserved in Ilmailumuseo at Vantaa.  For more planes at Ilmailumuseo check corresponding tags on right pane (–>). Walk-around pics of original, for model aeroplane plan see below.

For extremely rare vintage plan of this plane see here (51mb file). Preview below.

Bonus!

I went through old pics in my archives and stumbled on pics of separate Tuisku wing which was hanging on Ilmailumuseo wall. It is partially covered so you can see internals of wing.