One day last winter, Bruce, Mike and I attended the monthly meeting of the PCC (Peninsula Channel Commanders — an imposing name for what turns out to be a nice group of guys). There we saw some amazing planes: mostly big, beautifully built, elaborately detailed, with a mix of gas engines and electric motors for power plants.

Balsa Skeleton. One table held a remarkable work in progress, a balsa skeleton at this point, of an unusual World War II troop transport glider, a WACO CG-4A. It was a scale model with a wingspan of about 6.5 feet. While most of the planes in the room were built from kits or purchased almost-ready-to-fly, this was scratch built, balsa toothpick by balsa toothpick.

Admiring the workmanship, I said to Bruce, “These guys can really build.” Later in the meeting, the builder, Jake Chichilitti, described his project. Mike leaned over and whispered, “Jake’s the best and most prolific builder in the group. And he’s the best flyer.”

That’s high praise, because the flyers at the PCC airfield are very good. Extremely very good.

Gaping Maw. A couple of months later, Jake brought the almost-finished model to another PCC meeting. Like the original, the front of the plane opens up like a garage door, allowing massive vehicles and other jumbo cargo to ride inside.

From “The Flying Cargo Container” by Budd Davisson: “… That’s what the CG-4A was… a cargo delivery container meant to carry the tools of war where today the helicopter would go. In 1944, however, the only alternate vertical on-site delivery system was the parachute and it wasn’t reliable. And couldn’t carry jeeps or artillery assembled and ready to go and know for a fact where they were going to wind up.”

A couple of weeks after that, Jake successfully flew the plane, with a tow from Brian Chan’s Telemaster.

When I went to the PCC airfield in Half Moon Bay last Sunday, Jake showed up with other planes from his fleet. He and his friend Ken Martinez fly a breed of combat wings which they build themselves from insulating foam. They’d each brought wings to use for practice for an upcoming combat event in Livermore. Ken’s were blue. Jake’s were blindingly pink.

Postal Plane. Even more interesting was an eye-catching three-motor vintage plane which I learned was a replica of a Ford Tri-Motor Postal Plane.

I watched it fly and took pictures. Later I asked Jake to tell me how he built the plane.

“Ellsworth Crowell gave me a tiny metal model of the tri-motor hanging in the Smithsonian Museum. I used that model to draw the plans for my stand-off scale model.

“I based my model on the Great Planes Ultra Sport 60. I used their airfoil and moment arms. Originally it was designed to have a 67-inch wing span, but after I started building it I wanted it to be 80 inches so I could fly it at IMAA events. That’s why the wing looks stretched out compared to the prototype.

Seven Pounds. “It uses three Magnum .28 motors just like the ones on our combat wings. It weights about seven pounds and was finished back in November of 2003. I used two servos for the throttles, one in the fuselage and one in the wing. It has three six-ounce fuel tanks.

“I have visited the Smithsonian and have seen the prototype Tri-Motor, although at the time I was building it I didn’t realize it was there. The model Ellsworth gave me was painted just like the one in the Smithsonian. So that’s why I used that color scheme. It’s covered in silkspan and painted with Brodak dope.

“As you saw at the field it flies just like an Ultra Sport minus the quick roll rate.

Future Mods. “My plan is to redo my plans into a more scale-like Tri Motor with engine pods that attach to the wing by struts and a wing that has the correct shape. We’ll see how long it takes to finish that project.

“By the way I’m working on a set of floats to put on the Tri-Motor. There is a float fly event up in Red Bluff in June that is really nice and I’d like to be able to fly it up there.”

The model airplane hobby has been revolutionized by ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) and RTF (Ready to Fly) kits which require little or no assembly. In this age of instant gratification, Jake is a happy anomaly.

Via email, I asked about his technique and his history. Here are his responses.

Drawing Plans. “I do the plans manually with a drafting pencil and T-square. Except for the Tri-Motor I usually start with a three-view of the prototype aircraft.

“I never designed a sport model, only scale planes.

“I only had one design that refused to fly in a controlled manner. It was a PT-17 and after looking it over I figured I made the vertical stabilizer too small. It had a wicked dutch roll tendency. Luckily it was only a half-A model so it was no great loss of material and time.

“My first real interest in models came after a visit to an older friend’s house when I was about 6 or 7 years old. He had a big yellow airplane hanging in the kitchen and I remember just staring at it in wonder. I guess that was the start of it all.

Planes That Fly. “I remember the Jim Walker balsa models that kept my interest going as those models really flew. I went through the plastic model phase, but I was really interested in flying models. I was in about the 8th grade when I had my first successful flight of a Jr. Ringmaster control-line model.

“As I got more experienced, I started to kit bash those control line kits and eventually designed a profile B-25 with two Cox .09 engines. It flew OK and encouraged me to try some more designs.

“A friend of mine got me interested in R/C gliders in the early 80s and I was hooked. I kit bashed a couple of kits and then decided to try my own designs.

“Again I took scale three-views of WWII fighters and started drawing up plans for them. In this case I based the designs on the Joe Bridi Tercel/Flipper models.

“They all few very well and I still have them, although they are retired for now.

Crashing Less. “I got hooked on power around 1987 and joined the PCC in 1989. My building skills far surpassed my flying skills for quite some time. But armed with my trusty Midwest Little Stick and a VECO .19 I started crashing less and flying more.

“I have some reference books on designing and airfoils, but in the end I use the TLAR method (That Looks About Right). So far so good. I have to give credit for the WACO airfoil to Eric Einarsson. He helped me with the incidence, too, and as you can see he was right on the money.”

You can see more pictures of Jake’s Tri-Motor, his CG-4A and his pink combat wings here.

Tags: Airplanes, Flying, PCC, People, Radio Control.

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