Ep 202: The 13th Squadron with Jack and Steve Niezgoda

[00:00:03] Good evening. Welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Dave. I’m Ron. I’m Jack. And I’m Steve.

[00:00:20] Very good. Dave, are you going to take it or do you want me to go? Go for it. So, hi guys. How are you?

[00:00:28] Pretty good. Pretty good.

[00:00:29] So we are sitting down tonight with Jack and Steve Nesgoda. They are the founders of the 13th Squadron. They make kits that Dave has purchased. And that’s kind of what got this little episode going. Dave has purchased and built some of their airplanes. And through the conversations we’ve had and all that kind of stuff, we’ve decided to do a giveaway of one of their BF-109 kits. Do you guys want to tell us a little bit about your kit?

[00:00:57] Yeah. So the kit is going to be a 39-inch wingspan, BF-109E specifically. And we released it back in July of 2025. But it’s been going pretty good and we want to give away one kit with you guys.

[00:01:09] Well, we appreciate that. That should be fun. So let me tell you some of the specifics. So to enter, go to rcplanelab.com and search for the giveaway link at the very top. It will take you to the page to sign up. So the giveaway starts at the date that this is released, so January 9th. And then we’re going to end it on, oddly enough, Friday, February 13th, because it’s the 13th Squadron. It just makes sense to use that day.

[00:01:38] And then we will get in touch with the winner via email. So there’s two ways to enter. Once you give us your email address, you can visit our Facebook page, rcplanelab’s Facebook page. That gives you one entry. And then you can visit the 13th Squadron website, and that gives you another entry.

[00:01:53] So every person will have two chances to win this wonderful kit, which is, by the way, about seven feet away from me right now, waiting for somebody to have their own shipping label put on there and shipped out to them.

[00:02:05] Yeah. It’s sitting there, ready to go.

[00:02:07] Yeah. So shall we talk about how we came to have this kit, Dave? Sure. How we acquired it. How it got to us. It’s kind of a funny story. It involves Dave messing something up, so I enjoy this very much. And I never mess anything up.

[00:02:26] So I had purchased one of their early production kits. I think I got it late July, so it was first round. And building it, beautiful kit to build. Spent a long time watching Jack on the Internet with their video instructions. Very nice. Got it ready to finish to the paint mode. And I did my normal thing that I do with the Rust-Oleum sandable primer.

[00:02:57] So I gave it a shot of that, and apparently I put it on a little too heavy, and it wrinkled up the lower wing skin substantially to the point where I picked it up. The paper just fell off. And no big deal to me. I just finished peeling it off, did a little patch with some putty, and gave it another shot of primer, and we’re all good. I mentioned it on the podcast shortly thereafter. And apparently these gentlemen were listening and took pity on me and sent me a brand new kit.

[00:03:36] And you’re like, I’ve fixed my mistake already.

[00:03:39] Thank you. And then you thought, why don’t we give it away to the listeners? Yes, we did. And we thought that was a perfect time to have you guys on to talk about your company, your processes, your fun airplanes you make. And that’s where we are right now.

[00:03:55] Yes. See, I feel like we haven’t said it enough yet, or we haven’t said it at all, but thank you for having us on here once again.

[00:04:00] Oh, no problem. We are glad you guys agreed to do this. So, tell us a little bit about the 13th Squadron. How did you come up with the name? How did you guys start it? What was the impetus to making your own company for billing kits? Obviously not superstitious. Right?

[00:04:17] Well, my birthday is the 13th.

[00:04:21] Way back in 1969, I guess, technically. That’s how old I am.

[00:04:26] Okay.

[00:04:28] You’re not that old.

[00:04:29] But, yeah, 13th was the number, and actually Jack played hockey, and that was his number in sports. And that was always my number for sports as well. So, we always kind of just went with 13th Squadron, and we didn’t want to do 13th Hangar, 13th something else. We just wanted to do 13th Squadron, so it just sounded right. So, we did that. But, I don’t know.

[00:04:47] No, I mean, I’ve always been interested in aeronautics and airplanes, and my dad was an aeronautical engineer for NASA, so I was always surrounded by aerospace and stuff like that. And he was in an RC club when I was a kid. And I used to go to the bean fields and chase the planes that he’d crash in the fields, and I had a blast growing up. and it was awesome.

[00:05:10] So, I grew up with that, but I never got into doing planes because I’d always see my dad, build these things for months on end and then fly it and then crash it. And I’d be like, oh, my gosh, all that effort into doing that. And it was just, I’d be like, I don’t want to do that. But I always loved planes.

[00:05:28] So, I got more into RC cars, and I didn’t do it too much, but I just liked the, the RC world with cars because it was easy to do, and it would still be able to work once you play with it. And you could play with it again the next day, no problem. Whereas a plane, if it crashes, you’re done. That’s why you have multiples. Yes, exactly.

[00:05:47] And then when foam board came in, it was awesome because you could build a foam board plane very quickly, and it doesn’t cost that much, and you could crash it and not worry about it. And to be honest with you, I still don’t fly that much. Jack’s the one that flies. He kind of got me back into the whole thing of flying and stuff and got me interested again. So, he’s the one who actually brought me back into the hobby.

[00:06:08] I want to cut my dad off there for reference of anyone new to listening or new to who we are. But I guess I’m Jack, and I’m the son of the father and son team of 13th Squadron, and my dad, who was just speaking there, we both make up 13th Squadron. And the way we do it is I’m more of the designer and builder, where my dad’s kind of the painter and refining, graphic designing, all that kind of stuff.

[00:06:31] But I guess that kind of is a good segue into my kind of story with aviation, which I guess I was not born on the 13th, but 15th, close enough, I guess. But I won’t. It’s a little stuff. You were stubborn.

[00:06:43] Yeah. He was late. I thought it was going to be the same day, but he decided he was on his own, so that was good. Even the same month, too, was crazy.

