210116 Guillows FW 190 Build and Flight

Nostalgia build of Guillows kit #502, a 16.5" span FW-190. This was the first stick-and-tissue model I built as a kid in the mid-1970s. A new friend recently gave me a partially-built 502 kit - I decided to have a little fun and see what I could do with it. Finish is printed tissue, chalked with white on the back to brighten up the colors. It came out heavy (32g without motor, ~40g flying weight), but it flies much better than the one I built as a kid!

[@brushstroke3733]

Wow, I never believed these kits were actually made to be flyable. I figured people just hung them from their ceilings. Bravo for completing the build beautifully and recording the flights.

[@Cre80s]

They "can" fly pretty well, but his sure is an above-average example of performance I've seen. The old hobbyshop owner who was a master mentioned something to the effect that replica warplanes were something everyone's drawn to when making a flying model, but he always encouraged beginners to decide which was their bigger interest, something that actually flies good versus something that is historically interesting, and just build warplanes for show, and if you wanna actually fly (worth a dang) build the more mundane Cessna style craft with the high wings.

[@philiphatfield5666]

They were very flyable in this size range, but if they were larger and with fixed landing gear, then flights were brief with little climbing power; however, many of these larger models can now be outfitted with small electric motors, then you can watch as it flies out of sight to the point that it is gone forever!

[@modelermark172]

This brought back a LOT of memories! I mainly build plastic models, now (I'm 62.) But after watching this, I'm definitely going to put building a kit like this on my bucket-list. (I've got the Guillows Hawker Hurricane in my stash, somewhere.) And that pre-printed tissue covering is a definite improvement, as was replacing the vacuformed cowling with balsa. But despite the added weight, those flights were nothing less than impressive! Thanks for posting this!

[@Mrfishlou]

Man, that printed tissue really pops with good lighting - looks incredible. Flies great as far as I'm concerned - a Butcher Bird is supposed to be fast!

[@broncobart4354]

Man this brings me back. Nothing tested my and taught me patience more than building and skinning these Guillows kits. Good work sir!

[@geraldtrudeau3223]

Like you, I built this kit back in the seventies as my first stick and tissue airplane. I built a lot since then, but I remember that one. I didn't have much money back then so I had to buy the cheapest one I could, and it was the FW-190. I recently went to Guillow's website to see if they still sold it, and was absolutely gobsmacked when I saw the price on it. They want $50 for that kit now! Wow! So much for a nostalgic rebuild.

[@moistmike4150]

Yeah - As a kid I remember getting the Guillow's catalog and buying various models for a few bucks each. Such a fun hobby!

[@frankgordonsmith4795]

It 50 dollars for the large size, the model shown in video only cost 25

[@lrg3834]

Guillows would be pleased with your build. Beautiful model.

[@bryangifford2819]

Would love to see a video on the technique for the covering! Gorgeous model!

[@chilarai1]

Second that request. Superb build and first flight. 👍

[@joelfildes5544]

Yes,same here…don’t have to ‘back’ the tissue to print on it ?…cheers from Manchester,UK ! (I’m gonna do a conversion to electric on one)

[@duderguy1571]

@@joelfildes5544 i wondered the same thing. Figure it's awfully thin and flimsy to go through a printer.

[@michaelkelly7338]

Not a video, but the basic steps for printing on tissue are covered here: www.parmodels.com/printing-on-tissue-paper.html

[@steveperry1344]

nice job on the plane and flight. i built quite a few guillows kits as a boy in the early 60's. i never had good luck with the rubber power because the planes ended up being too heavy so we would put small cox motors on them to fly with control line or freeflight or use them as a static display on a desk or hung from my bedroom ceiling. the last one i remember making was a japenese zero.

[@sblack48]

I built that one in about ‘75. I had no skills but it flew quite well in spite being crooked and covered in blobs of glue!

[@Rechkalov7]

I didnt even knew these kits could fly so well and long. Good job on the paint job

[@dansmith7617]

That is just sweet, Mike. I've built that thing about 6 times and it never flew like that. Imagine what you could do with some contest balsa!! Thanks for posting. -Dan

[@M5guitar1]

I built one of these in the 70's. Great model.

