Kirby Crawford

The scene is a sunny fall morning out in the Virginia countryside at the DC/RC Bealton scale contest last September. The aircraft is a 26-lb. Curtiss Gulfhawk with a 1.9 cu. in. chainsaw engine up front swinging a 22-in. prop. You can hear the engine unload as the big orange biplane descends in a final turn onto the runway heading. The smoke switch is flipped on and billows of blue smoke pour from the big exhaust pipe. The nose is pulled up slightly then full ailerons are applied. The big bipe does a gracefull 1930s vintage roll with airshow smoke. You can hear the seasoned scale judges day "wow." All this started for me several years ago when I was inspired by an article written by Dick Phillips in one of the popular model magazines. In that article Dick briefly described the factory modifications to the 1.9 cu. in. Quadra engine which was scheduled for production for model aircraft use. He also described a J-3 Cub project to handle the large engine. Having some knowledge of metal lathe work, I felt that the engine modifications could be done on an inexpensive hobbyst's lathe. This has proven to be true as all of my engine work has been done on a Taig Micro-lathe.