[00:06:50] But from there, I kind of just – I always grew up around aviation a little bit like that, from, like, my dad taking me to airports and air shows all growing up, which, funny enough, me and my brother, who’s not into aviation, we’d always get too hot and want to go home. So, I kind of found it funny that we don’t like air shows back then. But I grew up around it, but I grew up around it and just kind of always was surrounded by it.

[00:07:21] And it kind of got me, I think, in the start of the RC world, which I guess was a good way to do it, being in a simulator and not with a real plane at first. But I’ve just always been surrounded by it. That kind of got me going. And I first started with RC cars and then go to boats and then drones and then planes. And then I think – I forgot what age that was, but I got to around – I think it was probably around 2013, 14-ish.

[00:07:47] And that’s kind of when I really got started getting into planes and stuff like that. And then I kind of found a whole foam board community online with the flight test stuff. But then I kind of started rolling with that, and we built some planes from them, stuff like that. And I think it wasn’t until 2018, I think, is when I built my – or 2017, I think, one of those years. I honestly can’t remember. It’s been so long.

[00:08:10] But we built the Stuka Dive Bomber, where it was kind of my design ideas. But my dad, who was a graphic designer, let me use his accounts in Adobe Illustrator, and we kind of worked together on it. And he designed it in the software, but I told him what to do on it. And then we decided to build it for Flight Fest 2018. And from there, it kind of took off. We just really liked it. And then next year, we’re going to come back with more.

[00:08:35] Next year, it was a C47 and a P47, all foam board and everything. And then from there, it kind of just kept going on. And ultimately, in 2020, we decided to make our own website with a lot of my designs that I’ve had on the side and want to keep producing. And that was like free plans online. And then I’ve gotten until 2025, where now we sell kits, and we plan to do a lot more.

[00:09:00] That’s awesome.

[00:09:01] So I guess I didn’t realize it was just very recently, then, that you started selling your kits online.

[00:09:07] Yeah. It was only been, I think, since July. July 13th, funny enough. Before that, we’ve only been selling. Yeah. Before that, we’ve only been selling. Not even selling. We’ve been giving out free plans so people can build my designs and stuff.

[00:09:21] Yeah, your website has several designs for downloadable. Great free downloads. Yeah.

[00:09:27] Well, that’s kind of cool.

[00:09:30] There’s a few plans on there that we don’t have on there as we did before. But it’s the only reason we don’t have those now is because we’re changing up the way the motor mount works. And we plan on putting it back on there in the future. It’s just we’ve got to change up some things for that new motor mount.

[00:09:44] Yeah. You want to talk about that motor mount? It’s a pretty slick little unit.

[00:09:49] Yeah. So that’s the snap motor mount, as we call it. And it’s for anyone aware in the foam board community of the swappable power pod concept. It’s basically a little wooden firewall attached to your screwed onto your motor. And then from there, it’s foam board behind it where you can poke barbecue skewers through your plane. And that’s how you mount your motor to your airframe. And it does work, but I didn’t really see as good long lasting solution.

[00:10:15] And when I started 13 Squadron, specifically like started selling them in July recently in 2025, that I guess I knew it’s just I didn’t want to have that be for my planes. And I didn’t want to make them not long lasting. And I wanted something that would last a long time for me and be able to take in and out of each airframe. So I honestly don’t even know where I really got the idea.

[00:10:37] I think recently having just wanted to start the company, getting the laser cutter and stuff like that gave me some new ideas. But I thought of it as like a rigid, flexible option. And the way it works is you basically have these wooden, I guess, crosses on the outside. Well, if you imagine a box with some crosses on the outside of it, and then you take the middle away, you could squeeze the boxes together so the walls move.

[00:11:02] And that kind of gets pushed into these wood pieces that are already in the airframe. And it kind of snaps into place. And that does not move. And then when you want to get it out, you just pinch the little sidewalls of the motor mount, and you can slide it on out and change it from airframe to airframe.

[00:11:18] Yeah. So the firewall has two tongues on it with catches on it that there’s a receiver that’s built into the aircraft. And you squeeze the two tongues together and allows you to push your motor mount into the aircraft. And then you let go of it, and they snap.

[00:11:33] So mount inside of the aircraft.

[00:11:34] It catches. I catch it. Snap into the mount.

[00:11:36] So what all comes out with it? You say motor, but does it include the ESC and, like, an actual RC airplane receiver, too? Or is it just the motor?

[00:11:44] It is the motor and ESC. It’s just any – like, I guess the three wires that come off of your motor really can go to anything. But, yeah, just the motor and the ESC come off with the snap motor mount altogether.

[00:11:57] That’s a good idea because that way you don’t have – no, I’m sorry. Go on.

[00:12:00] I’m sorry. I was just curious, Dave. How did you feel with that? I mean, were you – was it pretty easy to understand? Was it easy to build? And how did it go for you?

[00:12:08] I had no problem with it. Just looked at your video online. Actually, I could have figured it out without the video. It’s pretty straightforward. But just watch the video online, and it just glues right together. My biggest problem at this point was the – I was using some questionable glue at the time. So the tongues kind of snapped on me, so I’ve had to reinforce it with good glue. That’s what happens when you run out of glue and they’re scavenging stuff in the field box.

[00:12:37] Yeah. We’ll blame it on user error. Yeah.

[00:12:41] We do that a lot. It’s okay. Okay. So what made you guys decide to go with foam board for your kits?

[00:12:49] I kind of just saw it as a way not only that I could get into the hobby as a kid or at least like design my own planes, but it was something that I kind of was used to already, and it was just a cheap option that I could make anything that I wanted with and any plane I could think of, and just all I had to do was design it and go from there.

[00:13:07] So walk us through, then, your design process. How do you go from I want to do this to here’s the airplane finished?

[00:13:16] Yeah. So the first way, I guess, I’ll talk about it as if I’m talking about my Stuka dive bomber, which is my favorite plane I’ve ever built. Actually, the way we got the idea is by throwing up a Nerf ball, fun fact. But I guess from there, you get just a random idea in the field or just looking at a plane that you like or something like that. And from there, you find a good three-view online where it has specifically the top view, the side view, and the front view.