[@brittenvilander4866]

Wow. That’s amazing. Great build and excellent flight for day 1. All of my Guillows builds were static display as they came out too heavy. I’m intrigued about printing and covering method. Recommend making a video showing how you do this covering with pre-printed covering material. The plane looks great and it’s so light. Even the Pilot details. My problem is the weight gain during the painting and finishing process. Keep up the great work.

[@stevenwallman2346]

I made a few Guillows kits when I was younger, but I could never get any of them to fly worth a damn.

[@jonmeek3879]

Excellent job

[@SCIGS30]

Nice build an flight. I built one last year from a die cut kit, zero modifications built out of the box. I won the Facebook Guillows challenge with a flight over 20 seconds on a few hundred winds. These are fun kits and will fly, just don't expect to win a contest.

[@GreggMundkowsky-pj6zd]

Says the winner of a contest. lol, congratulations on the win

[@georgmaly2972]

Beautiful model.

[@Juscz]

Heck of a nice flyer. And, in my view, any Guillows kit is improved by eliminating the vacu-formed components and making them out of balsa. You really made a great plane out of a rather mediocre kit if built as intended by the company.

[@mattluszczak8095]

Whats with the plastic?

[@john_in_boston]

Mike, this same kit was my very first engine-powered flying scale model. 1967-68, something like that. So I was in my mid-50s. ;-) Either a Cox TeeDee .010 or PeeWee .020. 4,738 lbs of insane-OCD cockpit detail (copper wire in there, rudder pedals, parking brake, you name it!), and 14 gallons of Pactra Aerogloss sand & spinach camo. My very practical brother Arthur teases me about the overkill to this day. So, once we got the engine to start, she lumbered skyward in what very quickly became a galloping downward arc to the sunburnt/sunbaked rock-hard earth of Sepulveda Basin, Van Nuys, sunny California. A boom echoed through the San Fernando Valley, the terra firma shook, but the Focke-Wulf remained in one piece. Cockpit detail intact. The Tao of My Oddball Madness thereby begun.

[@michaelkelly7338]

Great story John - it's amazing how that Guillows iron wood can bounce! Mmmm - the sweet smell of Aerogloss...

[@aureliobrighton1871]

Haha ... when the engine sound came in .. and that straight head after the 1000t first left curve . c'est magnifique :)

[@modsurgeon]

Nicely done. Loved Guillows kits (still have a dozen or so in the boxes up in the attic waiting to be built with a future grand-kid), though building them light enough to fly as well as Golden age reproductions or Diels or Bell kits was always a challenge. Best thing about them was their ease of build and the fact that they seldom required a de-thermalizer. Taught me how to handle balsa, read plans, and cover in tissue though...

[@TXGRunner]

That is amazing. The one I built as a kid would never do more than 100' and that was me on my grandma's roof with a straight descending glide. Bravo!

[@roobp]

thanks for all the work that went into making this vid!!!

[@LBG-cf8gu]

Man! If i could build a guillows like that I'd never fly but hang it in a place of honor. Thx for upload.

[@moistmike4150]

Beautiful! I used to build these balsa fliers as a kid. Had a couple of friends who did the same. We were considered a bit off by the other kids, but I didn't care. LOVED my little hobby - and the FW190 was my FAVORITE of all time! Thanks so much for this trip down memory lane! : D

[@michaelkelly7338]

It was great fun as a kid, and I think even more fun now. I jumped back into the hobby around 2016 after retiring and have made some great friends and had great times flying since then. There's a lot to be said for spending time on simple craftsmanship...

[@panemetcircenses510]

Your past self is proud of you for putting the original blisters on!

[@darnick54]

Fabulous……..a work of art and a flier. Loved it

[@chrischapman9251]

Very well done sir.

[@wjniemi]

That's wonderful! I built a lot of those Guillows kits in the 1960s... I didn't know how to make them fly very well at all. Thank you for showing how it's done!

