Bill Winter's For Openers
If this is a mad, mad world, we hope it never stops. We don't want to get off. In last month's thrilling episode we were prattling about putting sailplane-type spoilers on a .19‑powered, six‑foot low winger that thinks it is an Aquila and of putting flaps on that scale‑down RC old‑timer we had cooked up with Walt Schroder in 1947–48. That was last month. So what have we done? Designed a quarter‑scale Aristocrat, that's what. When last heard from, F.O. was pining for spring. Make that Spring 1980! Oh, we do have three crates ready for 1979, including a new 6‑foot Sniffer, but now it is Spring 1980 or bust! It's a whole new ball game.
Already we have forgotten what got us started on this dinosaur, although we note a strange relationship between our increasing years and the size of our airplanes. The great control tower in the sky squares our years, so we simply cube the size of our projects. In a mere 30 days we have had the wildest ride of our modeling life—and the project is only beginning. Plywood gussets do the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in our dreams. Everybody got into our act; our circle of expert consultants has widened coast to coast—and even to England when we learned that the great English editor Ron Moulton, during a vacation in America, visited the Museum of the Antique Aircraft Association in Ottumwa, Iowa, and took pictures of an antique restoration of an Aristocrat they had almost finished from the parts of eight different airplanes.
Now this all began with a simple premise. We would build a three‑times‑up model of Flyline's Aristocrat. It would be an easy box, and it would be light. Spanning 9 ft 1 in, it would be powered with an old jewel of an Enya 60. It would be slow, safer than any pattern or pylon model. We would fly it late this summer. But you know what they say about the plans of mice and men.
Now we are swept up in a delightful whirlwind. New and strange sensations pop out from behind every corner. Having anchored two drawing boards end to end—C‑clamped to the drawing table—and aligned so that long T‑squares could sweep the battleground from both sides of the line, we had at it. Trouble. From Hurst Bowers' beloved "museum" of old mags, articles, and clippings came a sheaf of articles published in aviation magazines of the by‑gone day. We consulted our own file of Jane's. We got three‑view drawings from Aeronautical Yearbooks, articles, Janes—they all are simply cock‑eyed. There is just nothing accurate on this ultra‑simple project we were about to "whip" out.
So we went to the mountaintop. We called Bob Wischer. More photocopies. When we told him the area between the windshield and firewall was a deep, dark mystery, he laughed and told us this is the toughest portion of an airplane design to confirm. We talked with Bill Hannan who works with the Williams brothers. More gurus. Could we get by with an 11.2% horizontal tail? Granger said he had used as little as 10% but felt safer with 15%—discretion being the better part of valor, we compromised; 15% it was! Bill reminded us we had published his Aristocrat Peanut in American Modeler years ago, but said he had squared off the nose behind the engine because the model was so small. We talked with old friend and scale expert Dan Lutz, who plies his trade these days at Kraft. Meanwhile, scale expert Don Srull kicked in more useful photocopies of documentary material—the more we got, the more mysteries loomed. How could such a simple thing grow so complicated?
Dan Lutz mentioned the restoration project at the Museum of the Antique Aircraft Association, and from the Taylors we were able to borrow slides of the restoration project in process. Bonanza! But, alas, while these got us into the ballpark, they eloquently demonstrated that everything published, full‑scale and model, was too inaccurate for a quarter‑scaler. Warren Shipp, whose knowledge of myriad details of numberless aircraft is mind‑numbing, joined our crusade. Warren is an eminent historian and if he doesn't know something, he knows where to find it. It so happens that the FAA regional offices have warehouse files of plans submitted by factories when applying for ATC approval—and he has the works on the Aristocrat on microfilm. (We await the outcome.) He pointed out that two Aristocrats were still on the FAA register as late as 1974—now we are chasing them. When he was in air school, Warren worked on an Aristocrat and had made inboard profile drawings. In 1932 he also cleaned his teacher's Aristocrat at Teterboro, NJ—now Bendix—and got to ride in it. We even have a picture of them—and the ship.
The Smithsonian had some good photos—but the same old lousy three‑views keep popping up—at the Air Museum, in old Aero Digest articles, everywhere. We talked with experts at Silver Hill where they resurrect old aircraft for Smithsonian display. More pix, more photocopies.
For Openers / Winter
Over Don Srull's drawing table is a big homemade projector. Finally, we opted for two of the best looking drawings, scaled a side view to a size which, if multiplied by 5, would give us the model profile. Another drawing was scaled for multiplication by 8—this for the planform. Srull, Bowers, and the old wizard Ned Kragness had a bull session with us during which we projected the color slides from the Antique Aircraft Museum, and Ned explained the why of every rivet, nut, and bolt.
All the while we've been whipping out sheets of drawings and cross sections—started over three times. What we now are trying to do is to freeze at a reasonable level of scale—this is a Sport Scale model—and when the crate has been flown, crank in numerous minute corrections for a final drawing. Everyone has advice on how we ought to do it—scale exhausts, etc. Ned wants us to build up the Warren Truss ribs with all those little ply gussets. His eyes roll. When we said it would be covered and painted and we would be the only one to know what was inside, he was absolutely horrified. Come on, fellows—we only wanted a nice crate to fly, no competition, just so long as it does not exhibit visual errors.
Research and documentation
Now we know what these scale guys go through for documentation. It begins insidiously, then builds and builds like an anvil‑head thunderstorm. Research becomes a game in itself, fascinating and enjoyable. You tend to forget the model. Research is unveiled as a hobby in itself, and within that one could enjoy a lifetime hobby of uncontrolled documentation of a single design, and even a single airplane. What license numbers were on the ship we are building? Which variation are we really copying?
We find stringers no one knew about—that nobody shows on any drawing. Longerons are shown curved on every drawing but the engineer types tell us that's a no‑no—that a steel tube is never bowed because its compression strength would be shot. The darn wheels are 7½ inches. Do we have to make them? This is supposed to be a fun project! So we'll put on Williams' biggest—6½ inches—and maybe replace them later. The biggest Williams cylinders are 1/4‑scale Gnome rotary. How do we make a 7‑cylinder Warner out of them? Now it is a Fox 78 with an extension shaft, mounted 8 o'clock to put its head between dummy cylinders—but the head doesn't show anyway!
We have an epoxy allergy. Murder. Now what? Some guys tell us that if you fool long enough with the stuff an allergy is part of the game. The fumes! Being an editor, we have a big advantage—three weeks research would take six months to a year otherwise. Now we are hung up on the wing tips—nothing accurate on the front view, everything in disagreement. Sooner or later we'll backtrack and make detailed drawings of the tail‑wheel assembly, etc.—we hope. Time becomes meaningless. Whereas building was always a frantic rush to get into the air, now you feel that enjoyment in building is the big deal, and you really don't care when you'll get done. Enjoy every step. The drawings look like a road map of rural Saudi Arabia—vast open spaces.
Will we live long enough to see this thing fly? Who cares? How do we get it to the field? You got a station wagon? Who cares? The shop is 9 x 12 and three six‑foot airplanes hang in it, plus the bench, plus drawing table, plus a couch, and usually the cat. The Aristocrat cannot be assembled indoors! Now we dig the guys who built the Tower of Babel, the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower. Maybe we should have stuck with those rubber‑scale guys! Join us next Saturday afternoon for episode 15.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
