Craig - this post is 20 years old, but the Yellow Jacket is exactly what I'm looking to build. I drove one in my youth and it was very safe in corners and stable too. Here's hoping you can email me back directly at be.public@yahoo.com. Thanks, Bob


On Wednesday, May 22, 1996 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Craig Wall wrote:

Don, your email is bouncing. Here is the reply to your email to me:

watland@indirect.com (Don Watland) Wrote:
|
| >"Yellow Jacket" is a W.D. Jackson design- I haven't
| built one yet,
| >but I will, and I do have the plans. I think it's an
| outstanding design.
|
| Could this be the one and same that I build when I was in
| high school ....
| way, way back around '62 or '63? The one I did was mad
| from a single sheet
| of marine plywood for the bottem, and the top deck was
| made by stretching
| muslim over the ribs (maybe the wrong term), and which was
| then doped and
| painted, resulting in a fabric top much like the skin on
| fabric covered planes.
|
| If so, would you let me know how, or from whom I could get
| a set of said plans.
|
| Thanks for the quick response.
|
| Don Watland
| watland@indirect.com

The Yellow Jacket is indeed built that way, but there were a couple
of other nearly identical hydros that Jackson published and which were
again re-published about the time you and I were in highschool and seeing those magazines like BoatBuilder.

Let me ask you one question: do you remember the details of the bottom?

The Yellow Jacket has an additional cut and bevel to form a beveled chine
for high speed turning, whereas the other "pumpkin seed" type hydros that Jackson did and which were around at the same time had the bottom sheet merely gathered at the bow by cutting a dart and pulling it together and fastening
it to the keel. The Yellow Jacket had, besides the true chines, a substantial
stringer that bolstered the bevel chine formed by a cut in the plywood about 4"
in from the true chine. It made the bottom harder to construct, but you could
slide around at full throttle without tripping.

The most popular "other" hydro he had out at the same time was the "Skeeter",
which was almost identical to the Yellow Jacket but did not have the anti-trip
bevel chine bottom.

I have plans for both in my collection. I can send you whichever copy you think
is the correct one- I only do this for people I think are genuinely interested- but
you should know that someone has published a collection of W.D. Jackson's designs, and it's possible that we could be violating a copyright law. For that
reason, I will provide the plans free- IOW's, I don't want money changing hands.

Shoot me an address, and let me know which it is- and I'll get them in the mail.

Craig Wall

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