For Openers
It is sometimes said, of a person whose perceptions seem out of step, that he marches to the sound of a different drummer. Of course, the "normal" citizen often views us in less understanding terms. He can hate the sound of a model engine, and he feels odd about all those people "playing with toys," happily enjoying something that he cannot fathom.
Yet many of us do not seem to hear the drums to which many of our fellow modelers march. What gap could be wider than one between Indoor and Speed, between Wakefield and Pattern, between Pylon and Free Flight? And don't we tend to view the dedicated experimenter who specializes in deltas, canards, ornithopters, Pennyplanes, as a sort of harmless nut or character?
Magazines, too, sometimes can march to a distant drum. Of course, any magazine is a business. It has an owner(s). It exists to make money
—and why not? Its contents are pragmatically designed to reach the maximum number of people with the sort of demographics that attract the maximum number of advertisers—and advertisers, not love, make our world go around. So magazines must appeal to the kinds of people who are good customers for advertised products.
When Don Dewey came on the scene—gosh, can it be that many years already?—he editorialized that the hobbyist was—or could be, or should be—an adult who flew radio control. Like the Green Bay Packers of the Lombardi days, he was "running to daylight." It sounded like heresy to everyone else in the field who perceived a need to generalize. While in the early 50's, Don may not have been altogether right in our eyes, he did prove something. The field did require an all-radio magazine.
Others had ambivalent thoughts—should one also go all radio? But other magazines seemed tied by tradition to the broad spectrum of modeling. Oh, they could see that radio was where it was at, so they tilted in the direction of what was only common sense—but they also came up with their duty-felt things, such as an Unlimited rubber job, a Nordic, or an FAI team racer. No segment
of modeling but radio, in terms of industry support, currently pays off—and the majority of readers are into radio.
Each magazine is a business which must be responsibly administered. We admire RCM for its achievement. We also admire MAN's successful formula—and all the other books, and their quarterbacks, for their game plans. Probably most altruistic was Bill Northrop's more recent entry with Model Builder, so strongly dedicated to less remunerative areas. Now, he, too, is increasing his radio content, but assures us that he won't downgrade his efforts on behalf of the minority groups who first gathered under his standard. His decision was unavoidable, if MB was to grow. We hope his readers will perceive his balanced approach to be a fair one. Such competition is good for everybody, especially we modelers. And that has always been an axiom.
Model Aviation has many owners—thousands in fact. Making money is not imperative—not losing money is. MA must serve, and build, AMA membership. Therefore, it promotes all aspects of modeling. We suppose that MA seems different. Most of its readers are sport modelers, as is AMA's membership, and RC is the dominant interest. Competitive modeling is a major thrust of AMA, and Model Aviation reflects that motivation. Its contents update the state of the art in all categories. We believe the reader is cosmopolitan, liberal in his viewpoint, interested in any, and all, bright ideas, whether they be radio, free flight, or control line. RC, of course, is a big thing. We'll take many pages to present ideas in depth whether it be something on laminated props or gears, for rubber models, some molding process, or the mysteries of dynamic scale effect.
F.O. is reminded of the birth of control line flying (circa 1940) when a less sophisticated modeling public asked, "Why bother with free flight? It's dead. Make a magazine all control line." Free flight is still with us and going strong. Had magazines gone all control line in the 1940's, what would CL readers have done in the 1950's, if the magazines had gone all radio? Although Model Aviation publishes many RC features, it is vitally concerned for the "preservation of endangered species." Seven out of 10 AMA members who can choose now subscribe to MA. There has not been a single letter of dissent. With an enlightened audience, we can treat modeling as the sum-of-its-parts.
To any RC oldtimer, the outstanding attributes of modern radio control are its versatility and its unbelievable reliability. Today's hobbyist would describe all of yesterday's systems as appalling. Before the war, Ed Rockwood, of Walnut Creek, CA, had developed three- and five-channel reed equipment with crude servos whose motors and gear train came from a wind-up toy. The Good Brothers flew their single-vacuum-tube receivers several years before the war, even winning a prewar Nationals. Guff, the airplane, is in the Smithsonian. (See May F.O. re Good Brothers.)
