Guillow's Aeronca Champion Balsa Model Airplane

Nice rendition of one of the other 2 seat tandem trainers. Having all the major shapes to build the model cut out by laser results in a stronger and better looking air frame.

Guillow has always made great model kits and the historical significance of this and other model kits is a great part of our aviation history overall. I hope that they can keep making these for years to come! Thanks for such awesome kits!

Got this for my grandson who loves to put things together. He's so good at it I look for more challenging things for him.

This was a first build for me, with very limited knowledge of what I got myself into, I successfully built it. I built as diagram shows, rubber band power. I find the model to be tail heavy. I purchased tissue paste & Eze dope for the supplied tissue. it came out nice. Having never done it, I had no expectations. But I am very happy with the process and results. I would say it look about 4-5 evenings with my experience level. I enjoyed it and plan to build different planes.

There were parts missing and the price was too high for the airplane kit.

I have built and flown 4 of these kits and enjoyed every one tremendously. It's a fun airplane but, as with most kits in this class, the wood is fairly dense and the structure is poorly engineered (weak and heavy). A lot of parts (e.g. wing spars and ribs) can be omitted as they are unnecessary and add extra weight. The landing gear design is fragile. A stock build will yield a pretty mediocre flyer. The scale fidelity is poor. It is, however, great for beginners to learn and get experience building and flying. I would suggest searching the Internet (e.g. Guillow Builders Forum) for tips and advice. There is a wealth of information on the construction of balsa flying models that will make your learning experience easier. Note the wingspan is 23.8" and the scale of the fuselage is 1:16.8. The wings are a different scale than the fuselage.