For Openers
All editors like to think that they put together every issue with finesse. According to their vision, material is presented in some special way to achieve an appreciative response. Hams, all of us. Yet all the magazines are distinctly different. It sure would be lousy if it were any other way. (F.O. keeps thinking, apropos of nothing, of the seagull that alighted on Eddie Rickenbacker's head when he was adrift on a raft in the Pacific.) Editors do have an Achilles heel. If you would wound them beyond recovery, should they hand you a precious copy, just keep talking to them (as you do, you know), as you take a token look at the thing, opening it from the back, not seeing the pages you riffle by. Even skip gobs of pages at a time—that wipes us out. But, do you really read a magazine?
A common denominator of all the delightful "books" in our field, is a strong belief in construction projects. After all, building a model is supposed to be the cornerstone of interest. And, if there are plans, there must be "directions." Oh, those directions. Do people read them? It usually is not possible when writing instructions to do more than talk briefly about the background of the plane, its design rationale, and to whistle by the now-glue-this stuff, hopefully winding up with something meaningful about the way to fly it. For years beyond recall, we've asked ourselves, will anyone read this? Some how-to text is heavy. Much of it isn't. By gosh, some of these guys turn out masterful state-of-the-art briefings. Like John Kilsdonk's copy for the Bobcat, on page 40. It is "only" a Slow Rat racer, but brother, he sure lays it on the line—especially if you are into engines. And Steve Sauger probably could have used half of the magazine to tell you exactly how to put together that fantastic Fairchild. Nevertheless, he managed to convey appreciation for such an airplane and, no doubt, many will be inspired to build it.
The trick, we think, is to read the openings of such articles, to be sure you aren't about to miss something great. Sometimes, so-called instructions develop into something quite extraordinary. You can bet that anybody who read through Ken Bates' Windlord article last month, knows he got more than his money's worth. (Did you miss it?) Whatever his bag, any reader who followed Bates' thoughts on theory and applied design, found himself playing it back again and again. So when you reach the word "Construction," don't be turned off. Skim the dry stuff for the buried nuggets. You can never tell what some skilled specialist might pause to comment on. In talking about his Fokker Universal, page 29, Bill Noonan wrote lengthy, highly specific instructions. Why not, just once, allow the spotlight to shine on such an artistic project? Bill is one of the giants of rubber-scale. The structures you see in the photographs are ingenious, exceptionally strong for their ultra-light weight. One can mine dozens of useful things from his text. Of course, the many people who are into rubber scale these days will dig it. All of us can appreciate what it stands for. Adroit structural design is an art form. What Bill did with the sticks in his big Universal, so intrigued us that we had Hank Clark do one of his spectacular cutaways to go with it. You understand. Enjoy with us the big layout so justified for "only a rubber job."
Bill's Universal, and his mention of the Atlantic Aircraft Corp., in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ opens a dog-eared photo album. To a north-Jersey schoolboy it was Teterboro Airport (now Bendix). Atlantic was housed in a large wooden building (surrendered to marathon dancers in the depression), where a Sperry Messenger hung from the rafters over the one-at-a-time production line for Fokker Universals, Trimotors, and later, in the early thirties, even an occasional 4-engined F-32. There was another small building, open at both ends, owned by Wright Aeronautical, to which came the fabulous Stinsons, Bellancas, and Ryans of the would-be transatlantic and distance-record fliers. Frank Hawks, astraddle the edge of the cockpit of his red-and-white Travelaire Mystery Ship, smiled down at us. There stood Admiral Byrd's South Pole Ford trimotor, covered with thousands of scratched-on names of well-wishers. Strange Loenings with inverted Packards, Keystone trimotors—a live museum of fabled flying machines—eventually took off if one waited long enough. It was a quiet, lazy place, with no one in sight on a summer afternoon.