[00:13:43] So that way, you can get all the lines of the wings at every angle and stuff like that. And then from there, it kind of, like, you make sure it’s the right size that the actual plane, because all those three angles should be the same size in theory. So then I think for the Stuka I had, it has a 55-inch wingspan. So I made sure that from wingtip to wingtip, that photo is 55-inch wingspan. And then from there, that’s just – that’s the size of your plane.

[00:14:06] So you have to make all the interior structure for it. And then from there, what you do is you basically –

[00:14:14] Okay, pause right there. I think he – when he says do it from there, he means he’s dropping that image into Adobe Illustrator and he’s making sure it’s 55-inches in the Adobe Illustrator program. And then he has to draw from that in there. So go ahead and continue from there.

[00:14:30] It can – any 2D design software, though, that’s the cool part. It can even really be on paper, which would be way challenging. But just a 2D design software is what I use to go through with this so far. But from there, the way that every foam board airplane, at least curvy, has what’s called seam lines.

[00:14:49] And you can kind of imagine if you were to take a sphere, like a ball, and try to slice it up into sections, it’s like how many sections do you slice it up into and at what angles from there. And that’s kind of what an airplane fuselage is. It’s just a really weirdly shaped sphere, but I know not really, but just for lack of better terms. But you’ve got to have all the seam lines facing the same way, up and down.

[00:15:16] And then from there, you have – you can make the formers for the shapes of the fuselage. And that also gives you how big the formers need to be and what their height and widths are from the first photo. And then you make the interior structure from that. You make sure that all the formers can connect with each other, as in like all the formers are properly spaced from the interior structure is what I mean like that.

[00:15:41] And then you kind of – at least back in the day, I had to take paper and wrap it around these formers from former to former, trace it with the pencil line, and then cut it out. And that’s how you make all the curvy pieces of a foam board airplane. Now, that’s just the fuselage. But the wings are kind of just – draw them to shape, do little tweaks from here and there. But I can get more into it if you want. But that’s kind of the general basis of designing a plane.

[00:16:05] So I will admit I have never built a – what I would kind of call a built-up foam board plane. So I’ve done like the flat foamies and that kind of stuff before. But you’re talking seam lines and all that kind of stuff. So when you’re trying to go get the turtle deck or whatever part of these airplanes have compound curves, complex designs to them, what do you see like as the biggest challenges to get that out of foam?

[00:16:31] Whereas like if we were building it out of like balsa, you just sand that away and you’re fine. Foam, obviously, you can’t quite do it that way. So what do you guys find challenging and how do you kind of overcome those challenges to make the actual outline look right?

[00:16:48] Yeah, I guess the main biggest challenge is kind of two main things regarding that. And that is that if you were to draw like a curved line and you try to connect it – I’m sorry. If you have a curved line and you have to draw it with straight lines, it’s like how many of those straight lines do you have to make it look like that curve the most close as possible you can?

[00:17:12] Only facets.

[00:17:13] Right. So it’s just a balance of finding the right amount of those pieces but not too many where you’re going to have too much work for yourself where you can’t actually complete the plane. And it just kind of makes it a good – well, I’m sure that my dad has any ideas here or not.

[00:17:31] But I just think what you might be getting at too is that when you’ve got all the curves that go around, you’ve got a curve that goes one way and another curve goes the other way. And it has a lot to do with peeling the paper off. I mean, when you have a piece of foam board and it has both paper on both sides, it’s very sturdy and rigid.

[00:17:47] So to get those curves, you have to peel the paper off on one side and then you kind of have to rub the one side that doesn’t have the paper on it on a flat edge or something like that to give you a better curve. And that gives you the curves. But the problem is the curves are great and it’s smooth, but then you have another curve that goes the other way. That’s probably the hardest one. And we’ve had – it causes some problems like that.

[00:18:08] And then the next thing we’re working on, there’s actually a curve like that where we actually slice the back end of it to give it that curve we’re looking for. So you put a lot of slices in the foam on the back side of it too so you can get that convex curve. And it’s just – you’ve got to work with foam to realize what happens with it. And it’s just the more you work with it, the more tricks you learn.

[00:18:25] And, to be honest with you, I think we should do a video someday on how to do that, to teach people how to do those curves.

[00:18:31] Yeah, good idea. I did a lot of curve work. This is the first airplane I’ve worked with with the actual foam board with the paper on it. Everything I’ve done previously is fan-fold with no foam on it. It’s got a very, very thin plastic that I peel off sometimes, depending. But these curves, actually, I was surprised how nicely the fan-fold would curve. In my process for that, the table wasn’t real conducive for me, even on your airplane. It just didn’t work out for me.

[00:19:02] So I revered with my old system of using a half-inch PVC pipe and rolling it on my belly. That’s the move, yeah. Yeah, and it worked out really well. So this is where being a little on the pudgy side works in my favor. But the PVC really was able to allow me to give it a good curve and even a tapered curve where it was wider at one end or tighter at the other.

[00:19:23] That’s actually one of the tricks I’d like to do because I want to show people how to do that. I have different sizes of PVC tubing, and a lot of times at work, they throw out tubing, and I can bring it home. And I’ll just take it home, and you can use all these because I’ve got, like, five-inch diameter tubing. And there’s, like, four inches and three inches because it all works for different types of curves you’re doing. So that helps out a lot, yeah.

[00:19:45] Yeah, it’s just I found the half and three-quarters is what I use most of the time. And if I need something tighter or curved, I just apply more pressure to it and roll it more. If it doesn’t need to be such a tight curve, I don’t push on it quite as hard. And it just seems to work really well. I was really surprised how easy it was to do.

[00:20:04] That’s good. Yeah, I’m glad you – I mean, there’s a guy that posted a picture of one of the ones he made. And he – I don’t know how old he was, but he was – he was the first foam board plane he ever built, and it looked awesome. He did a great job on it. I was surprised, I mean, to know that he built that complex of a foam board plane in the first one he built, and he did it perfect. I mean, it looked awesome. So it was nice to see that.

