wonwinglo

I am receiving a lot of requests recently for scale plans & drawings ( even catalogues !) for scratch building,in particular subjects that have been mentioned here on scale-models,firstly I am not a plans dealer and certainly dont hold catalogues,so perhaps a few pointers are called for,I dont sell plans and most of the models were built from drawings that have been downloaded from the internet itself,there are literally thousands of drawings for free out in cyberspace,you just have to do a bit of searching to find them,most of the old and excellent 'Flying Aces' 'Model Airplane News' and even some 'Aeromodeller' drawings are easily downloaded as pdf files,once you have them on your hard drive then they can be easily printed out and then if necessary scaled up or down acordingly.Most of these drawings were made to fit magazine pages so a fair bit of overlapping and pasting up is necessary,but this is easily achieved with a bit of patience and care.
Regarding the older Aeromodeller & Model & Allied publications leading right up to the modern day counterparts,a lot of these drawings are sold today under the 'X' listing which is handled by a separate company ( once again easily found with a simple Google search) I have had various reports of from 'good to poor' service,but in view of the sheer number of drawings that have been processed by the model press over the years best to be patient, and supply as much info as possible regarding the original source.
There are a lot of old designs held by a chap called Harris but I do not have any contact details for him.
Mentioned in these columns recently have been the availability of the old Veron plans still available from that stalwart Phil Smith,just tap in the respective search here for the threads required.Another popular request is for Harold Towner plans,well these were available from his daughter following his death ,but we are talking of 10 years plus here so the service could have been dis-continued or the stocks exhausted,bear in mind that his designs were kitted by the Astral company,so may not be cmplete in terms of drawings still available,the only link that I have is practical scale at Bridlington,UK,the Towner family are very well known so the local post office could be helpful,you never know ?
The modern drawings done today just do not seem to have the same appeal to modellers,and the time proven designs from the past are certainly still in big demand,my advice is dont give up in the search,and above all use the search engines as you could be in for a big surprise as to your favourite plan,it can take time and try using different combinations of search ie scale airplane plans,scale airplane drawings,model plans aeroplanes,sometimes one particular search will yield different results,happy hunting out there !

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

wonwinglo

I had not realised what a powerful search facility we have here on scale-models,I just tried a few entries and was amazed at the results,all of the previous mentioned plans sources mentioned in the past few months can be located easily,so try here first,if any more come to light then please feel free to give us the details and this will assist others.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

wonwinglo

Paul Binnie has contacted me to say that he has had some success in locating some of the old H.J.Towner drawings,to assist others in the future here are the details that he sent along-

I thought I'd let you know I've had some success with locating copies of H J
Towner plans.

Peter Williams of Pete's plans in Cardiff has a number of Towner/Astral
plans including the Shorts Stirling and Vickers Wellington. I've included an
attachment of the Astral List. Peter doesn't have a website but his contact
details are:


13 Southminster Road
Cardiff
Wales CF25AT

Bob Holman of BH Plans (www.bhplans.com) in the US also has a number of
Towner plans. The following isn't a complete list. I'm hoping to get an
updated list with my order.

1. Grumman J2F6 Duck FFSP
2. Antonov AN2 Colt FFSP
3. Gloster Gamecock1 FFSP
4. DH Hornet Bipe FFSP
5. Jodel DR315 FFSP
6. Curtiss SBC-3 Helldiver FFSP
7. Bristol Bulldog FFSP
8. DH Tiger Moth FFSP
9. DH Mosquite FFSP
10. Fokker DR1 FFSP
11. Boeing P26 CLS
12. Fairey Barracuda CLS
13. Hawker Typhoon CLS
14. P51B and D CLS

Thank you once again for your help

Regards

Paul Binnie

*** PS-FFSP=Free flight Flying scale power,CLS=Control line scale.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

adzam

it may be an idea to start this on a new thread barry , as i beleive this list will grow and grow !

__________________

wonwinglo

***Yes I will go along with that Adz,you are right there is material waiting in the wings already,perhaps John can move it under a section called 'Plans availability' it could prove a useful resource.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

g-fiend

After a bit of searching and some helpful people I've found some sources for HJ Towner/Astral plans as mentioned above. The following is a list of Towner/Astral plans available from Pete's Plans.

ASTRAL MODELS

C41 HAWKER HURRICANE £2.50
27in Span. Rubber power. Howard Boys design. All formers ribs etc shown on the plan. 1 sheet.

C42 HAWKER TYPHOON £2.75
27in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. Complicated construction
but all you need is on the plan. 1 sheet.

C43 SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE £2.75
27in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. All formers, ribs etc.
shown on the plan. 1 sheet.

C48 BRISTOL BEAUFIGHTER £2.75
28in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. All parts shown on plan. 1 sheet.

C49 FAlREY BARRACUDA £2.75
27in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. All parts shown on plan. 1 sheet.


