Testor's Freshman ''29"

Ben is looking for the plans or kit or even the plane as pictured.
You can find a picture like this in the March 1958 Model Airplane News magazine pages 32 & 33, also Flying Models May 1958 on the inside of the front cover. I've been told there were three versions, and this picture is the third. Bill Schmidt does not have this version.Bill has the first version, which I also have,I got it from Bill, it's very nice. My McCoy which also cost $5.95 is waiting for this plane. HELP

Thank you... Ben

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Attachment #1, (jpg file)

Hello,

Has Ben tried to contact Doug Dahlke? Doug used to do some section for Stunt News, Hopefully he's still around. He had done quite a bit of research on these designs.

I used to fly R/C with Nathan Bast back in the eighties, the designer of the Freashman series. He was really a neat guy, one of those people you'll never forget.... Nate passed away several years ago.

Good luck,

Mark

The Freshman "29" was THE best flying trainer of any model airplane trainer manufactured, the Freshman being the predecessor of the Testor TC-2.

The Freshman you have pictured is the last verison of the Freshman trainers, there were three different verisions, the first without the tapered trailing edge on the wing, the second with the tapered trailing edge on the wing, and the third eliminated the wire tail skid on the underside of the tail of the fuselage and had the sub fin, why I do not know, the wire tail skid in place of a tail wheel worked fine.

The first in this line was the TC-1, a trainer with a built up silkspan covering wing, then Nathan Bast designed the solid balsa wood wing TC-2, which was very much like the first Freshamn "29". I say "29" there were three each Freshmans, the 09, the 19, and the 29, each size identifying the disp. of the engine it was designed for.


Another often overlooked part of this family was the Baby TC-2, a 1/2A verison of the TC-2, again with the solid balsa wood wing, this was produced when the 1/2Aa became so popular. Then Testors put out a Stunt Baby TC-2 with a wide solid balsa wing, with a .049 there was no way it would stunt, not even a loop unless one would whip it thru.

All of this series, the TC-2 and the Freshman series had solid balsa wings.

As previously mentioned, Nathan "Nat" Bast was a fine gentleman, very easy to talk to and most helpful where ever he could be.

Ken Wilson
"Largely A Little Known Aviation Historian"
Evansville, IN

Contact Marvin Denny. I think he can help you.

I had a origional set of Freshman .19 plans and gave them to him to thank him for some engine work he did.

Dave

Just a sport flier

The lovely thing about this kit was the upright engine mounting. I'm going to incorporate this into my next and future profiles.

My Dad, who owned a small sporting goods store, sold about two dozen of these McCoy combos in the early 1950s.

>The lovely thing about this kit was the upright engine
>mounting.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...a feature possibly "borrowed" from yet another classic all-balsa CL intro' design, Comet's "Rookie Trainer" -- which superficially resembled the "Freshman" and pre-dated it by several years.

Mike Keville

And there was one before that. In 1946 I built it for my new ignition Bullet .27. The plane was too, too heavy for the engine and would not get airborne. I then built a Consolidated TARPON and it flew great. I've never been able to recapture the thrill of that first take off. (Among other things.)