Whether you have a little extra time on your hands — thanks to the global pandemic — or are looking for a fun project, B.C. Air has made all of its construction manuals free.
B.C. Air designs aircraft models made from aluminum cans. Pick your can, pick your design, and get started.
Wayne Mathis, the force behind B.C. Air says, “it takes me about six weeks to design and build a model and put together a construction manual (averaging about four hours per day).”
Personally, I’m partial to the J-3 Cub. The example from the B.C. Air website is pretty darn close. The instructions are incredibly detailed at 39 pages. And I’m happy to report step 1 is NOT…consume beverage. 🙂
B.C. Air has 54 designs that represent a wide range of models from which to choose. The ones that stood out to me are the Beaver, Twin Beech, Velocity, Bell-47, Star Wars X-Wing, an RV-7, and the Starship Enterprise. There has to be one that will pique your interest.
“I had been selling the manuals, in PDF format, for $10 each,” says Wayne. “But with the world in such chaos, people losing their incomes and holed up in their homes with little to do other than listen to the bad news, I decided to make all the manuals available to everyone for free. Build a plane, take their minds off the pandemic, if only for a little while, it’s great mental therapy.”
I asked Wayne if he’d start charging again in the future.
“Probably not. At 72 years of age, I’d like people to continue to enjoy these whether or not they can afford the $10,” he says. ” Just trying to do my part to support general aviation in whatever way I can.”
So, download a design or two, start drinking your favorite beverage — for material inventory, or course — but be sure to drop a few bucks in Wayne’s donation jar.