[00:20:26] It was nice to see, I guess, Jack’s video must have worked out pretty good. I mean, sure, you watched it. It’s pretty detailed.

[00:20:32] Yeah, I got to listen to Jack for four and a half hours.

[00:20:36] With a voice very calm and soothing for you.

[00:20:39] Did you fall asleep? If he said muscle memory one more time, I was going to reach through and smack him.

[00:20:46] So, okay, Jack, you are the designer and the builder. Steve, you said you’re the finisher, painter, kind of the finish man. Yeah. How did you decide to split the responsibilities between who does what, and how does that – like, do you get input from the beginning on how I want to paint this, or does Jack tell you, okay, well, I’m going for this design. It needs to look like this. Do I need to change anything, or how does that – the relationship between you guys work with that?

[00:21:20] I think while Jack’s building the plane, I’m already thinking, like, how do we want to paint it? Like, so I’ll always probably go online and find out, like, different kind of paint schemes, and, obviously being 13 squadron, we’re kind of crazy about the number 13. We try to find planes that have the number 13 on it, and sometimes you can’t find it. But, we’ve done the Falk Wolf before. We had a 13 one on – number 13 on that, painted scheme on that.

[00:21:41] It was an actual real one. And then this one here, I like – this was Heinz Barr, and he was, a famous German ace, and he flew in a bunch – like, he flew in the F-109, the F-W-190. He flew in the ME-262, and he kept going. But that was his paint scheme with the number 13 on it. So, like, let’s do this one, and I just like the way it looked, too, so I painted it that way as well.

[00:22:06] So I just liked it, and I just got it ready while he was building it, and I kind of drew up all the patterns and stuff to get it to scale, and he was okay with it. So he said, go for it. I’m like, okay.

[00:22:18] I will say, too, the one thing –.

[00:22:19] Nope, go on.

[00:22:21] I will say the one thing too, regarding who has what job or the initial startup part there. I guess my – I’ll speak for my dad a little bit here, where he went to school to like – I don’t want to say play with arts and crayons, but –

[00:22:35] Yeah, play with crayons.

[00:22:37] But he has always been an artist and kind of always in that world, whereas I always kind of grew up, like, in that engineering mindset and always wanted to be building things. I guess Legos. I was a big Lego kid. So I always had, like, the builder’s mindset, and it’s kind of what I love to do anyway. So it kind of worked out like a nice, perfect harmony.

[00:22:58] Honestly, too, my grandpa, who was my dad’s dad in this story, he’s the one who was building these planes, and my dad kept asking him to paint it up or he should build this nice one, and he’ll paint it up nice for him. I don’t want to say I was the perfect son, but not really. But I just – it’s kind of cool that I can build them for him, and he can paint them all nice and stuff. So it worked out great in that sense.

[00:23:18] Yeah, it’s good that you each found that you’re able to do what you like to do on the project.

[00:23:23] Yeah.

[00:23:24] That way you’re not doing something you don’t have time with.

[00:23:28] My dad will still have, like, some inputs on, I should do this or that and something, but all you should just – well.

[00:23:35] You should always listen to your parents.

[00:23:37] Yes, exactly. Thank you. Thank you very much. I’m not the only one who says that. Okay.

[00:23:43] He’ll change his tune when he has kids.

[00:23:45] Yes. But, no, like, while Jack’s building, I’ll always tell him and give him my opinion on it, because he’ll have, like, some angle won’t look right. I’m like, Jack, that’s not looking right, and you’ve got to change that up or something. He’s like, Dad, I know what I’m doing. Leave me alone. But usually he is kind of right in some things, but sometimes I’ll just give him the thought about it, and maybe he’ll look at it differently.

[00:24:06] So we’ll try to get – because he’s a stickler about just getting all the angles right and making sure it works out right. So – and speaking of that, too, like, getting all the angles right, just because it looks scaled doesn’t mean we’d make it scale. Like, for the BF-109 that we just made there, if you build things scale, it doesn’t always fly scale. I think you guys might know that. But we have to make the –

[00:24:26] Oh, yeah.

[00:24:27] The rudder, the vertical stabilizer is bigger than what the original one is, obviously, because those things are so small, and we just made it a little bit bigger so that it can handle a little bit, better in the wind. But, you just got to learn to do those things after a while, flying a bunch of planes. You figure out what you need to change from scale to reality for, scale airplanes.

[00:24:48] I was going to say, the BF-109 presents itself very well. The lines look nice on it.

[00:24:54] Thank you. Thank you.

[00:24:56] So from – because you’re talking about, you have to change things, change the shape, make it, give yourself more control authority and that kind of stuff. So from the time that you decide, okay, this is the plane we’re going to make to prototype to, okay, now we’re ready to go into production, what kind of time frame are you talking about?

[00:25:16] Specifically with the 109, because that’s the only one that we’ve truly had that option to do that for so far. There were some slight setbacks with, like, just getting the business up in general. But I think, honestly, it’s around the three-month mark.

[00:25:31] It’s not bad at all. Yeah, that’s very fast.

[00:25:35] Now, I guess it really depends on with school. Like, that’s, like, in the summertime of me just working on it and all that I want to do is that kind of thing. But with school, it definitely sets it back because I’m actually in my senior year of college, so that’s a pretty big setback, I think.

[00:25:50] A big setback. Setback, yeah. I guess for this side of things, yes, it is. I get it.

[00:25:57] Good in life, but bad setback for this.

[00:25:59] Right. So while you’re away at school, then, you make Dad handle all the heavy work and take care of everything?

[00:26:04] Yes.

[00:26:06] Dad’s cutting kits 24-7, huh?

[00:26:09] Yeah, actually, to be honest with you, Jack cuts a lot of the kits. So, I mean, it was, like, 20-some degrees here that day, and Jack was out there cutting kits.

[00:26:19] Dave got one my dad cut, by the way.

[00:26:22] Dad explains it. That’s funny.

