Pre, During and Post SnF 2026

Hey folks! I had written a whole blog update a couple weeks prior to Sun n Fun, but never got the images uploaded before we were too busy to get it done. The week before a major show is way too much pressure! So I am doing a combo - Pre, During and Post SnF blog. Here goes:

PRE SnF:

ScaleBirds is getting ready for Sun n Fun 2026 in a couple of weeks. Right now, our shop is full of aircraft parts for the P40/36 kits and the B-17 project. Our plan is to prep and paint the P-40 fuselage outside in my back yard over the next few days while also working on the bomber tail surfaces at our home build studio. I need sunny, light wind and above 45 degrees F. That combo just has not been happening here in South Eastern Connecticut. The weather has been lousy which has prevented us from working on the P-40 fuselage mockup/test rig. That is changing as I’m writing this. Finally some sun and warmer temps coming! As a local restaurant chalk board said - “Spring is - Loading”. Ah, the spinning wheel of progress strikes again!

We are working on the booth design and layout. This year is different for us at SnF. We have a smaller booth size in a mid-aisle space out in front of Bldg A. In addition, it’s as expensive as ever! That booth space was all that was available we were told. So had to take it. As we mentioned last update, there is no room for the P-36 this year. So that stays home. We will be showing the P-40 fuselage mockup like we did at Oshkosh last summer with a seat and rudder pedals installed. We will also have a Verner Motor 9 cylinder on display in our tent. It is the first of four engines for the B-17 project. I hope we have enough time/weather/temp to make an engine mount that will work with our display stand. Concurrently, we will be updating our brochures and booth signage and banners. Getting that artwork finished is a priority.

The B-17 effort is picking up momentum. We have come through so many challenges with doing this type of project. The tail build fixture is working out perfectly - though we had to order more 8020 uprights for rigidity and supporting the wing structures properly. It is amazing when the parts and the fixture just bolt-up or cleco together. CNC cutting and drilling is amazing! We are also designing all the time. 3D modeling of the fuselage and cockpit arrangement is the current work. It is confirming that we can make a staggered pilot/copilot arrangement work. But there are issues surfacing that we are working through. The B-17’s throttle levers and quadrant takes up a very large volume compared to the typical twin’s quadrant. The handle arrangement is very good for using the engines to steer and the family wants to keep that feature. Making that work is a challenge with also trying to have passage to the nose of the aircraft. We will likely have to build a mockup cockpit “ergo” study for human factors. The cardboard space frame gave us enough accuracy to determine people will fit in this machine. We will now need more fidelity to the cabin and components to gage access/egress and pilot comfort and functionality. Fun stuff actually!

The P-40/36 LiteFighter Beta kits are almost ready to ship. We have been delayed with that a bit more. We have found that our part bending was not accurate and repeatable enough - we needed a new method. So we invented it. Our sheet metal bending is by hand on a 8 ft brake. We figured-out that we can 3D print gage blocks we can cleco to the flat, pre-drilled sheet metal parts. The gages allow us to have front stops that space the part to the brake properly for the bend to happen at the exact correct location. It uses front stops instead of the programable rear stops on a CNC press brake. This actually works well and is simple for us to do.

During Sun n Fun 2026:

Our trip down was un-eventful and safe. We stopped at our future F6F Hellcat customer since his shop was right off I-95 in South Carolina. He is completing his own scratch built Stewart P-51 replica and working on a kit version of the Stewart for a friend. Great information and place - Thanks Dennis! We spent the night in Daytona, FL and picked-up the Verner 9S from Spruce Creek airport community. We setup the booth on Monday afternoon and had a good dinner at Fords Garage in North Lakeland.

The show started Tuesday morning and it was bright and sunny and warm! We had great weather for the show, but it got hotter and hotter all week. Our crew toughed it out - but it was hard to go from chilly New England days to Southern summer temps without a transition. We were pretty busy all week long with great contacts and conversations. I made a brief presentation for the Mozaic day media event by Aero News Network.

All in all, we had a typical Sun n Fun show. No direct sales, but many prospects for future customers. We did get a chance to meet some current customers and work with them on exhausts, mounts and oil tanks for their Verner Motor radial engines and one of our Beta customers. We really wanted to just plant the flag - so everyone knows we showed-up, especially after the latest news of Sonex Aircraft going under.

POST SnF:

The trip back was fun. We stopped at Steve Wolf’s place to visit and see his beautiful P-47D replica - it just came out of paint. It is stunning! Wow! We then headed North and spent the night just North of Brunswick the first night. the next day we had a trailer tire blow out in a construction zone and pulled off 2 miles later - couldn’t due to Jersey barriers - and the gas station there had a tire shop behind it. They fixed us up - the worst place and the best place to have a flat tire! Reviewing the route home and the time of day, we decided to skip Richmond, DC and Baltimore traffic and visit the Military Aircraft Museum in Virginia Beach. We made it there right at closing and had to spend the night and hit it again in the morning. Amazing museum and we are going to plan a long weekend visit for later in the year. The rest of the trip across the long bridge and the Maryland and Delaware countryside and then NJ and CT was un-eventful.

We got back home and then took a couple days off. Those shows just beat you up. We have since gotten back to work and started making great progress again. We heard the great news that Sonex Aviation is starting up and Mark will be head of design. Awesome turn-around! Great for our community and their customers too!

Scott has been finalizing the P-40 3D modeling and is about to start the rendering process. We know it is important to our customers and the marketing campaign that is about to get rolling that we have really good imagery of the P-40. We have done so much work and I think you will find that it will be amazing. We are proud of the result and know our customers will be too. Stay tuned for some new video content and imagery on our website and YouTube channel.

Our Beta customers are about to get their tail and aft fuselage kits. We have built the first crate and loaded it up. We are finalizing inventory lists, instructions, etc… and last parts. After we standardize the crate and packaging, we will build 5 more crates. We made the first crate a bit too tall - sorta on purpose, sorta overkill. But we needed to load all the stuff in to really figure out how big to make the crates. We have that info now and are making them up. Betas - here they come! Super excited to get these parts out!

The bomber project is gathering steam and attention. We just received the majority of the elevator parts from our painter. He is going to get us the rest of the parts in the next week. We can now assemble the elevators and we are excited! First big parts will be going on the wall! We are about to skin the Horizontal stabilizers in our jig. Those are very big parts! The aft fuselage rings are about to start being cut and formed. Then we will get going on the aft fuselage frame and then skins. It is getting very exciting to see! We are discussing possibly bringing big parts to Oshkosh this summer. Wouldn’t that be amazing! We are getting more questions about the project and we will slowly bring more and more imagery and information out to the public. Not too fast, but we also realize its not a secret anymore.

Let us know if there is anything you really want to see at Oskosh. We will be prepping for it over the next few weeks. Thanks and keep checking-in!