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Lance Campbell SR-71
We were excited to do a large SR-71
wheel/brake set that would allow for all of the scale detail to be
included. We were also able to do the scale Silver/Gray main tires
with no tread, just as on the full size Blackbird.
Working with
Lance and his personally machined gear dimensions, the 6 brakes were
designed in CAD to perfectly engage each other, and be universally
interchangeable to any of the 6 main wheels.
The inside and outside wheels are
different featuring unique spades in the center of the
wheels. The center spades were specially machined from
.035" aluminum and a machined relief done per full size on the
inboard wheel (top photo). Exact scale nose wheels were also
done (not shown here).
Damon Atwood
257" B-36
It was hard to believe that someone was
building a 21 1/2 foot span B-36, but we deal with many hard to believe
projects. The 5" diameter main wheels needed to be exact
scale, and capable of having brakes in all 8 main wheels.
The extra small deep detail of the main
wheels required some special consideration in the manufacturing of
them. The brake system was specially designed to fit the B-36's
massive landing gear. The internet forums were buzzing with
all kinds of mix and match solutions, but no one but Glennis offered a
one stop, exact scale, high quality wheel/brake package.
The scale nose wheels were also done to
precision. While there were two different nose wheel designs
used on the B-36, we were given the option of which to do. With
that option we chose the more complicated of the two, as it had a more
unique appearance.
The set of 10 wheels and 8 brakes is
quite a family photo. .
Large size scale
wheels
Glennis Aircrafts development of 7 1/2"
to 9" diameter scale wheels continued in 2009.
Large Bomber and Fighter wheels ranged
various different WWII aircraft.
8 1/2" P-51 (top right), 8 1/2"
/ 6 1/2" nose P-38 (middle) and 9" / 5 1/2" B-25 (bottom)
were a sample of the sets produced.
As with all Glennis warbird wheels there
are optional tread styles and the tires easily hold the weights of these
large scale models. Ball bearings are standard and of course brake
systems are available also.
Webber Lockheed
Electra
Being built by BB Webber, the giant Lockheed
Electra would need 8" diameter main wheels and a 4" tail wheel
and scale struts to fit the existing retracts As the full
size gear was polished in this case, these would also be to match the
documentation. While we hadn't pulled the English Wheel out in a few
months, it was rolled out to wheel the scale fenders for the main gear. A scale tail wheel fork and steering mechanism was also
machined.
Modifications /
Repairs
One of the more disappointing trends in the
hobby is the wave of modelers (and not) copying products and making them
in "garage" operations, then disappearing leaving no support.
This was compounded by many of the foreign produced products that either
don't work, or not properly requiring replacements.
We spent a majority of the year dealing
with this issue. One example was the design and manufacture
of this true high volume valve to allow correct function of improperly
designed retracts .
Our 20th year
2009 was Glennis Aircrafts 20th year in
business. We continued to expand our product lines and
retool existing sets to better standards and documentation.
It was hard to believe, but by mid year,
almost all of our original equipment had been replaced during the year,
which was a big project in itself.
RPV / UAV
expansion
2009 saw another increase in our RPV / UAV
wheel and brake systems.
By the end of the year we were in
development of our new high speed heavy load belted tire for special
applications.
Mid summer saw us shut down for 1 month
from model production to simply do UAV sets, a first in 20 years.
Custom parts
Not commonly known by modelers, but we do a
variety of custom jobs during the year on request. Some
of them complicated and some just interesting.
The Racing go cart cylinder head shown at
the top was a specially designed prototype.
R/C Helicopter control arm (middle) was a
fairly small part that was a customers custom configuration for a
special rotor head.
The last photo is a custom set of
Helicopter gear.
These 3 photos were only a sample of the
special projects we did in 2009
Custom Scale
Gear
Through the year we did several custom
gear projects for various models ranging from jets to warbirds.
All of these were challenging due to the
fact that we specialize in exact scale gear, that all feature a lot of
detail.
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