[@skipcallaham1517]

I have built loads of balsa planes! The best flying plane I ever did was a Guillows "Spirit of St Lewis". That plane was just wonderful in the flying department.

[@atomicbonds6790]

Ever build a Gallows Hang Man kit?

[@curtismarean6963]

Wow, beautiful model! You did a great job! Looks like you have a wonderful flyer on your hands! Wonderful to watch, thanks for sharing!

[@GLLHamp]

Beautiful. I would love to see it with some micro RC gear.

[@chrissofpv3017]

SKippy's RC Conversions.....he RC,s this type of model👍🤗

[@walter770]

and they said the guillow kits couldn't fly. great job!

[@stevenprobelski8029]

BEAUTIFUL! Heavy as all guillow models are but it looks to fly nice. Echoing the response below, please think about sharing your covering techniques... Just Wow! Thank you Steve probelski

[@larrypenno7477]

Beautiful build. Nice to see someone that still appreciates Guillows kits and knows how to transform them for better flight. Keep making video's and build follows.

[@gatblau1]

Great idea using a printout on paper for the skin! I built a couple of Guillow Grummans (a Hellcat and and Avenger) in middle school in the early 1980s for an aeronautics class they offered. It was so fun!

[@doveboyz857]

Fantastic job with this model!

[@haroldgodwinson832]

That is a most remarkable build. Using the skin from the IL-2 sim (???) is something I hadn't even imagined. Really inspiring; thanks, and what a great little flyer!

[@tungstenkid2271]

Beautiful, and a nice realistic colour scheme too, it reminds me of the days before radio control when aeromodellers really had to know their stuff to trim models to fly hands-off..:) PS- Regarding how many turns to put on the rubber, I once overdid it and the fuselage collapsed with a crunch under the pressure..:)

[@KetilDuna]

Good looking and good flying - almost a Guillows commercial! Great job - thank you for sharing!

[@sailawaybob]

that is Cool

[@devinmcgee5265]

Awesome build!!

[@goofyrulez7914]

That's a beautiful plane!

[@omramchandrajieducational]

This video randomly popped up in my recommended, and I'm extremely fortunate for that! Completely different from the plastic revell models I've built since I was a toddler. Shame I didn't hear of Guillow's earlier, but seeing how these kits are still in production since the 1950's, they must be good to have survived natural selection! I'm converting mine to RC. Could you please release the pdf document of the skins? I would love to use it on my build, as I don't have any paints. I'm soon to be off to college, and won't be able to bring my any of my big RC planes with me. This fw-190, however, will be perfect to bring!

[@chrisgosling5408]

Great result there must have been very satisfying. The printed tissue was something I only discovered recently and it gives much better results on tissue than painting and decals. Many thanks for posting very inspriational.

[@thomasarcher8718]

Man amazing job on the model!

[@WilliamParmley]

Very nice!

[@PCModelBuilder]

Wow!! I've never seen such a detail wooden airplane! I thought I was exploring new territory but you've been there and excelled!! Gorgeous build.

[@Hamel40]

I recognize that airfield! Great looking build and flight. Thanks for the video.

[@rexrcs]

Wow it glides so nicely!

[@akula9713]

Excellent!

[@Holliethedog]

A beautiful model, well done, thanks for sharing!

[@Hagemann666]

Really beautiful build! I've put together a few Guillow's kits over the years (I have several unfinished ones sitting in boxes, too). I would never have the guts to actually free-fly one after building it, though. Watching all that work auger in after a slight gust of wind would make me cry.

[@stevencoons450]

Very nice thanks for sharing!

[@schaerffenberg]

Just gorgeous! The most beautifully flown rubber-powered model I've ever seen. Congratulations! Would be interested to see what you can do with a Guillows' Albatros D-Va biplane.

[@michaelkelly7338]

Thanks! No intent to do the Albatros anytime soon, but I've printed out the plans and been thinking through a build of the Guillows' Halblerstadt CL.II.

[@claudio743]

Amazing,congrats.

