Airplanes and Rockets' history & copyright Google search American Modeler Air Trails American Aircraft Modeler Young Men Hobbies Aviation Flying Aces Saturday Evening Post Boys' Life Hobby Distributors Amateur Astronomy Engines & Motors Balsa Densities Silkspan Covering Comics Electronics My Models Model Aircraft Articles Plans Model Boat Articles Plans Model Car Articles Plans Model Train Articles Plans 1941 Crosley 03CB Radio Model helicopter articles & plans Crosswords Model Rocket Articles Plans Restoration Projects Photos Peanuts Collection Model Aircraft Articles Plans Sitemap Homepage Hints Amateur Radio Everything from the homepage Airplanes and Rockets Hero Graphic

About Airplanes & Rockets

Kirt Blattenberger, Webmaster - Airplanes and Rockets

Kirt Blattenberger

BSEE - KB3UON

My Engineering Web: RF Cafe

Carpe Diem! (Seize the Day!)

Even during the busiest times of my life I have endeavored to maintain some form of model building activity. This site has been created to help me chronicle my journey through a lifelong involvement in model aviation, which all began in Mayo, MD ...

Airplanes And Rockets Copyright 1996 - 2026

All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images and text used on the Airplanes and Rockets website are hereby acknowledged.

My Main Modeling Websites

Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) - Airplanes and RocketsAcademy of Model Aeronautics

Tower Hobbies logo - Airplanes and Rockets

Tower Hobbies

Horizon Hobby logo - Airplanes and Rockets

Horizon Hobby

Sig Manufacturing - Airplanes and Rockets

Sig Mfg

Brodak Manufacturing - Airplanes and Rockets

Brodak Mfg

Bill Gaylord's
Excellent Guillow's Electric Conversions

Mr. Bill Gaylord has been gracious enough to allow me to post photos and information about his fine Guillow's free-flight model airplanes that he has converted to electric powered R/C.

PBY-5A Catalina

PBY-5A Catalina Guillows electric conversion - Airplanes and Rockets

RC Groups post

...and another

The PBY is about 30oz, with a 3s-2100 lipo. With the massive wing area, it is actually a reasonably light wing loading. The span is stock, but the engines are moved out about 1" each, to use Master Airscrew 6x4 3-blade props. The plane is fully Monokoted for waterproofing. Also has a fully sheeted fuse, with foam sealed door lips. Removable wing with adjustable struts. The floats fold into the wings with magnets. The landing gear is removable. Extensive carbon fiber and cf spar and rod, for reinforcement.

 

F6F Hellcat

F6F Hellcat Guillows electric conversion - Airplanes and Rockets

 

P-47D Thunderbolt

P-47D Thunderbolt Guillows electric conversion - Airplanes and Rockets

RC Groups post

 

SBD-3 Dauntless

SBD-3 Dauntless Guillows electric conversion

 

Douglas DC-3

Douglas DC-3 Guillows electric conversion - fuselage & wing sheeting frame - Airplanes and RocketsDouglas DC-3 Guillows electric conversion - fuselage & wing sheeting installed - Airplanes and RocketsRC Groups post

Took a build photo of the DC3. Pretty much at the covering stage now. Have steerable tail wheel and rud/elev/aileron linkage setup. The motor mounting is interesting. I used the kit's balsa nacelle frame, reinforced wtih carbon fiber spars. Glued spruce blocks to the ends of the frames, for the motor mounting screws. I used the Guillow's wheel halves for the motor mounts. Couldn't have asked for a better mount. I have a whole bag of them, since I usually use better wheels. Same goes for the red propellers. I was planning on 3 blade props, but they load the motors too much. The GWS 350 motors w/heatsink using GWS 4530 props really seems to put out. Love that twin harmonic hum. Not too worried about thrust now, especially using the new 1320-3s Pro Lite lipo, with 17A cont rating. The landing gear is mounted in GWS gear mounts, as I am not very keen on gluing gear wire to wings with balsa. Most of my plastic parts are cut out now. Gotta love those thin plastic detail parts. They only look as good as the effort put into them. Their pilots can actually look very good, and are about the lightest available. The DC-3 has about 161" square wing area now. Stock is something like 145, which is too small for the weight of 2 motors, and lost wing area from the nacelles to boot.

The DC-3 is ready to cover.  I ended up posting the thread on RC Groups, in Scale Electric Modeling.  Ended up sheeting the fuse, for appearance.  The plastic parts actually fit quite well.  Here are photos:

 

FW-190 Focke Wulf

FW-190 Focke Wulf Guillows electric conversion - Airplanes and Rockets

Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) Plans Service - Airplanes and Rockets