Jennies and Hisso Standards stood creaking in the breeze—bright red with the Texaco emblem. This was the celebrated Gates Flying Circus. On Sundays the barker shilled 50c rides in late-model Standards with their huge four-place front pits for the likes of us. And Clyde Pangborn would fly sideways. He'd hang his Standard overhead with no apparent forward speed, and slide by just as the barker promised. Many a kid went home with visions of models dancing in his eyes.
Is it any wonder that so many old modelers go in for scale—not necessarily big, AMA Scale jobs, but rubber—like our Universal, or gas for FF and/or radio, like Flylines' popular crates designed by Hurst Bowers (and hello, Herb Clukey). To us, every 3-view, any simple scale project, takes on meaning. In the mind's eye, they get scaled up, structurally modified into gas, maybe CO2, perhaps with 2- or 3-channel control for radio.
A scale modeler's motivations run deeper than merely being attracted by something catchy to build. For him, the marvelous character planes of the colorful bygone days, fly on. For a real buff, yesterday's crates live again—struts, wires, horns and all. No need to sniff grass.
What more can you get from Noonan's Universal? Convert it to .02 or .049? Control it with a tiny radio. Scale it up and modify the framework—with full-
For Openers (continued from page 4)
house. For that leave the top of the wing flat, tip to tip, just as the real one was built. Or alter it to the Super Universal, which had an enclosed cockpit—like the Vega—and no wing struts. (Why, one wonders, did they put struts on a full cantilever wing, in the first place? In WW I days, German officialdom demanded struts on the D-7.) Listen. Did we hear "contact?" It took a chain of two, sometimes three, men to prop some of those big old-timers. Then came the whine of the inertia starter as a mechanic strained at the crank behind the engine. And, as it was written, came the concrete runways to Bendix. Thank goodness, we had been able to fly off the sod before that happened! See what you started, Bill Noonan?
This may be heresy but we wince every time we hear a cliche that modelers are the greatest—different from "normal" people as it were. We are smothered in superlatives. But reading Ron VanPutte this month, you'll find him excited about trends in Half A, House of Balsa kits, various retracts for the little birds, when he suddenly remarks, "What a beautiful hobby." It really is. And it felt good to be so sincerely reminded.
Implicit in Ron's remark was a sense of infinitely varied pleasures in modeling—if you don't wear blinders. There for the taking is a plethora of experiences. Yet many of us endlessly pursue narrow interests. Not that it is wrong to do nothing more than once a week charge a durable bird to put in a few flights on Sunday. We do our thing. But it is wrong if we feel merely tolerant of those other "strange" characters who do their thing, whether it be an indoor model, or a Peanut.
Dare we say that free flight is a delightful complement to RC? We do not talk of sophisticated FAI power jobs, or Nordics, or Wakefields, however rewarding they are to the guys who love them. We do talk of things like the Midwest Sniffer. Originally designed and kitted by Wally "Jabberwock and Gollywock" Simmers, the .049 Sniffer is one of the most delightful flying machines that ever hit the hobby shops. The Sniffer dates back to the forties. We flew it. Our kids flew it. Planes like this—and there are others—can be flown in pastures or relatively small fields. If you must, put in a small radio for security, but try it free flight, using control only to keep it nearby. We'd bet it could be flown at scale speeds with only an .02.
It is a joy to build. Simmers used an airfoil with a Clark Y top and an RAF 32 bottom—and it flies, and glides, like magic. If some adventurer scaled it up for a homebuilt, it would fly as well as Corben, etc. Polyhedral? Real planes have used it—the Barling low-wing of the thirties, the Jodel, John Thorp's superlative T-18. If you have built any model old-timers you've probably noted the nice soaring turns you get from ships like the Buzzard Bombshell, with its tiphedral.
You'll get a lift from the first good flight you make without remote control. And as you contrive adjustments to make the little model do what you want—such as stay in a small area—you'll be entranced. It doesn't have to be your main thing. Or even get in the way of your alcohol guzzler. But since this is, indeed, a beautiful hobby, as VanPutte said, why not be a gourmet?
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
