Building the Thermic 20

by Chuck August 14, 2013

I decided to start my first build with the Thermic 20. Actually, I tried to start with a Skua, but the parts for the Skua are so small that I was having trouble with cutting the parts. The 20 has bigger parts to work with, so I think that I'll be better able to get it done.

As always with this sort of project, I started by printing out a full-size version of the plan. Fortunately the plans fit on a single sheet of 8.5x11 inch paper, so I didn't need to do anything special to get a set of plans. The plans are quite complete, but they are missing the thickness of the flying surfaces. As best I can tell, the wings should be 1/8-inch sheet balsa and the rudder and stabilizer are 1/16-inch balsa.

When I went out to purchase the materials for the Thermic I had some trouble finding 1/2-inch thick balsa for the pod. The LHS was unavailable for the last couple of weekends so I was forced to buy balsa sheets from the craft store. I decided to build the pod in three layers, a 1/2-inch layer sandwiched between two 1/8-inch layers. I'll add a ballast box by drilling out a hole in the nose before I glue up the sandwich.

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