I started modeling at an early age and have been doing so, on and off, for about 50 years. I began with static models, both plastic, and stick and tissue. From there I progressed to gliders, then free-flight, and control-line models. That trip was interrupted with forays into street rods, stock cars, drag racing, off-road motorcycling, and building race engines for cars and motorcycles. During this period I still built flying models whenever I had the opportunity. For a while, I built RC pattern models for serious competitors.
I stopped building cars and motorcycles and converted my shop into model-making shop in the early ’90s. During that time I met several competitive RC scale modelers and that sparked my interest in scratch building scale models. My first competition model was a P-40. How did I do? Well, let’s just say, I enjoyed the experience. I was introduced to several nationally renowned competitors at that meet and they encouraged me to continue my efforts and offered several subjects of interest.
Since my full-time job for many years was that of a draftsman I found it only natural to draw my own plans. I started offering plans to other modelers in 1993. Since then my primary interest has been researching and documenting interesting subjects, drawing the plans for them, and building prototype models. That has left little time for flying but I am having fun doing this and enjoy meeting all the guys at fly-ins.
Most plans take anywhere from one to two years to develop. The majority of the time is spent researching the subject, collecting documentation including factory drawings, operation and maintenance manuals, etc. I also try to find a full size subject to measure and photograph. I normally will have four or five different subjects underway at any one time. My basic philosophy regarding the plans is to provide construction drawings to build models with a true-scale outline while doing so with a minimum of parts and pieces. That allows the modeler to quickly build the airframe quickly leaving ample time to concentrate on scale detailing needed for a contest quality model, or just to get in the air with minimum shop-time.
Whether you are a first-time plans-builder, or and experienced modeler, I also enjoy helping modelers with their builds and sharing information. So, if you decide to build one on the plans on this site, please feel free to contact me using the “Contact Us” page if I can be of assistance.
Jerry Bates
