FREE FLIGHT: OLD-TIMERS
Bill Baker 1902 Peter Pan, Norman OK 73072
YOUR BEST model ever, with a very expensive and difficult-to-replace ignition engine, just went into the clouds. "Did you get a line on it?" your friends will ask. A fat lot of good a line on the bottom of a big cumulus cloud will be.
With a confident smile you turn on your Walston receiver and hear the reassuring signal from the tiny transmitter attached to the model. It weighs five grams with battery, and yet with the super-sensitive transmitter has an air range of up to 30 miles and a ground range of three miles. The receiver antenna is directional, so it gives maximum signal when pointing at the model.
Even if you can't see the model in the air, you can follow it and find it deep in a forest in the dark if need be. More likely you find it easily and quickly, allowing you to get back to the field to put in that last flyoff flight to win.
At a 1997 contest a rubber flier was happy, as his model easily maxed, and then he waited for the dethermalizer to deploy. And he waited, and the realization grew that it was not going to happen.
He had a compass, binoculars, and a chase bike, and got a good line on the model as it drifted out of sight. He then returned to the field to get into a car and drove seven miles along a road that roughly paralleled the model's path as last seen. There he got out and turned on the receiver, and got a strong signal.
By then the model had been in the air more than 40 minutes. At 44 minutes the signal was silent, meaning the model had landed; the ground range is less than airborne range, as you will remember.
He had a map and a bearing line and knew the wind velocity, and so was able to calculate that in 44 minutes the model was about 18 miles out from the launch point. It took a lot of driving and frustration, but at 9 p.m. the receiver on the dashboard began to beep again. He continued to travel and the signal became stronger as he went.
At last, near a small cornfield, the signal was very strong, and after traveling around the periphery of the field he knew for sure it was in there, and could even tell from signal strength the best side to enter. (He had the farmer's permission to do so.)
Now you need to know it was nearly midnight, moonless, and the flier was flashlightless, but he struggled through the corn trying to keep the receiver antenna untangled. At last he thought he could see something, but maybe it was a corn stalk and not a wingtip. He put out his hand and touched the wingtip. Checking the map, the model was 24 miles from the launch point.
He said lessons learned were to set the DT, bring a flashlight, and never give up.
Another flier's model went into a Georgia pine forest. It was not a long distance from the launch point, but I can testify that they get big, tall, thick pine forests in Georgia. He located the model quickly and, with some difficulty, got it out of the tree it was in using a long pole.
Leaving the forest and walking to the car, he discovered that the transmitter had somehow been lost from the model. Turning on the receiver again, he re-entered the forest and quickly found the tiny transmitter in deep weeds.
In California, a flier gave up the chase after sunset, but the next day resumed the hunt using a private airplane, and following the line soon had a signal from a landfill dump. Driving to the dump, they asked permission to enter, and the guard said, "Sure, but you won't find anything."
The strongest signal was coming from an office building. The guard said, "There ain't no way it's in there." It was, resting on a shelf, undamaged. The dump was 10 miles from the launch point.
Bob Hanford, editor of the Tulsa Glue Dobbers newsletter, wrote of personal retrieval experiences similar to the preceding and concludes, "If you are considering the purchase of a chase bike or a Walston retrieval system, the retrieval system will virtually guarantee that you will find your model; the bike will just help you do it faster."
Lessons Learned
- Set the dethermalizer (DT).
- Bring a flashlight.
- Never give up.
Contacts / Resources
- Tulsa Glue Dobbers newsletter: Bob Hanford, 1608 S. Poplar, Broken Arrow, OK 74012.
- Walston retrieval system information: send SASE to 725 Cooper Lake Rd. SE, Smyrna, GA 30082.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
