About

My beginnings in modeling started at very early age and have been in the hobby for about 50 years. I began with free-flight models in Colombia (South America) and then start exploring stunt control-line models, then gliders, trainers and pattern planes. By 1992 Dave Patrick went to Colombia for a F3A demonstration and a few months later I moved to West Palm Beach, FL and started in my spare time to draw plans for Dave on models that later produced Hangar 9 and Cermark Models.  At the same time I met Frank Tiano and decided to work on some of his projects and for magazine reviews. In 1998 I moved to Orlando, FL and started working for Bob Violet on some of his jet projects like the Rafale, the F-100, the F-86 and the Bobcat. Then continue doing some work for Frank and in 2010 he asked me to design some plans for a giant Nakajima B5N Kate for the Pearl Harbor Museum, this was my first warbird design even though it was just for display.

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Years later Frank convinced me to design giant warbirds and that is when I started the Ki-43 Oscar, a model not very popular in giant scale size. The result was very good. After that first design I decided to work on iconic warbirds and bring something new in the RC scale market.

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ZapWarbirds offers giant World War II designs of some iconic models in the 1/5 to 1/3.5 scale range. Our goal is to produce warbird designs as accurate as possible for scale newcomers or competitive masters, our designs use 3D CAD tools and interlocking wood construction to bring models that are hard to find anywhere else. Our designs do not need plans in order to build the model. But you can have the plans to cut your own kit or to build on top if you feel the need.

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Our plans comes printed in rolled 36-inch wide paper from our own HP plotter. Plans include full-size templates of all required parts for scratch builders. We strive to produce each model with a building manual fill with plenty of 3D graphics that helps anybody with average RC kit building experience to complete the task.

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Our kits are laser cut with interconnected parts that in some cases are with auto-jig system that eliminate the need of building on top of plans. Our custom laser cutter size is 48"x24" capable of any work with those size limitations. Kits comes with all wood parts, and buyers have to buy all sheeting and sticks balsa needed on what we call Almost Complete Kits (ACK).

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We 3D print our own cowls and canopies plugs that later are send to specialized manufactures for a professional finish.

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All our kits are set to use Sierra Giant Landing gear/wheels as standard, but can be suitable for other brands/designs.

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Special custom spinners are offered on limited quantities in US or can be ordered directly from our manufacture partner in UK (Fighteraces).