Letters to the Editor
Send your Letters to the Editor to: Model Aviation, 5151 East Memorial Drive, Muncie IN 47302
Hard-Working Instructors
Just a short note to bring up a situation that I believe deserves consideration by all. I am now learning to fly RC with a member of our club, The Sun Dancers of Port St. Lucie, Florida.
There should be some recognition or other to reward these individuals for all their efforts to teach others and to get more people involved. As far as I know, these people are forgotten when another of us finally learns to fly. There is no benefit or other recognition given to these people who give up so much of their time to helping others.
Without their efforts, I am sure that there would be many more new pilots who would give up in the first years of being a member of AMA and drop out due to not having someone to help them get started. In our club, one member, Dave Dickinson, assists all who need help and instruction on Sunday mornings—the day some of us have to fly. During the week there are others who help teach, but again, there is no recognition of their efforts.
I would like to see AMA create a designation such as "Official Instructor" or something similar for these invaluable helpers. Without them, the growth of AMA will be slow or receding, as others drop out at year's end. There should be some reward for these hard-working people.
Roger Campfield Port St. Lucie, Florida
Sokoff Mystery Solved
Roger Rowley of St. Petersburg, Florida called to advise that he has discovered the source for the "missing" Sokoff cleaner mentioned in Joe Wagner's "The Engine Shop" column a few months back (it had been discontinued by Sears).
Sokoff is available for $9.99/pint from Colonial Garden & Kitchen, (800) 245-3399.
Roger Rowley St. Petersburg, Florida
Winter Welcome
Tucson International Modelplex Park Association would like to welcome winter visitors to one of our/your finest RC and Free Flight facilities in the USA.
We offer cool winter mornings (50s) followed by warm (70–80°) afternoons every day all winter. Open seven days a week, dawn to dark. A totally unobstructed 160 acres, a 750 x 50-foot paved runway, six pilot stations on asphalt, grass areas, an 84 x 18 covered ramada with concrete floor, local telephone, and drinking water from our own well, 4 x 8-foot work tables, and a 100 x 40-foot steel building to store equipment and charge batteries. On premises 24-hour, seven-days-a-week people security.
We also have three (yes, three) square miles of Free Flight area—no trees, no facilities, no obstructions. We also hope to have CL circles soon. A model rocketry area is also available.
The only cost to you is a current AMA membership and $3 per day to allow us to keep up the facility (or $50 for a one-year unlimited pass).
We are located 15 miles from town, or four miles from the world-renowned Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We would like to see all AMA members visit us this winter (not all the same day, please!) for a warm welcome.
For more info, please contact Jack Clarke, 2833 W. Calle Carapan, Tucson AZ 85745; Tel.: (520) 624-6927.
Paul Garrison Tucson, Arizona
Still Going Strong
This is a picture of my first RC model. It is a two-year-old Tower Trainer 40. I am 15 years old and have flown RC for two years.
With this airplane I have had many exciting weekends. After its first year the original factory-applied covering was looking dilapidated. It was full of holes and soaked with fuel.
So my dad recovered it for me and he did a great job.
It now has a new lease on life, and I am still flying it every weekend I can.
T. J. Wingard Bethany, Illinois
Letters to the Editor
They Loved It!
In view of AMA's interest in promoting modeling with our youth, I thought I would relate an interesting experience I recently had with a preschool class of four-year-olds.
The preschool features a Fathers Day every year, during which the dads visit the classroom and describe or demonstrate what they do for a living. I recently received an "emergency" call from my son Bruce to be a "surrogate dad" because a symphony rehearsal prevented him from participating with my grandson Kevin's class. Since I'm retired, I decided to demonstrate instead what I did for fun by taking one of my RC airplanes.
I chose my Goldberg Mirage, a classy-looking 54-inch-wingspan electric airplane with a motor that can be operated indoors, so the kids could see that "it really runs."
The "oohs and aahs" that occurred when I brought it into the room showed that the kids were in a pleasantly receptive mood. I had previously briefed Kevin about how to operate the sticks on the transmitter so he could demonstrate the movement of the control surfaces after I had described them to the kids. Kevin was on "cloud 9" showing off how he could operate Grandpa's airplane and was thoroughly enjoying impressing his classmates!
During this demonstration, the nose of the Mirage was pointed away from the kids, toward the blackboard, and the motor switch was off for the sake of safety. After I had explained and Kevin had wiggled all of the control surfaces, I then took over the transmitter from Kevin, got a firm grasp on the tail of the airplane, turned the motor switch on, and gave a demonstration of the power of that little .05 motor.
There was no "generation gap" in school that day!
Gene Wilkison Prescott, Arizona
Lite Bipe
John Hunton's Lite Bipe (August 1992 MA) is a wild and fun flier, and it draws a lot of attention at fun-flys. It does an outstanding rolling turn, and on top of that, it was a lot of fun to build.
And it is fun to hear people come up to look at it, and almost all say, "What in the world is that?"
Thanks for the fun.
Nat Shepard Salisbury, North Carolina
Likes the P-61
Let me say that Charlie Chambers' P-61 Black Widow is a most beautiful aircraft. The following relates to an interesting event concerning this aircraft:
An approximately 1/10-scale model of the P-61 Night Fighter was built and tested in the Gust Tunnel at NACA Langley Field, Virginia, in 1943 (stability in gusty weather was, I believe, in question). The model was catapulted through a simulated gust and was observed with high-speed photography.
A curious sidelight was that in order to keep mass moments of inertia and weights at scale magnitudes, a bent steel spar some two inches square and about 12 inches long was designed into the model, the remainder of which was built of spruce and balsa to keep pitch inertias to reasonable levels. The steel spar added only a modest inertia to the roll and yaw inertias. For the most part it added weight where it was needed.
No aesthetics or posturing were a concern here; more serious considerations were at work in this instance.
Question the above? You're talking to the designer.
Reid A. Hull Hampton, Virginia
Help Wanted
I have been flying RC for about two years, but I still have a problem that no one seems to know how to solve.
I am a quadriplegic with enough use of my right arm to control the right joystick of the transmitter, but no way to manipulate the left. I've been flying all this time with a buddy box, just so someone could work the throttle on landings and takeoffs. They have even set beside my wheelchair and reached over to my transmitter to work the left joystick.
There should be a way to manipulate the throttle by mouth, similar to some ultralight cable-and-clothespin rigs. I don't know about rudder; I just want the freedom of flying by myself, like everyone else.
Do you know who can help me? Surely I'm not the first.
Doug Maples dmaples@sixroads.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
