Letters to the Editor
Send your Letters to the Editor to: Model Aviation, 5151 East Memorial Drive, Muncie, IN 47302
Workbench
In regard to the article in the June 1996 AMA, page 76, "Build an Inexpensive Workbench" by Windy Urtnowski, I liked what I read and decided to make one with minor changes to fit my own personality.
I found a very nice chest of drawers at a swap meet for ten bucks and a coat of paint made it like new. The bench itself is two feet wide and 16 feet long.
My next dilemma was where to put it. I called a contractor-carpenter friend of mine and he built the 16 x 30-foot workshop shown in the picture. The building will be insulated, paneled, air-conditioned, and will have skylights. It's amazing how these little minor projects have a tendency to grow and get away from you!
John Epley Tucson, Arizona
Re: Louver Punching
I can't hope to equal the accuracy attained by Phillip Kent as described in Model Aviation of July 1996. However, a rough-and-ready method of incorporating louvers into fiberglass cowls for proper ventilation, without much aggravation, can be achieved by using the appropriate-width wood chisel, an expendable backing plate of yellow pine, and a beer can with the ends cut out and flattened. Simply lay out the desired pattern, go after it with a chisel, and fix the results inside the fiberglass cowl with strips of fiberglass saturated in thin cyanoacrylate glue. A snap for the rank amateur that I am.
John Grant Austin, Texas
Kudos
I just had to let you know how much I enjoy the AMA magazine. Without a doubt it's the best one out there on the subject of RC flying.
As a beginner to this great hobby, I find the AMA magazine of particular interest, especially the articles on safety and sections for newcomers (like me). Most magazines are geared to experienced pilots, so I look forward to getting the AMA magazine every month.
I also like the coverage that groups get for volunteering time and equipment for people, especially children, with special needs.
One thing I think all the RC magazines miss (lost opportunity?) is the inspiration gained from color pictures of airplanes in flight. I'd be willing to sacrifice half the magazine for more pictures! Especially in the winter, when all you can do is "think" about flying. Don't underestimate the value of good photography.
Hey, on the whole, your mag is great! Keep up the good work! I look forward to every issue!
William Dickinson Jr. Jonesburg, Missouri
Beginner Inquiry
Hi! I just want to say that I really enjoy Model Aviation. It is a great magazine for both beginners and old-timers.
I myself am a beginner. I started out flying with a House of Balsa 2x4, which I crashed about six times, but never beyond repair. I am now flying a Great Planes Trainer 40 and starting a Royal P-51 Mustang project. I need some information from a Mustang builder on what type of color scheme to use, or some documentation from North American. Can anybody help?
Joel McDonald Kirbyville, Texas
Helpful Instructor
This is a letter of appreciation and thanks to my friend and flight instructor Alan Brickhaus, AMA 801. A lot of you out there may know Alan—he flies Control Line competition.
As an instructor, Alan is very professional and as a friend, he is a lot of fun. I feel that with his help I have come a long way in a short time with my control-line airplane. Alan is teaching me more than flying—he is helping me with building techniques and scratch-building.
I know Alan and I will have many more years helping each other fly.
Tom Schnake Golconda, Illinois
Records
Bud Tenny, in his Indoor column in the July 1996 issue of Model Aviation, brings up the possibility of multiple records in the same event in a single day. Several builders, one after the other, set successively higher record times. He asks: Should the AMA issue record certificates for each flight? Let me offer a first-draft opinion.
If the idea is valid in the mean, it should be valid in the extreme. Suppose a group of model builders decides to try to get into the Guinness book of records for the largest number of records set during a contest. They choose an unpopular event, experiment until they develop a record-breaking design, set up a contest for the event and pile up dozens of new "records," arranging that each flight bettered the previous by only a few seconds, and aborting a flight if necessary to leave a cushion for future record attempts.
At the end of the day they claim to have set 75 new records, with each participant demanding on the order of 15 record certificates—one for each of the 15 times he has bettered the flight previous to his!
No! A contest is a contest. It isn't over until it's over. If the first-place flight is a new record, then that is the record.
Consider only a couple of possibilities if those 75 records are permitted:
- At a contest Model A is launched. Model B is launched after Model A. Model B lands and the builder claims a new record. Is this acceptable in view of the fact that Model A, still in flight, has already bested the flight of Model B? If the Model B flight is accepted as a record, what would happen if someone made an official protest?
- Suppose further that several contests are being held at various venues across the country. Will it become necessary to maintain synchronized clocks at these contests and to indicate on the timer's slip the precise time of day to the nearest second (hundredth of a second?) of the launch of the model to insure that the builder receives credit for having set and held a record for 25 or 30 seconds before it was broken by someone at another contest a thousand miles off? You gotta be kidding!
But that's what could happen.
Walter Erbach Lincoln, Nebraska
Help Wanted
AMA Librarian Dick Kennison has the following request for help:
Need help in locating an article by Ken Willard, where he put a single-channel radio in a Guillow kit (S.E.5a?) with a .020 engine. Send responses to Mr. Ray Armstrong, 20611 Wisteria St., Apt. #2, Castro Valley, CA 94546-4161.
Turbulence?
Ron Ray, a member of the Jackson Flyers, whose field is located on Ft. Jackson, S.C., acquired a new 11.0-inch-wingspan airplane. This was the first flight for him with his new plane. It was a windy day. I happened to be recording the flight on a palmcorder.
On his third time around our field, the plane made an erratic maneuver, almost instantly dropping about 10 feet, and then quickly regained altitude and continued on its flight as though nothing had happened. It was very quick and we assumed it was a radio-frequency "hit." The wings looked normal after the landing.
Upon viewing the replay, I realized it must have been a "microburst" rather than a radio-frequency hit. One club member thought it was simply the wind over some low pine trees some distance from the aircraft, but the path of the flight was about 300 feet from the trees. It appeared that the plane had flown through a severe downdraft occupying only a small lateral distance.
In the video it appears that the wingtips "flapped" about 8–10 inches, cracking the wood to which the wings were attached. I have never seen anything just like it.
Bob Lineberger Columbia, South Carolina
An Amazing Hobby
It's amazing how a hobby like RC airplanes can bring so many different people together, and to cooperate. At the North Georgia Flying Circus in Paulding Co., Ga., everyone's always there to help.
I myself am quite shy around people I don't know, but after my first visit to the flying field, that all has changed. I had no trouble finding anyone to help me start out. In fact, my dad and I set our ARF trainer on the flight table, and two people immediately walked over. They said they could tell we were new and they were right. They took a look at it, adjusted a few things, and I watched as something I built flew! The engine quit and it was landed without damage.
Soon, seven people were huddled around my plane fixing everything to perfection and giving advice as fast as they could talk (one of their favorite things to do). At the end of the day, I had gotten two phone numbers for instructors.
That was roughly a year ago, and I'm now 13. Two weeks ago I was an instructor; one of my students could now fly on his own. He is one of those rare die-hard modelers who is out there whether it is windy, wet, or 25°!
It takes me a long time because I was lucky if I would get two Saturdays out of the month, with sports and bad weather.
It seems in our hobby that the members will not stop until they've tackled the problem, whether it be big or small, because I've noticed they feel it's better to help others who are new so they can enjoy it to its fullest.
Thanks Dave, NGFC, and MA. (Sorry, it sounds like an Emmy speech!)
Jason Olsen Acworth, Georgia
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
