In 1953 after building my first C47 plastic model. The aerodynamic lines of this aircraft for some reason stuck to me so it was reasonable that nearly 30 years later I wanted to build an airplane that was out of the mainstream of kits yet something that was appealing to me. At the time the only large scale DC3 available was a scratch build Blueprint from Ziroli with a 12 foot wingspan. This was much bigger than I could afford and handle logistically. I then came across a blueprint from Cleveland prints that was the right size with an eight foot wingspan. In starting to build it, I discovered several things in the prints that just weren’t fitting the product. For example having a tapered wing, ribs closer to the end were longer than ribs closer to the root of the wing and this carried through to the tail feathers. One of the Formers were not on the prints and the ones that were there didn’t match from the left side to the right side.
At this point I decided to draw my own prints to overcome the difficulties with parts. In drawing new prints I was able to use the perimeter measurements to get the same size aircraft. This of course meant that every part needed new or different design to work with the different structure. All this took a lot of time to figure the best way to do this.
It was easy after a period of time to get discouraged so there were periods that no work went forward.

It was one obstacle after another. First building the tail feathers and other controls so they not only looked scale but they had to work also. Then building the landing gear to look like a DC3 took a lot of brass and silver solder. I went out to Emmitt Powers House where we spent most of an afternoon building the control tork rods for the flaps.
At this time I didn’t know what I was building, a DC3 civilian aircraft or a C47 Military and which model of these. Since my son worked for American Airlines he talked me into making it the first AA Flagship Knoxville that was displayed at the Dallas Airport, and he sent me a series of detailed photos of the plane.

Naturally the plane had an aluminum finish. Here I go again trying to find a paint that would with stand glow fuel yet look like aluminum. This stalled the project for some time. After several tests I decided on topflight aluminum paint.
This wasn’t quit what I had hoped for but it got the project going again. My next hurdle was the glass skin. Since I had never done one before. I was chicken to start. After putting this off for several weeks, I obtained a video tap from the Toledo Expo on glassing a model that was very helpful. Here we go, after a lot of sanding dust and lung and nasal congestion I finally had it. Now it was time to paint. This was followed by months of detailing panel lines and other equipment on the plane.

OOOP’s the door is on the wrong side for this plane. Well after some number 11 surgerys we are off and running again with the door in its proper location. This was also my first attempt in making decals on the computer with a kit made by testors. It was a lot of fun. Now where’s the CG? Drawing your own prints is really fun but you don’t get this info from print with out some math. Next came making two engines work in this home spun plane, with two scale like propellers ( Hamilton Standards of course), Testors and the computer came through for me again. I soon found that I couldn’t get the Mufflers on the Como 61 Engines because of the size of the nacelles. So after some research into mufflers and extensions, I elected to have a friend make me some extensions to do the job. Curley came over in the summer of 2008 and we got the two engines somewhat synchronized.

So after Fifteen Years and with a lot of encouragement here in the month of October I finally took it to the field for some test runs. Ira Sherman, Tom Kelley, Jack Dean, and Curley Gave me the courage to risk it. Even though the wind was to strong to fly it, so I tried to taxi it and the wind lifted the left wing off about two feet and the right wing about ten or twelve inches after I cut the throttles it landed in about ten feet. Since it would not turn around at all Tom tried to get hold of it and turn it around, but it had a mind of it’s own one engine stopped and the plane started doing donuts and chasing Tom. After dropping the throttle the second engine stopped and Tom seized the confused plane and he retrieved to it’s table tarmac with no damage. Whew!!!!
Butch Hedrick

Here are five pictures taken before, during, and after the maiden flight