[00:26:25] No, but Jack is way better at cutting the laser than I am. He kind of points me in the right direction. it’s funny. A lot of people think, I’m the older guy here. I’d probably help run the business and do this. It’s basically Jack. Jack does a lot of this stuff. And I’m just, like, overlooking it and, making sure and helping out with a few things here and there. But I do have a lot of opinions, and I’d say stuff.

[00:26:45] But, he’s running the show. I mean, he set up the whole website. He set up all the stuff. I did set up – here’s the other thing. I mean, a lot of the stuff we’ve been doing for years, and it’s been, like, we’ve been paying a lot of money to just give stuff away for free.

[00:26:59] So it’s kind of nice to now put some stuff out there and, I think, put a kid out there for a reasonable price for everybody and just actually get paid back for some of the stuff we’ve been doing for free for so years ago. Because, I mean, it costs – it’s not cheap to run on a website sometimes. So you’ve got to put it out there.

[00:27:15] Yeah.

[00:27:16] So it’s nice. It’s nice to do this as a hobby and kind of get paid for it as well. So we’re just hoping everybody enjoys what we’re doing, and appreciates it. So it’s kind of nice to do it now.

[00:27:26] Yeah. I understand that. It’s good to kind of give back while getting something back, too, if that makes sense. Oh, yeah. So –

[00:27:36] It’s like after doing it for free for so long, I feel kind of guilty charging people. But it’s like, to do that, you do have to charge some to kind of make –

[00:27:46] I have to say the price is very reasonable, and that’s one of the reasons I actually bought it. It was like I can’t believe they’re only charging this much for it. I’ve got to see what this is. Well, thanks. And quite –

[00:27:58] Yeah, I mean, compared to a Balsa plane, that’s probably a lot of money compared to a Balsa plane. I mean, a Balsa plane is a lot more, so. Yeah.

[00:28:06] Yeah, it can be. Balsa is a lot more expensive, so it’s – Yeah. Yeah. So any thoughts, since you brought up Balsa, of going to do a Balsa kit at any time? Or are you guys going to specifically stick?

[00:28:19] Yeah, I think foam board. I do like foam board. Well, you like it, too. But I think with flight tests, what do you think of foam board when you think of foam board planes?

[00:28:33] Well, I was going to say, when I think of foam board planes, I think of flat foamies, personally. Yeah, because that’s what I’ve dealt with.

[00:28:43] And I’ve built a lot of the fan fold. Like I said, this is the first time I’ve worked with the foam board. A lot of changes I had to make in my building process because of the paper situation. I could go either way, really.

[00:29:03] See, I’m thinking that most people who think of foam board planes, they think, combat. We’re going to throw it up in the air and blow it up and wreck it and build again and do it again and all over again.

[00:29:13] Duct tape.

[00:29:13] That’s what I think a lot of people think of. And I think, yeah, I think they’ve brainwashed everybody into thinking that it’s going to be that you just build a foam board plane so you can throw it up in the air and crash it. I mean, whereas I think we kind of think of foam board as, it can be nice. Yes. It can be a nice plane.

[00:29:30] That’s another thing.

[00:29:31] It’s very scalable looking.

[00:29:33] People always.

[00:29:34] Yeah. I mean, you can make a foam board look really nice if you want to. It’s just, I think people have been brainwashed so much. They’re like, oh, it’s a foam board. It’s a piece of crap. You just throw up in the air. You learn a lot. And then you move to balsa,. But I just think that you can build this really nice plane out of foam board. Just don’t crash it,.

[00:29:52] Well, that’s the same for any plane, honestly.

[00:29:55] Yeah, exactly. And a foam board is really cheap compared to balsa. So you can still build a really scaled, nice looking plane, and it’s good.

[00:30:03] I went and spent $2.27 And got two brand new boards. I had to go to some sketchy neighborhoods to find it, but we got it.

[00:30:15] Yeah.

[00:30:15] So, I mean, the material cost to experiment with is negligible. Right.

[00:30:21] Yeah. I was going to say you can build a whole plane for the cost of a drink when you go out to eat.

[00:30:28] Exactly. I mean, we’re blessed here. Where I live, I’ve got $5 trees. Surrounding me within a mile. Oh, wow.

[00:30:36] Yeah.

[00:30:36] It’s amazing. I can’t believe it. Like, I looked at them like, wow, there’s one there. There’s one another. And there’s five of them right around. So if they’re out one place, I go down the street and there’s another one. I go down the street, there’s another one. So they all know me now when I go there. We’ve got so much foam board. They’re like, what do you do with this foam board? I’m like, I build airplanes. They’re like, what? I’m like, yeah, it’s a long story.

[00:30:55] I’ll be back next week.

[00:30:57] It’s like they know me at Lowe’s when I go in and buy paint samples. Oh, building another airplane, are you?

[00:31:02] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because I need just an ounce of this color and ounce of that color.

[00:31:06] Oh, the Lowe’s samples are just so nice. Yeah. I mean, that’s the way to do it. And they’re cheap. They’re like four bucks now. They used to be three.

[00:31:14] Well, everything’s going up there.

[00:31:16] I know. I know. Yep.

[00:31:19] I was going to say, just to touch on one thing, too, while I guess my dad gave his perspective. One thing I wanted to do with 13 Squadron and kind of something I saw is that there wasn’t really like an entry option for scratch build scale planes that you can get like every detail that you want to in the RC community or in that world.

[00:31:40] So that’s kind of my main idea with 13 Squadron is I want to have kind of that starting option for the beginner that wants to try their hand at making something scale but not break the bank too much. And they can put as much or as little detail as they want, but it’s just a good stepping stone into the scale world. And they can go from there with balls of planes and eventually reach the giant one-fifth scales of rolly engine, blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:03] It’s just – it’s a good starting point, I feel. At least that’s my vision is to help those builders out that want to do that.

[00:32:09] I was going to say, it doesn’t even have to be a starting point. That could be the end point. I mean, it’s whatever you want to do in the hobby. As long as that makes you happy, then there’s no necessary next goal of moving on to Balsa or anything like that to each their own.

