friend Mirco Pecorari.
The choice was made and so after a few
days I found myself the happy owner of a
1:4.8 scale L-39 Albatros, along with a set
of Electron retracts plus scale legs and
wheels, and the twin seat cockpit.
A significant difference from the standard
Fei Bao version is that you can’t order it
with landing gear installed, all doors ready
and hinged, and even the light system
installed: these are all steps that we haveto do. It’s a lot of additional work to do, but
given that Fei Bao installs pneumatic
retracts, and I had decided from the start
that I wanted to install Electron retracts, it
was quite a logical choice to make.
The dimensions are just perfect for us: with
a wingspan of 1970 mm (77.5”) and a
length of 2530 mm (99.6”) it’s large enough
to have a good presence in flight but not
too big to ship it overseas, given that the
fuselage can be split into two parts.This year I decided to choose a new jet for
Top Gun, where in May 2018 I will compete
again in the ProAm Jet class.
Over the years we have “fine-tuned” pre-
cise parameters we need to keep in mind
during the selection process of the model
for this prestigious competition, which
takes into account, for example, the need
to ship the model overseas, transportability
and on-site management, easy mainte-
nance, the need for the model to be capa-
ble of flying the schedule with a high
degree of realism and, of course, a subject
that we like.
I have had the pleasure of owning jets that
reproduced many different subjects, all of
these being united by having a beautiful
presence in the air and on the ground.
Among the subjects I like, the L-39 Albatros
has always been high in my personal rank-
ing, and so this year we decided that “his
moment” had come. Moreover, there’s an
Albatros that perfectly fits our size parame-
ters etc: the example at 1:4.8 scale pro-
duced by Fei Bao, and distributed in Italy
(where I live) by Cmodels. To be more
exact, Bruno Cavuto, owner of Cmodels,
produces along with Fei Bao a special ver-
sion with lighter wings and live hinged con-
trol surfaces.
A quick chat with Bruno and I find that he
has in stock exactly the version I wanted,
the “Lotti Cat” colour scheme: a model of a
civilian privately owned Albatros, whose
colour scheme was created by my great Fuselage is supplied in two parts, these being joined using four screws. This is a greatadvantage when it comes to shipping the model in a crate or transporting it in small cars.Fei-Bao L-39 1:4.8
AUTHOR:MARCO BENINCASA
Part 1
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