Letters to the Editor
Send your Letters to the Editor to: Model Aviation, 5151 East Memorial Drive, Muncie, IN 47302
Little Tiger Update
It looks like we need to update the Little Tiger article (this issue) again.
I went to an AMA contest at Merced, CA and turned 112.81 mph with the Little Tiger, for a best official speed to date.
Dave Hull Santa Clara, California
Correction
Herb Kothe (Boulder, CO) was Rubber Champion at the Society of Antique Modelers (SAM) Championships, held at Muncie in September 1998.
Happy Holidays
You have given me the best Christmas ever. I know you are puzzled as to what you gave me; it was the picture on the cover of the February issue of Model Aviation. I am a member of the Geriatric Flying Aces and we all enjoyed the picture.
Why don't you have more about the Old Days, when model building and flying really started?
I enjoy every aspect of model building and flying, and first joined AMA just as World War II started. When I receive my issue of Model Aviation, the first thing I look for is an article about the '30s and '40s. Your February issue is definitely a "keeper" inasmuch as it has the great article about the SAM Champs Scrapbook.
Let's all hope there is "room for everyone" and not show favoritism to just those that fly Giants, Scale, jets, etc.
Thanks again for the February issue of Model Aviation.
Thermals, Charlie Gibson Colorado Springs, Colorado
Student Training
Each month I enjoy reading "Letters to the Editor." Your recent letters about student training led me to believe you might like to read my story.
I am a longtime member of Lorain County R.C. Club in Ridgeville, Ohio. Sometimes I would run up an engine in my backyard; a young man about 17 would come over to watch; he mowed my grandmother's lawn next door once a week. One fall he came over and asked if I would help him get started in R/C flying. I was happy to. I helped him order a trainer.
The following spring he had the airframe built and covered. We installed an old K&B .40 I had that was still good, and a radio that he purchased. I helped him apply for his AMA license and a membership in our club. Paul Coleman of our instructor team was his teacher. In a few days' time Paul had him flying on his own.
I guess he flew all that summer, and came back to my house once to have the engine mount repaired; I lost track of him for a while.
A year later, he called to say that he had graduated from high school and was taking flight training at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Then he took instrument training. His next move was pilot instructor at Cleveland Airport. And now, four years after learning to fly R/C, he is First Officer for Continental Express, a feeder line for Continental Airlines, operating from Cleveland Hopkins Airport.
Lorain County R.C. Club is an AMA-chartered club, and we are proud to have contributed to the success of First Officer Kevin Haskins.
Elmer G. Oswald Wooster, Ohio
Great Dad
In 1986 my father, Robert Fox, having just started his retirement, decided to rekindle a childhood hobby of model aviation. During his youth in the 1930s and '40s his hobby consisted of Free Flight and Control Line, so the world of Radio Control flying was new and exciting.
He and I joined a local club that summer and started to attend their weekly meetings, anxious to learn as much as we could and get started in building our first airplanes. By the end of the summer we had both been flying solo for some time and we were busy building models for next year.
We traveled to as many swap shops, shows, and fly-ins as we could throughout the Midwest. He became an officer of the club and was always willing to help other modelers with the club's shows, fly-ins, and weekly training classes. He still managed to get at least one flight in every month for 10 consecutive years.
In May of 1998 I went back to Ohio so that he and I could spend a weekend together in Kentucky at one of his favorite shows, the Mint Julep Fly-In. The weather was great for flying, there were many well-built models, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
A few weeks after that show I again returned to Ohio to attend the funeral of my father. His passing was unexpected and took...
Rick Fox Worthington, Ohio
Learning R/C the Hard Way
Yes, I did it the hard way. I taught myself to fly R/C airplanes. I designed and built the airplane I learned to fly, and built a radio control system I used. Now R/C pilots can say with a straight face, "Who's the turkey trying to impress?"
What I have said is true. It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. I started modeling in the early 1950s. As a youngster I built rubber-powered Free Flight kits I could afford on a paltry allowance. Later I built glow-powered Control Line airplanes. In the early '70s I began building and flying R/C airplanes and have had a ball ever since.