[00:32:24] Right. And your dad has just detailed this little 109 out to an unbelievable level for a foam and paper airplane. Who would ever guess that you could do something that nice? I certainly didn’t take the effort to put all the panel lines and the rivets and all that in. And, I mean, obviously yours looks much nicer than mine, but I know mine’s going to have a rougher life. It’s going to be thrown in the back of the truck. It’s going to get bounced around.

[00:32:50] I’m going to fly the heck out of it. That’s okay, though. Yeah. But that’s what I wanted out of it.

[00:32:53] Yeah.

[00:32:55] Yeah.

[00:32:57] He’s just a little crazy, though. That’s why.

[00:32:59] It’s all the paint fumes. The rest is only going to get to you, man. At least he’s happy. Yeah.

[00:33:09] Okay.

[00:33:11] So talk to me a little bit about how you do your finishing and painting on the foam board, because I have not ever done that. So talk to me like I don’t know what I’m talking about, because I don’t.

[00:33:23] Well, in case you do want to know, I do have a paint video out there as well. So you can check that out. It’s on YouTube for 13 Squadron. But, yeah, I mean, I wanted to put down – I hear a lot of people like to seal it first. Once you build the plane, it’s all the foam board. And then you – well, some of this – I’ll try to think of the steps that I do when I do it. Obviously, people don’t go the same detail I do, so I’m kind of nuts and crazy about it because I like detail.

[00:33:50] And I might have some OCD problems with that, but that’s part of my life. But, no, I just – it’s a plain foam board, but then you have exposed edges in there. And those exposed edges of the foam, like if you don’t cover those when you spray the spray pan there, that’s going to melt the foam. It’ll eat up, eat it up,. So you have to cover those. So anything that’s exposed of that, I cover with Elmer’s glue, and that gets covered up, and it’s all – it seals the problem.

[00:34:18] So you can paint on that all you want. There’s no problem there. But after that, I kind of paint the whole plane with polyurethane, with oil – oil-based polyurethane. Not water-based, but oil-based. Water-based will make the paper crinkle and peel off and stuff. So – and you do that – everything you do is light coats. So you don’t want to do heavy. You want to keep it all light.

[00:34:39] So I put that on there, and then if you wanted, you could have done that before with all the panel lines and stuff where I draw with a pencil to give the detail and the rivets and all that kind of stuff. So – which I wish I would have done more on the paint – the BF-109 because I think it looks really cool there and put more detail on it. But I didn’t do that because it was being recorded, and it took long to do that.

[00:35:01] So – but – and then you just do light coats of, Rust-Oleum or Krylon. It doesn’t matter which paint you use. People are like, you’ve got to use Rust-Oleum two times. Like, no, you don’t. You can use Krylon. You can use Rust-Oleum. You could probably use Lowe’s brand of spray paint. you’re fine. You can use whatever you want there. But make sure you do it in light coats.

[00:35:22] Like, sometimes do a few coats of it just in light to make it, solid, but do just light coats at each time. And, some people can go get their details for, like, for the insignias and all that stuff, and they go to – what’s that girl’s name?

[00:35:38] Callie Graphics.

[00:35:39] Callie Graphics. You can get some stuff from her. She does some great stuff. But me being the way I am, I just like to paint things on myself and do it like that. So that’s the way I do it, but you can do whatever you want. I’m not telling you how to do it. So it’s your plane,. So – but, yeah, I mean, you just paint it, whatever design you want, and just do light coats. That’s all I got to say. Don’t do anything heavy.

[00:36:02] And, like I said, if you wanted to get real details, I’ve got, like, another three-hour video on how I painted the thing. So I don’t want to get too much detail for you because I could be here a long time talking about it. But those are the basics.

[00:36:15] Yeah, video does much better for stuff like that because you can actually see what you’re talking about as opposed to just trying to visualize it. So I get you. So what’s next for the 13th Squadron? I know you have another kit coming out here in the next month or so, but what’s the future plans for the company?

[00:36:34] Yeah, so at least obviously right now we only have one kit out, but the ultimate future plans, of course, have many more of all different styles, more than just World War II and some general aviation in there and different amount of engines and stuff. But, I mean, the immediate future is definitely going to be the next kit, which is the Hawker Hurricane at a one-tenth scale.

[00:36:55] And that just directly goes with the BF-09 because they’re kind of very famous adversaries in the Battle of Britain. And I think I didn’t want to the Spitfire first only because I know that the Spitfire has kind of been done a little bit recently in the foam board community. But I know that the Hurricane would still be popular and it’s just a great plane all around by itself. But those two planes go together very well.

[00:37:16] But I mean, from there, I want to start adding a lot more detail into the build itself and not just – I mean, I think if anyone’s aware of the kit at all, you’ll know that it has 3D printed parts that you can download off of Thingiverse. And I want to ultimately be able to include those in the actual kit. And we simply just don’t have the 3D printers to be able to do that for everyone right now. But that is definitely a future goal at the moment.

[00:37:42] But I think just ultimately just adding as much detail as I can into every kit and having that option for people is the future for 13 Squadron.

[00:37:52] Very nice.

[00:37:54] Yeah, that would be nice. Maybe have that as an optional add-on you can purchase as all the parts and pieces that are 3D printed.

[00:38:01] I’m going to get a set of at least the guns printed for the giveaway. If I can get it stuffed in the box, I’ll have a spinner in there as well. But I’m not sure I can get a spinner in the box.

[00:38:13] Okay. How did you like that spinner? Was it pretty easy to print and easy to work with?

[00:38:18] Yeah, it was really easy. I told my brother, hey, go to Thingiverse and print this. And two days later, it showed up at my house in a Ziploc bag. Nice.

[00:38:27] Yeah, his brother just got a new printer. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but he sent me pictures of it and I have printer envy.

[00:38:33] Yeah, it’s like a multicolor thing. I don’t print. I’ve got the vinyl cutter, so.

[00:38:40] Yeah, 3D printer is one of those things that it’s great to know somebody that has one.

[00:38:43] So this kit will at least go out with the guns. It may or may not have a spinner, depending on if it fits in the box or not.