In the late 40's and early 50's, Ed Lorenz pioneered lightweight equipment, using the RK-61 gas-filled tube. (If you shorted it out, it would light up with a spectacular purplish glow.) And in the late 40's, Vernon Macnabb's 465-megacycle radio was the first examination-free RC system. It was a single-channel world.
Then, in the mid-50's, Babcock added an extremely sensitive three-channel system to his line. (Escapement rudder with two-position throttle off the escapement, and a trim servo for up and down.) Oh, there were lots of variations, but these landmarks will do for now. All these systems, by the Goods, Rockwood, Macnabb, and Lorenz, came before the transistor. (Nor did the massive Babcock—five vacuum tubes and three sealed relays—use them.) It was the
For Openers
early-50's before the transistor popped up in a model mag article, and then only to replace the second (relay) tube in the Lorenz two-tuber. Nicads were 10 more years into the future.
While Rockwood had used servos, almost all fliers were doomed to escapements for many years. Single-channel fliers protested the 3-channel Babcock would kill the hobby because it permitted a plane to loop—and who had that kind of money? So, for almost 20 years, the average R/Cer flew with only a single-tube receiver, whether gas or hard tube. It was enough to make strong men scream.
This month, we "fondly" recall the Lorenz gas-tube receiver (Berkeley's Aerotrol was similar—one of several Lorenz designs). It was small and light, about the size of a match box. Like the Good Brothers that preceded it, it operated by on-off carrier (later, guys would find all sorts of ways, with tricky levers, motor-driven "beep boxes," etc., to manage crude proportional control by playing with the way that carrier was turned on and off). The RK-61 tube idled at about 1.3 to 1.5 mils, on signal dropping to, say, .2 mil. The relay was adjusted to operate between, say, 1.1 and 1.3 mils. Vibration drove relay armatures crazy with such current settings, and planes shivered and shimmied their ways to the happy hunting ground. If that didn't get you, escapements would. For all of that, the Lorenz receiver stood out like a lighthouse. Ed then gilded the lily. His little two-tuber was a break-through—can you imagine that in this day of sophisticated equipment?
In his two-tuber, the first-tube current change dropped, with signal, triggering the second tube—which idled at a mere 2/10 mil or so—triggering it into a walloping rise to 2.5 mils! Such a current change allowed reliable relay adjustments. Moreover, the two-tuber operated from a couple of pencells (A batteries), plus a tiny hearing aid battery (B). Ed, the magician, demonstrated his two-tuber in our basement. His test panel had two meters, one for each tube. Watching them work simultaneously was a far out experience in the early fifties.
When the RK-61's became in short supply, the Hivac gas tube was imported from England. Many gas tubes were insensitive. One way to attain sensitivity was to put them on prolonged idle. If they didn't wear out in the process, you attempted flight on Sunday. Or you baked them in the kitchen oven—Jerry Stoloff baked one for 28 hours before it worked properly.
One Saturday we despaired at the field after checking a gas-tube receiver to all of 20-foot range. Along came two small boys. One said, "Mr., you've got to cook that tube. Connect it to your booster battery and go to lunch. When you come back, it will work." By gosh, it did. And that was the way to become an expert in the 1950's.
Carl Goldberg is marking the 50th year of his association with the hobby. He has achieved fame in his own time. Magazines will be telling you about Carl the manufacturer, and/or Carl, the modeler. They may recall to us the Sailplane and the Zipper, perhaps the Valkyrie. Or the indoor models. Or those diamond-fuselage rubber jobs when twin-pushers still were big. They may note the pop-up tail dethermalizer. Or that he has attended every modern Nationals. And Lord knows what else!
The Carl we knew was always quiet, a listener, not a talker. He was always a thinker, weighing attentively every word ever said to him. Always polite. Always humble. A gentleman. His was an endless quest for perfection. We can say he deserved his success. We prefer to say it could not have happened to a nicer guy.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
