About US

Our Mission Statement:

To provide high quality model airplane kits and plans to model
builders of all ages and backgrounds anywhere the law allows.

Our History:

Warning!! This is probably too long and may be boring. Enter at your
own risk of falling asleep.

Diels Engineering, Inc. was incorporated in April of 1986 when we
offered our first kit appropriately numbered Kit #1, The Boeing F4B-2.
However, we, or maybe I should say, I, David Diels, started drawing
plans and offering them for sale in 1980.

We are a small 1.1 person operation. The .1 is the occasional help I
get from my wife who helps pack bags of hardware, takes shipments to
the post office and complains about how messy my work area is. She is
also adept at helping when we are getting a new kit out with getting
the drawings and tissue stacked for packing and labeling boxes.

I am a retired mechanical design engineer. I worked for 41 years in industry for
several different companies and most recently before retirement for a variety
of NASA aerospace contractors. Diels Engineering is my retirement job.

It is hard for me to write about me. But I have been told that these
web pages sometimes are too impersonal so I'll give you a little of my
history.

I started model building at the age of 11 when a next door neighbor kid
at my dads summer cottage got me interested in his hobby of model
airplanes. He went with us to a local variety store and recommended a
25 cent Guillows all sheet balsa kit of one of the light planes of the
day. I was instantly hooked. That first plane flew off the kitchen
table about 5 or 6 feet to my total delight.

After that over the years I built primarily Comet and Guillow kits and
did some scratch building from magazine plans. I could never afford the
Cleveland kits on a $1 weekly allowance. But in the early 1950's Comet
still had 10 cent stick models. They never flew well as I had no help.
There were no other modelers in the small town I lived in to help me
learn the proper flying techniques. However, I loved to build and over
the years I learned to dislike poorly designed kits wondering if anyone
at the factories ever tried to build their own products.

I also got involved in HO scale model railroading and scratch build
several model ships from plans. Still have most of my stuff packed
away.

I tried my luck at drawing plans late in High School. Built several
models from them with mostly mixed results (read-didn't fly). Took a
mechanical drawing course my senior year knowing I was going to go to
engineering school. That helped me immensely.

Then as I went off to college, met and married my wife Anita, and then
into the Army my model building fell off dramatically. After getting
out of the army I got a real engineering job, we bought a house,
started our family, and I didn't really start back into modeling much
until the mid-1970's when my job required a considerable amount of
travel. I made up a travel tool kit and started building models in the
motel room at night. Visited every hobby shop I could find for
entertainment.

Peanut scale was becoming popular. But I wasn't thrilled with the
choices so I decided in the late 1970's to try my luck at drawing
peanut plans. The first one I decided on was the Boeing XF7B-1. I had
a magazine 3 view enlarged to peanut size and started working on it.
I finally built a prototype model and was surprised to find the parts
actually fit. Several other designs followed and in 1980 I started
selling plans.

My goal from the beginning was to offer different design choices and
make sure that the models could be built as drawn. I have bought the
rights to several Model Builder plans and had a couple others drawn
for me along the way when I didn't have the time to do them myself.
Except for those the entire line has been drawn by me either from my
own first concept or more recently refining some of Nate Sturman's
designs for kitting.

And yes I always build a prototype to check fit of parts. Sometimes,
as in the TBF, I don't like the design and revise it. The TBF for
example took 5 tries to get what I liked.

My goal for the future is to get more kits and plans out there of a
variety of subjects, some known and some perhaps not known at all.
If I live long enough I hope to have at least 100 kits in my line by
the time I go to meet my maker.

Stay tuned to the web site for announcements of comming attractions.

Thanks,

Dave Diels
President (Also sweeper)
Diels Engineering, Inc.

A SPECIAL REQUEST FOR BOOK BUYERS.
IF YOU ORDER BOOKS FROM AMAZON USE THE BUTTON ON OUR
HOME PAGE. WE ARE AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE AND AS SUCH IF
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SMALL %, AND IN THIS BUSINESS ANYTHING HELPS.