[00:38:50] Cool. That threw me off. I don’t remember what I was going to ask next.

[00:38:56] I’ll just say, too, while you’re thinking that, Ron, we’re still running with the Ender 3 V2, for those listening, which is a very basic printer, I’ll just say.

[00:39:04] Yeah, I bought a 3D printer- God it’s been seven years ago, maybe- from Amazon, and it’s- let’s just say it hasn’t been used for probably six years at this point because it’s all the stuff and because I don’t do much with 3D printing. But I will say, all the stuff that I disliked about that printer seems to have been fixed with some of these new ones that are out.

[00:39:28] So it might be time for me to kind of start paying attention to what’s out there and getting back into it a little bit.

[00:39:35] Yeah, I think Jack is looking into a possible bamboo one later.

[00:39:38] I think that’s what Dave’s brother bought. Is there a P1 or an S1? I have no idea what you’d buy it. All I know is it looks big, and it had a bunch of color things on top, which would be something very nice to have.

[00:39:57] But even the parts he printed for me were his old one, and it was broken at the time, and it still printed them just fine. Nice.

[00:40:05] I’d like to also add, too, for the future of 13 Squadron, too, Jack does all these really awesome, really detailed designs. I mean, he does design a lot of the planes, but I can design some. So you’re going to do your own? I mean, just being in the – I did design a SIG cadet, but I can’t really sell that because, copyright infringement. I don’t want to do that. But, but it flies awesome.

[00:40:30] So I’m trying to design because, like I said, I don’t fly, but I was trying to learn how to fly last year. Jack was teaching me, and I was having fun doing it. But I think the fun part about it was, like, just when it was slow and the wind was holding it up there and just gliding through.

[00:40:43] So I’m kind of trying to design something new like that for a kit we can just get rid of because I don’t think everybody’s going to want to, build all these highly detailed ones. So I’m going to try to design something that’s a little simpler for everybody. They could probably build in the afternoon and just get up in the air and start flying. Yeah, something very basic without –

[00:41:01] Quick build kit. Yeah, something like that would be nice. Yeah.

[00:41:04] But I just want to build something that just flies very well and, it just gets up in the air and you can be done with it in an afternoon. You still feel like you built something because everybody likes to build something. I mean, not everybody. But people, if they do want it, like, they want to start off building something simple and they can go from there. And that’s kind of my goal, what I want to do. So you might see something simple come out soon as well.

[00:41:24] There you go. A nice evening build or something like that where you feel like you’ve accomplished something before you actually go fly it. I get it. Nice. One of the last things I wanted to ask, we talked a little bit beforehand, what kind of laser do you guys use?

[00:41:40] Yeah, so we use an Ohmtech 80-watt 24×36. So that gives us all the power and more that we need to cut foam board and wood, I guess, too.

[00:41:51] I have laser envy. That’s nice. I would love to eventually get one that’s a little bit bigger than what we have. That actually would be useful for more cut or kit building or something like that.

[00:42:03] You almost probably cut ribs, right?

[00:42:05] Pretty much, yeah, like two or three at a time. But, no, that’s a very nice laser. That’s awesome.

[00:42:12] Yeah, I guess we had to save up for a little bit, we’ll be honest. But the biggest challenge was we wanted something that could cut a full piece of foam board, which is 20 by 30 inches, of course. And this one size that we found at Ohmtech was 20 by 28. And we’re like, oh, well, we just needed that little bit, two more inches. Two more inches, yeah.

[00:42:34] It was well worth paying the extra money to make that foam board fit on there, because otherwise you’d have to adjust all your plans. Eventually, we’d probably want to get the bigger one later. So we’re like, what? Let’s just pay the extra for it now and deal with it. Yeah. And I’m glad we did.

[00:42:48] Yeah, that’s smart. That’s just a one and done. Right. you guys are going to be into it. you’re going to be using it. It’s going to pay for itself eventually. Right. It’ll get a workout. So, well, very awesome. Is there anything else you guys want to talk about before we get off of here?

[00:43:05] You already think about that.

[00:43:08] It’s all these questions. I know I came at you with all of them, but now it’s your turn.

[00:43:12] I guess one question we have for you guys is, what’s your favorite planes?

[00:43:18] Oh, that’s a tough one. I have, I am a Yak fan. I like the Yak-54. Okay.

[00:43:28] American fighters. American fighters, right. Yeah. I’m really partial to the F-15. That’s the bird.

[00:43:36] Yeah, see, the F-15 is cool looking, but it’s just not, the F-18 is so much nicer than that one, I think. But it all goes back, I think, to your childhood. Like, I grew up with the Blue Angels with the original F-18. So, to me, that is the fighter jet.

[00:43:49] And then, my brother-in-law working for Lockheed, and there are all those companies, he’s actually a contractor for a contractor for a contractor with the F-22s.

[00:44:01] Yeah.

[00:44:01] So, I’ve got a very, up close and personal with some of the F-22s. And I consider the F-22 an offshoot of the F-15. Yeah.

[00:44:10] I mean, why?

[00:44:15] It’s just, just look at it.

[00:44:17] I guess I asked that question. I was going to say I asked that question because I like having a long list of airplanes that people request And I want to add those planes to the list of planes to design in the future.

[00:44:28] Well, the Yak would be pretty easy. It’s a nice round fuselage. A lot of forming. Yeah, but pretty round.

[00:44:36] Forgive my lack of Yak knowledge, but is it like a Yak, I don’t know.

[00:44:41] So, the 54, it’s a smaller aerobatic airplane. Kind of like the X or the Edge or something along those lines. And it is, it looks a lot like a Sukhoi. I don’t know if what those look like. But it’s, the fuselage is just very round all the way down.

[00:45:01] It’s a Sharpie with wings. Pretty much, yeah.

[00:45:04] And the only reason I’m partial to those is because that was my first big RC airplane.

[00:45:08] And I just like the looks of them.

[00:45:12] So, there you go. Put that on your list of things to do.