C50 HAWKER TEMPEST £2.75
28in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. All parts are shown on the plan. 1 sheet.

C51 BELL AlRACOBRA £2.75
25in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. All parts shown on plan. 1 sheet.

C67 THUNDERBOLT £2.75
28in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. All on the plan. Copy of the printed
wood also included. 1 sheet

C73 HANDLEY-PAGE HAMPDEN £3.00
27in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. AIl on the plan. Copy of the printed
wood also included. 1 sheet.

C76 CASTOR £1.75
20in Span. Rubber power. Simple small duration model. AIl on the plan. 1 sheet.

C79 LOCKHEED HUDSON £3.25
27.5in Span. Rubber power. Harold Towner design. Copy of the printed wood included. 1 sheet.

CI02 BRISTOL BLENNHEM MkIV £3.25
27.5in Span. Rubber power. Copy of printed wood sheets included 1 sheet.

C103 SHORT STIRLING £5.00
38 in Span. Rubber power. Plan only . Parts on plan. 2 sheets



C104 BOEING B17 £6.00
38in Span. Rubber power. Plan only. Parts on plan. 3 sheets

C105 ROCKET PROPELLED £4.00
MODEL AIRCRAFT
22 1/2in Span. Plan plus a copy of the parts

I can also do the Wellington and the Beaufort at £3.50 each. I do not have a Mosquito by Towner but I do have one by Howard Boys for rubber power which is three sheets and costs £6.00
Postage is extra amount depending on the size of the order.

Hope this is useful. Ultimately I'd like to find out if there is a list of all the H J Towner plans that are known. I suspect this may only be available from his daughter but if anyone has anything to add it would be great to hear from them.

Cheers

Paul

wonwinglo

***Hello again Paul,a little background history behind some of these exquisite drawings would not come amiss for the record,there are records that show Harold.J.Towner sitting in the club room of the Bridlington & District model flying club with some of his impressive models lined up in front of the members,I wonder if that club still exists in any shape or form ? if there are any members of clubs from that area then please let us know.He was indeed a highly respected and skillful member who contributed all of his life to the good old 'Aeromodeller' magazine,you mention Howard Boys,well there lies another tale ! you see these two never exactly saw eye to eye,and there was many a friendly banter and exchange of comments in the readers letters page of the magazine from aerofoil sections to flying and trimming,these two modellers stood out as leaders in their respective fields,Towner it was said could make almost anything fly,if you ever get the chance to ge hold of his classic book called 'Flying scale models' then you are in for a real treat,it is crammed with building notes and photographs,but the real gem lies at the back of the book marked 'Trimming to fly' ! here you will see the hidden secrets behind his approach,he clearly states that it is a big mistake to glue the tailplane into place before you have properly trimmed out the model,you never get this part right he adds in his own words,a true gem but today the book is a collectors item cherished by those who are lucky enough to own a copy,this book is the 'Mrs Beeton' of the model world and highly respected at that.
His expertise led to the Astral model company kitting his designs,I am very lucky to have an original Astral kit of the Lockheed Hudson,the model is produced from a material called balsa substitute,this is no more than very hard and brittle obeche sheet,the kit contains turned hardwood cowl fronts and wheels,if ever I get to the ack of my workbench then I will photograph that kit ! the final Towner design for Astral was the rare Vickers Viking,only a few of this kit were released,the late Doug Mc Hard had one in his kit collection,it must have been sold off at auction when his artifacts were split up.
Finally what happened to H.J.Towners models ? well I can tell you that they still exist to this day and once more I have seen them,they were purchased by the R.A.F Museum and put into store at Cardington where I made an appointment to view them,the curator apologised that they were in hermetically sealed bags to protect them,despite this a couple were kindly opened up for me to photograph,the standard of construction and attention to detail was superb,I feel deeply honoured to have been able to view them so closely,this really did convince me of his ability to transform a complex subject into a model.His daughter assures me that all of the models flew at least once,a lot of the later ones intended for rubber power were fitted with small Cox powerplants,I remember seeing the De Havilland Comet Racer & Avro Anso,Airspeed Oxford so fitted.
I did build his Grumman Duck amphibian and fitted radio equipment,sadly the model got damaged when we moved house but there is a picture somewhere here on scale-models of her.
I trust that this gives an interesting insight into H.J.T and his lifetime of model building admired by many even today.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Lennox K. Archibald

Hello and greetings:
How do I order plans for the Adtral models?

Kind regards,

L. K. Archibald

wonwinglo

www.petesplans.com however I tried to raise the page and it came up with a 404 error,the site could be down for maintenance or just expired,however keep trying.
The name is Astral by the way,this was the company that originally produced wartime kits in balsa substitute of Mr Towners classic designs,Mr Towner passed away many years ago and for a while his daughter in Bridlington,UK kept the plans service active under the name Practical scale.
Other than this I know of no current supplier of these drawings.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/