Building the (Old) FlyLine Great Lakes 2T-1A Kit (1)

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I love old balsa wood scale model airplane kits, especially the ones featuring printwood, where you cut out the parts yourself. Most of those I come across are for free flight rubber powered models from the 1950’s and earlier. Some of those are big enough for practical conversion to electric power and radio control. There are a few more recent kits to be found that were originally intended for some sort of radio control, but with glow engine power. The FLYLINE Great Lakes 2T-1A Trainer is one of these. FLYLINE produced an impressive line of built up balsa kits for both RC and free flight scale models during the 1970’s. I believe the old term “schoolyard scale” is one they liked to use with their airplanes.

This is the FLYLINE kit box label, with a few bits of balsa model airplane structure lying around to grab your interest.

The FLYLINE Great Lakes is really different from the Stinson SR-9 I’m also working on. Size aside, the Stinson is a fine example of a thoroughly engineered “modern” balsa kit. Every last little gusset, brace or doubler has been drawn out, labeled,and added to the parts sheets, and there is an alignment jig or template for every critical assembly. The Great Lakes is a look back to what model airplane building was a generation or two ago. Every major part is provided, but beyond having to cut all of them out yourself, you are also expected to know about things like making gussets and setting dihedral angles on your own, without being told. Beyond a few notes on the plan there is no instruction manual at all. You figure out which steps have to come first, and so on. I’m not sure I’d want to say which approach is better, or not, but it’s good to know that the FLYLINE kit is the way things were.

The outlines for the vertical and horizontal tail surfaces, along with the wing tips, are laminated from multiple strips of balsa, wetted with water to make them pliable, then bent and glued in place around a form derived from the plans outlines. Rather than cut a pattern from foam or cardboard, for this project I have used hardware store ceramic magnets with a sheet of galvanized steel beneath the plans. The vertical fin and rudder outlines are built as a single laminate of three 1/16" x 3/16" balsa strips. Here they are drying while held in place by the magnetic jig.

I leave laminates like this fin/rudder outline to dry overning, then cut and fit the various internal components.

Here is the vertical tail fully assembled before the fin and rudder are cut apart. It's easier to maintain exactly the right outline curvature for both parts by making the laminate as one piece.

ALWAYS use a long sanding block for smoothing the surfaces of laminated assemblies like this one. Don't be afraid to cut deep enough to eliminate all the bumps...then STOP.

These are the horizontal and vertical tail surfaces sanded flat and cut apart, with some of the rounding off of the outside edges done. There's more sanding to do here, then I'll set these components aside until it's time for assembly. Next time, we''ll talk about building WINGS.

7 Comments

    • Thayer,

      That’s an excellent question. A lot of builders will make some sort of template, of a leading edge cross section, for example, and check the fit repeatedly as the part in question is being cut or carved or sanded into shape. I’ve done that and it works, but but my usual method is a combination of a Mark One calibrated eyeball, an assortment of long, straight sanding blocks, constant checking against what the plans tell me the part is supposed to look like, and a generous shot of patience.

      Blending the leading and trailing edges into the laminated wingtips on this Great Lakes offers a fine example. I started by trimming the outline of the assembly, as viewed from above, so that it matches the contour on the plan exactly. When that’s done, I sand off whatever material has to go in order to get the correct profile as seen from the front and/or rear, and finally round off and blend the edges. There are a couple of blog entries already on the site (check out No. 5) and a few more coming up very soon that illustrate what I’m talking about.

  2. Any idea where I could find a set of plans for the Flyline Greatlakes Trainer. I have the old balsa kit and box but no plans are in it. Thanks

    Robert B. Tober

  3. If Anyone is looking for a Flyline kit of the Great Lakes “Trainer’, Kit 114, I have one available for 119.95 + 28.00 postage
    My e-mail is busyend@aol.com
    This is an absolutely wonderful model airplane to build…I have done 2 of them!!!

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