My first R/C system was a Heathkit five-channel. Remember the blue box, round enclosed Kraft sticks, ivory-colored Kraft servos? The system came with an RF board and one servo built and tested; the remainder of the system was a bunch of very small loose parts.
Now take a look inside your average radio transmitter (not the computer radios, but the cheaper ones). You don't see much there, do you? Well, nowadays you have integrated circuits (ICs). All of those ICs have many equivalent circuits in them that had to be built.
To the average person, assembling this mess may seem like a monumental task, but I was a young, highly trained Navy electronics tech. I knew the difference between a resistor and a capacitor, and I knew how to solder the Navy way: "The bigger the blob, the better the job."
Actually, building that radio control system was easy, and it was a very good radio system.
Yes, I did design and build my first R/C airplane. It may not have been the greatest trainer in the world, but it flew, and it taught me to fly R/C.
Armed with several construction and how-to articles, I began to design and build my first R/C trainer. I used construction techniques learned the hard way from Free Flight and Control Line modeling, and before long I had a trainer. I had enough of a background in aviation that I knew where things went and how they worked.
My trainer was not that bad, and it did teach a poor young sailor to fly R/C—and do you know what? I never crashed that airplane. I sold the airplane and it was crashed and destroyed, but I did not crash it while learning to fly.
Learning to fly an R/C airplane by myself was the challenge. I did have several advantages that the average fledgling R/C pilot may not have: I had a very good background in aviation and modeling, so I knew what controlled what, when, and where, and I had the use of the ramps and taxiways of a Naval Air Station. I was stationed at a Naval Air Facility in southern California. Not much full-scale flying took place on the weekends, so I had a whole corner of the base to myself.
My flying field was perhaps as big as 20 acres, all concrete and asphalt. I would set my airplane on the runway, and give it the gas. No matter which direction it desired to go in, all I had to do was hold in a little up elevator and wait for liftoff. Having designed, built, and flown Control Line and Free Flight models, I knew what to expect from my trainer, and I found that flying an R/C trainer was much easier than trying to fly a hot Control Line Combat model.
Landing my trainer was also very easy. All I had to do was line up on the runway I chose, reduce the throttle to idle, and keep the wings level. The airplane had enough runway to land itself; I did get a lot of practice taxiing back to myself and I got my exercise walking and running after it. As I flew more and more, my takeoffs and landings became more controlled and my flying improved. I could make that trainer go where I wanted it to go.
About this time I discovered the local R/C club. I was able to get some help with my flying, and I really started to enjoy R/C.
I don't suggest that everyone start modeling as I did. I just wanted to show you what can be done if you have the "want to." Today's R/C fledgling has it very easy to start into this wonderful hobby; he or she has all the new radio systems available, a huge selection of ARFs, ARCs, and kit airplanes, and a lot of old-timers like me who want to pass along their accumulated knowledge to you.
Today you have it easy.
Norman H. Johnson Camden, Arkansas
Not Forgotten
During the 1998 Christmas holidays, I learned of the passing of Bill Winter. While visiting fellow modeler Rich Kline's home, he was demonstrating his new online equipment by showing me the AMA Web site. We were surprised to see the announcement of Bill's death.
Unfortunately, those who retain their faculties despite advancing age tend to make us think they will always be with us.
Such was the case with my father, whom I lost in the fall of 1997. Dad was an active farmer all his life, right up to the morning he suffered a stroke that hit him at age 80. Six months later, he was gone. I had expected him to survive many more years.
Bill Winter's writing caught my attention when I got my first model magazine in 1953 at age 12. Much later, he became editor of Model Aviation and I occasionally wrote to him with questions or comments, some of which he published in the magazine. He often sent personal replies, many of which I still have on file.
In addition to Bill's writing, his model designs will be with us for a long time to come. Perhaps he is still flying them at the great flying field in the sky!
Alvin E. Johnson Oxford, Pennsylvania
The May 1999 issue will feature a Bill Winter retrospective.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