[00:45:17] Actually, I guess that’s a, I guess one thing we can talk about briefly if you want. I have, the whole list I have is all planes I have that I want to design. But they’re all, I had to do a giant spreadsheet at first to figure out what’s the smallest plane, what’s the biggest plane I’m going to design. And I found that a one-tenth scale fits them all in a great size for kits. And the BF-09 was the smallest at a 39-inch wingspan.

[00:45:40] And I guess, I feel okay saying this, but the Atat 152 would be a 56-and-a-half-inch wingspan. So. Yeah, it’s a longer, just a. Longer wing.

[00:45:49] Yeah.

[00:45:51] I think that’d be the biggest I would probably go with the size of motor I would use for all the planes.

[00:45:58] For the record, Jack did design a F-15 at one time. And for what, 250 millimeter?

[00:46:06] 270.

[00:46:07] 270 millimeters. And he started it, but he didn’t finish it yet. But there are some pretty cool things that he tried to do with it. And some 3D printed things where he had, well, he’ll tell you.

[00:46:17] See, my dad kind of jumped the gun here. I’ll be honest. I was going to get to that, just to tell you there, Dave. But this was an F-15 that I was gifted these EDF motors with my friend. 4S rated. But I wanted to see if I could, and I’ll just say it here. I wanted to see if I could make baby powder come out the wingtips, like wingtip vortices, or like artificial wingtip vortices.

[00:46:40] Yeah, that’d be cool.

[00:46:43] I 3D printed this whole mechanism for my freshman year mechanical engineering, like SOLIDWORKS class final, basically. It actually, I mean, I got to get great on it. That’s a sub-note, I guess. But it actually, it does work pretty well. I just haven’t been able to test it in the air yet, of course, because the plane hasn’t been finished yet. But I just, I like the F-15. I want to see if it works.

[00:47:06] It’s a lot of wing area on the F-15, and a lot of flat sides, so it transitions to a model. Really nice because you don’t have all those compound curves.

[00:47:17] That is true. There’s not a lot of roundiness on it. Speaking of flat, you could do an F-117 Stealth Fighter.

[00:47:24] That’s all flat.

[00:47:25] That would be very cool. I remember I downloaded plans for that. But it’s been probably a long time ago, probably 10 years ago, and I never really got around to building it. But that would be a neat one out of foam board.

[00:47:38] How about some turbines out of foam board? How do you like that?

[00:47:41] Oh, you could try.

[00:47:43] I don’t think that’s going to happen.

[00:47:45] I’ve seen plenty of actual foam airplanes that have been converted into turbines. Really? Yeah. There’s a lot of people that take the E-Flight Viper, the 90-millimeter Vipers, and put turbines in those. I know. So it can’t be done. It’s not going to melt the foam.

[00:48:04] That’s why my dad’s the painter. I’m the builder designer.

[00:48:10] That would be kind of cool, though. Just a cheap, simple flying foam board turbine.

[00:48:20] That’d be neat. I don’t think it would hold up to air pressure.

[00:48:25] Fly slow.

[00:48:28] A lot of carbon fiber. Something I would like to see in a multi-engine is something like an AC-130. Oh, there you go. Yeah. That’d be nice.

[00:48:37] I’ll say, Ryan, you mentioned earlier in the podcast that foam board kind of can be the peak. I think that’s definitely where I’m at with my goal and the RC hobby, at least, is just to push the limits of foam board that I can all the way. But I think you just found a new possible way to test it, I think, in the future.

[00:48:53] See, you could go with nitro. You could go with gasoline. You could do a whole bunch of things with foam board.

[00:48:58] I’ve never even flown any one of those besides foam board.

[00:49:02] Well, nobody has done it yet, so you can be the first.

[00:49:07] That sounds like a plan. Might be the last, too.

[00:49:11] You never know. I mean, until you do it, you don’t know.

[00:49:15] Exactly.

[00:49:17] Okay. Well, I think I’m finished with what I had. Dave, you got anything?

[00:49:22] No, I’m good. I just want to thank you guys for producing an excellent kit. It builds up a beautiful-looking airplane. And that’s all I’ve got.

[00:49:32] Well, thanks, guys, for coming on. I do appreciate it. I will give you the last word.

[00:49:39] Well, I guess I just want to say, I guess, thank you to everyone for choosing to listen to this podcast alone. And thank you, Ron and Dave and Tom, listening at some point, for having us on here. But I want to say 13squadron.com is where you can find everything about us and anything more. Look in the future, of course, for the Hurricane kit, along with some future stuff coming down the line. And thank you so much for having us on here.

[00:50:02] All right. Well, thank you very much. Until next time, I’m Ron. I’m Dave.

[00:50:07] I’m Jack.

[00:50:08] And I’m Steve. And thank you. You need to ask me first, by the way, before you say goodbye. Oh, I’m sorry. No, that’s okay. I just wanted to thank you guys again for having us on here and making us feel like we’re important enough to come on and talk about RC stuff. We’re kind of just doing this for fun and for a hobby. And I’m just glad that people find it interesting enough to buy kits from us. And it’s really appreciative of anybody who buys one.

[00:50:30] Even people who don’t buy them, I appreciate that. In fact, they find interest in it. So I thank you all very much for all that. And it means a lot to us. So I really appreciate it.

[00:50:38] Well, very nice. Thank you very much, guys. And then I will do this again. Then I’m sorry I left you out.

[00:50:44] No, it’s totally fine. It’s totally fine.

[00:50:47] I figured you would have said something before I got in. So my bad.

[00:50:51] Jack ripped the mic from me so I couldn’t do it.

[00:50:54] I heard that. Now that I think back a little bit, I think I heard the rippage.

[00:50:58] Yes, exactly.

[00:50:59] Anyway. All right. Well, thanks, guys.

[00:51:02] Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[00:51:03] All right. Until next time, I’m Ron. I’m Dave. I’m Jack. And I’m Steve. Good night.

[00:51:09] Good night.

[00:51:10] Good night.

[00:51:11] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com. Or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle. Bye-bye.