Letters to the Editor
Send your Letters to the Editor to: Model Aviation, 5151 East Memorial Drive, Muncie, IN 47302
Great Job
I just want to say that I am very impressed with your magazine. I stopped buying magazines on a regular basis when (another magazine) dropped all of their CL, Free Flight, and various other articles and became a strictly Radio Control mag.
Well, anyway, I found your two most recent issues in a hobby shop in Corpus Christi about a month ago. I haven't put them down yet. You offer articles on all sorts of model aviation, and even though I don't fly old-timer ignition models I still read the articles and enjoy them.
I have started dusting off my old airplanes (mostly CL), doing restorations where necessary, and have started flying again. I intend on joining the AMA again (my last registration was 32117) and I look forward to reading all future issues of Model Aviation.
I like the layout of the magazine and that you group all similar articles together. I enjoy reading the advertisements and the product reviews, as well as the information provided by the individual chapters. It really makes it a "hometown" sort of magazine.
Keep up the good work.
Sean A. Murphy Corpus Christi, Texas
Near-Disaster?
I fly mostly electric RC airplanes. I live in the Big Sur region of California. It is a forested, mountainous area on the Central California coast—very beautiful, very isolated. I have taken great pleasure in flying my electric-powered airplanes, knowing that I am not distracting from the serenity of the area.
Until I was flying on a friend's hilltop property with a landing area that was just a little too short for the airplane I was flying. Not to worry (I am good at this) until my landing went a little too long and hit some fence material under some trees. The glider took the abuse very well— not much damage—but the battery had come out of the fuselage! Wow! I picked up the battery and put it into my flight box, and in a moment noticed smoke from the box!
Man, I still move fast!
I grabbed that battery pack and noticed that when the pack left the airplane it came out without the connector. The hot leads of my seven-cell pack were not in the plastic connector! I could have started a major forest fire!
I am very lucky (as well as the people who live there) that the hot leads did not start a fire in my flight box, or on the ground when the pack first landed. And what if I had crashed in an area I could not get to?
I hate to think about it, but I share the experience so maybe others can learn from my near-disaster. I am now thinking about putting fuses between the battery pack and the connector; just having a fuse before the motor is not enough.
Jack Tossman Big Sur, California theunclejack@yahoo.com
He Likes MA Too
I am writing to say how much I enjoyed the September '99 issue of Model Aviation. I enjoy the electronic articles on servos, servo mods, and speed controls. I got into a discussion with a longtime flier and mechanical engineer about servo operation—he really had no idea just how they worked. Electronics has a great deal to do with this hobby, from the radios and battery maintenance to anything else we can dream up. I think it would be nice to see more of this type of article.
I also enjoyed the article on photography. I recognized one of the shots as being a slope at Wilson Lake by Lucas, Kansas.
Keep up the good work.
Tom Wild Lincoln, Nebraska
Chipley Fan
I've been admiring the 3-D ink drawings by Tom Chipley that accompany your construction articles. They are consistently clear and accurate, with a remarkable amount of detail.
As an old technical illustrator myself, I recognize the challenges of this type of drawing. When I was doing such artwork, I used paper and pen (much of it was even before the technical fountain pen), and I got a lot of satisfaction out of presenting "realistic" drawings of things that often didn't yet exist. I've tried to replicate such drawings on the computer, but they lack something—maybe it's the smell of India ink!
My hats off to a great illustrator!
Don Skiff Ann Arbor, Michigan
Hobby Shops
Final comments on the mail-order vs. hobby shop debate:
I would like to congratulate you for showing the courage in publishing Mr. Lance Novak's letter describing his personal experiences with hobby shops. I was also appalled when I read Mr. Ron Duly's pit-bull attack on your decision to publish this letter. If an editor acquiesces to the vituperations of an award-winning member of the AMA and others who wish to censor our magazine (not "my" magazine as stated by Mr. Duly), then we're all in trouble.
Common sense fundamentally dictates that letters written to editors do not necessarily represent the view of a publication, and therefore allow writers an opportunity to exercise their right to freedom of expression.
An editor is expected to publish with impunity and therefore not be seen as one who is giving tacit approval to the subject matter simply by publishing a controversial letter. Mr. Duly's missive also alleges that you have become a sycophant with our magazine's advertisers. This angry, unfounded statement and personal attack is in the same league as Mr. Novak's malevolent wish in hoping that a certain hobby shop closes down.
What does this all mean? Has the real issue—the big picture—become distorted by our getting bogged down in reading about personal shopping and subjective sales/service stories? The issue is economics and the changing direction by which product distribution through retailing has evolved.
In the 1950s, supermarkets were predators and devoured corner grocery stores. Discount department stores threatened mainstream department stores. In recent years, chain drug stores have rapidly emerged while independent drug stores have disappeared. And most recently, consumers have shifted to mail-order catalogs and the Internet for shopping convenience and competitive pricing.
However, hobbyists—unlike other consumers—are organized, and their unified efforts in support of hobby shops as specialized technical-product retailers would be beneficial to all. If one has a bad experience with a particular hobby shop, then go to another shop. It's that simple.
Donald Almeida North Easton, Massachusetts
In reply to Mr. Lance Novak and Mr. Ron Duly I would like to say this: Gentlemen, I think you are both off base. I see nothing wrong with Mr. Novak's letter being printed. I also became very upset upon reading Mr. Novak's letter. However, had he not written I would never have given the local hobby shops a second thought.
Mr. Duly, just let me say, don't be too hard on Mr. Novak or the editor who printed his letter, as the replies opened a whole new world to me—and, I would guess, a lot of others.
I started building models back in the '30s and got my supplies from a local hardware store that sold models. I built rubber-band models to start, then graduated to Free Flight gasoline. I went mail-order for a P-40 by Cleveland Models, the model I was working on at the time I went into the service in 1944.
I became interested in Control Line models while in service and attempted to build one, but it was broken up in moving around before I got very far along. That was the last model I tackled for a very long time. With college, marriage, and raising a family, I didn't have the money or the time to build models; and as I got more time I had forgotten the fun of model-building.
Last fall I came across a model airplane magazine, and after reading several issues I ordered a model and started building. The model catalogs are great to read.
After reading Mr. Novak's article and all the follow-ups to it, I have done a lot of thinking and have come to the conclusion that the local model shop 20 miles away is the best place to buy models and supplies in the future. In fact, the letters from the RC modelers have been quite an education to me.
So Mr. Duly, go easy on Mr. Novak, as I suspect that there are a lot of new modelers out there who need to be educated, and I doubt that his letter will affect any of the more experienced modelers. Please show more confidence in the intelligence of the readers of Model Aviation.
Al Turner Ashland, Virginia
RC DT!
[My model had] an inflight fire, resulting in the wing separating from the model and the resulting rude contact with the ground.
The cause: friction!
During the climb of the high-powered Old-Timer Lanzo Bomber, engine vibration caused the rear center edge of the wing to rub against the pylon surface (where the rubber-band wing hold-downs hook on the rear dowel). Flames from the friction fire melted all seven #64 rubber bands, and presto! instant wing release—DT (dethermalizer) at 1,500 feet!
The cure: simply put wing-saddle tape on the pylon to separate the wing from the pylon surface.
It's a humbling sport!
Fred Mulholland Tampa, Florida
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