[@123wordbird321]

Nice flight! The paint job looks great too

[@mikecarbone828]

Nice build! I have one of these kits that I picked up at Goodwill’s however it is missing some pieces, fortunately, the local book store carries a complete stock of balsa. I plan to build mine for electric RC instead of rubber band power, which would require some additional modifications, fortunately, these kits are now suitable for radio control with the micro RC receivers and servos. I will try printing directly onto the tissue like you did for this model, or else, I may use Mylar instead. When I was young, I used to build these kits, but was disappointed that there were no radio control equipment suitable for them, now there are many options for RC flight. Beautiful build! Happy flying!! Thank you for posting this video! Please have an excellent and awesome day! ✨☀️🛩

[@JamesRCPlaneTech]

Thats an awesome build and flights. Peaceful. Good job.

[@bradgray8064]

Outstanding!! Yes it's a fine line between prop thrust and elevator trim. Well done mate.

[@duderguy1571]

Genius idea of using game skins. Brilliant!

[@SPSteve]

Amazing build! Sure looks a lot better than models I built back in the 70's! Flies a lot better too.

[@mohammadaswal4761]

Very good

[@GordonSturrock]

nice job! I have the similar P-40 warhawk, nearly 40 years old now. Flew it once or two some 40 years ago, never been brave enough to fly it again.

[@ronprice2127]

My brother and i built many of these great models growing up a mile from the Guillows plant in wakefield massaachusetts in our 60s now the 4th of july always claimed a few......

[@saito125]

Fabulous job with covering and markings, wish I could do that!

[@toboldlygosmodelworks1973]

the butcher bird was my favourite ( built the vernon kit)

[@giancarlogarlaschi4388]

I was Totally Crazy for this kits as a kid !!! 😉😁😎

[@pietroseven8228]

stunning paint job

[@michelpetrus]

Amazing covering work.

[@jeffreyhansen2806]

SWEET!

[@jasonmarmor4683]

Incredible model!

[@victormiranda9163]

you make it look easy. well done

[@rektrc1142]

I would love to see how the graphics were done. It looks so good.👍 subbed.

[@TheHiwattScott]

Beautiful build!

[@derpreue3947]

Superb! Bravo and Congratulations on interesting project! Well done 👍 With 1000 turns flies like real Butcher Bird - Fast ! Camo print is amazing and looks so scale - please make a video to share with rest of us- how you accomplished such great looking skins.

[@tonywright8294]

Superb

[@donaldvincent]

Looks Great!

[@glennlane6599]

I believe this kit was also the first one I built back in the mid 60's.

[@juanalzate6044]

Sweet ride man. I built one of these but never even thought about trying to fly it. I know it'd go straight into the ground oh man

[@lonelymtbrider3369]

Oh the nostalgia this gives me. But my free flight Guillows models never flew - until LiPo + brushless. I made a Guillows P-40 of the same size, but that one weighed 150 grams and did approximately 150 km/h during a high speed dive, so that's a whole different beast. But I love what you did and how well you got it working. Wish I'd had the same success as a kid.

[@davidmcleod7757]

when i was a kid I built the spad new port 17 spitfire corsair spitfire hellcat unfortunately i didn't have the funds to make them radio control but they flew well with the rubber bands

[@ivoryjohnson4662]

Awesome build !!!! I bet it would do great with one of these micro electric motors in there maybe a channel for ailerons

[@jasonmarmor4683]

Wow!

[@aloysiusjones3985]

Fascinating. 🇦🇺👍🍺🍺

[@craigbolton5093]

Pretty good maiden day, Mike!

[@michaelkelly7338]

Thanks Craig - it went well. Still need to coax a better glide out of it, but I came home a happy camper.

[@gregorydahl]

I have the guillow stuka from that series in the box still . I opened it of course . I was going to just build it with 1/16 th making a bare minimum outline and bent strips of the 132nd balsa for ribs . And fly it indoors or drop it from a rc quadcopter .

[@johnjriggsarchery2457]

I would like to see a video on how you created the printed tissue. Beautiful job!

[@paulsavarese567]

Printed tissue!!!!???? That's a game changer!

[@sharpnr445]

for me the difficult part would be coping the colored tissue...beautiful work!

[@ptonpc]

That s nice :)

[@bobgreen3116]

Hi Michael. Thank you for saving that little guy. What a great video and she flies fantastic. I'm just starting on the Guillows Hellcat. Built the same model as a kid and it flew for about 10 seconds. Lol. So I need to learn to trim these little guys. Any advice you can give me? I would love for my Hellcat to fly even half as long as yours did. Thanks Bob

[@michaelkelly7338]

Hi Bob - best advice I can give you is to join the Flying Aces Club (flyingacesclub.com/). Great people who live and breathe free flight, nice newsletter with plans, tips and event news every other month. Full archive of older club newsletters and tech tips available on their website. Recently they've been running articles on improving some of the Guillows kits. Website calendar has nationwide schedule of meets. Well worth your time to attend one - ask and you'll get lots of friendly tips and suggestions. Made a huge difference in how my models fly and vastly improved my enjoyment of the hobby.

[@jasonrackawack9369]

I built that kit in the 80s as a kid......that and the avenger is what made me quit free flight and go into model cars and trains....the wood was so badly die cut nothing fit together. I had with my Fathers help built a few peanut scale planes built from walt mooney kits and his plans in model builder that worked really good, those Guillows kits were awful for keeping my intrest in the hobby......that and model cars and trains dont typically self destruct in crashes lol

[@alaincristien4653]

Hi Mickael, very nice this Focke- Wulf. Can you tell me how the free propeller mechanism works and how the spinner is hanging on please ? Alan

[@Glicksman1]

Those little ones do seem to fly fast. It's primarily a matter of wing loading. Also, such small, scale wings (and early FW-190s have very small wings proportionately) and small control surfaces yield little to no effective aerodynamic damping making trim and stability always a problem. "Twitchy" is the term often used to describe small, scale models' flight characteristics. Still, they're economic to build and look great in your hand, or on a shelf. However, in the air... Not my cup of tea. The classic Guilows and Sterling kits are temptingly excellent-looking scale models with great plans. The problem with them is that the wood supplied is too heavy and too thick in many instances and, as they were originally meant to be built by kids whose dear little hands are not usually subtle, delicate, or overly coordinated they were intentionally structurally over-designed. However, this makes the smaller ones far too heavy for flight unless powered with very powerful rubber motors which make them fly at jet-like speeds as we see here. Also, they do not glide. When the rubber has unwound, those necessarily big propellors drag them down like speed brakes and they just fall. Fortunately, there are many ways to lighten them without sacrificing structural integrity. I know you need a strong fuselage to bear the stress of a big tightly wound rubber motor, but a rolled balsa or cardboard motor tube, carbon fiber reinforcement, and other such devices could take the place of an overly heavy fuselage structure. The challenge to make the Guillows, etc., kits fly well is an interesting one and will probably continue to be popular. I mean, they really do resonate strongly with our youthful days, don't they?

[@windsurfer3329]

Beautiful airplane! I always opted to go for Guillow's giant scale because of the possibility to convert them to electric if I want to, but now I will be building smaller guys after your video :-)) It would be great if you can make a video about your printing process on tissue. It would be interesting to see how you manage printing on tissue (mine didn't fare well). Does chalking the backside give you any problems in gluing the tissue onto the frame?

[@enriquecampos8416]

excellent work. My first model was a guillow fw190 almost 28 years ago. two days ago I bought this kit again. Would you provide me with the tissue printing design? I would appreciate. congratulations master.

[@gregorydahl]

Did you ever get it done ?

[@enriquecampos8416]

@@gregorydahl No.

[@makseiful]

Jaja, una maravilla como vuela eso

[@romulormachado]

Hello friend! Could you share with us the files you used to make the skin of the plane? It was so perfect! Great work!

[@BHARGAV_GAJJAR]

Beautiful realistic 3D fuselage ! How did you wind the rubber band to exact torque ?