Peanut Parley

PEANUT PARLEY

A round-table discussion by prominent Peanut Scale designers, builders, and fliers that gives insight into what makes these models (and people) tick. Conducted by Bill Hannan.

There are many opinions regarding Peanuts — different pathways to success with tiny scale models that fly. Suppose you could gather 10 well-known Peanuteers together for a discussion of the subject. Geographical separations make that difficult, but we did the next-best thing by submitting to them a series of frequently asked questions. Their answers appear here in the fashion of a round-table conversation.

A few small deletions have been made to avoid repetition, and to remove some unneeded expletives! It may be noticed that a sense of humor is an important facet of some Peanuteers' personalities.

The panel

• Bob Clemens: Photographer with Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY, and Scale model columnist for the National Free Flight Society Journal.
• Dave Linstrum: Florida landscape architect and editor of the "VTO" Free Flight column in Model Airplane News.
• Clarence Mather: Science teacher in San Diego, CA, and all-around builder of everything from microfilm models through Wakefields.
• Dr. John Martin: Dentist and editor of the Miami, FL newsletter, The Hangar Pilot.
• Walt Mooney: Aeronautical engineer for General Dynamics, San Diego, CA, and renowned "Professor of Peanuts."
• Bob Peck: Proprietor of Peck-Polymers model aircraft company, San Diego, CA.
• Tom Stark: Retired Air Force officer of St. Louis, MO. Experienced in Scale from Peanuts to RC.
• Dave Stott: Professional model builder with Sikorsky and co-instigator of the original Peanut Scale concept, from Bridgeport, CT.
• Robert Sand Thompson: School teacher and co-instigator of the Peanut Scale idea.
• (Other participants appearing in the discussion include Warner and Bill Hannan, moderator.)

How did you start to build models?

• Peck: Chicago, IL, in about 1940, age six.
• Stark: My starting age too, but in about 1934, while in the first grade.
• Mooney: At the age of nine, in Northern California, I saw an old Stinson straight-winger fly over, and right then and there I wanted to become an airplane designer. Models were a start in that direction.
• Martin: Philadelphia, PA — quite early, before grade school. I think I was five years old, in 1932. My first model was called the Mosquito; it had no landing gear. My next model was a 10-cent Megow kit S.E.5, which my dad helped me with.
• Thompson: About 1944, with some Marcraft solid models. I was eight or nine years old at the time, and haven't stopped since.
• Stott: 1934, at home under the tutelage of my two older brothers.
• Mather: Lemont, IL, about 1934.
• Clemens: Naperville, IL. Must have been eight or nine, just before World War II started. Clarence Mather had just graduated from Naperville High School at the time; I did not meet him until 1945, however. My father was a very fine modeler and seeing him meticulously assemble a Zipper in 1941 was one of my early inspirations.
• Linstrum: 1941 in Omaha, NE, influenced by "Olie" Olson, Herb Kothe, and C.O. Wright. I built a Frank Zaic design from a Book of Knowledge, right on the page.
• Warner: Ravenna, OH, in 1934, starting with cardboard stuff.

Materials: Do you strip your own balsa?

• Stott: Yep.
• Stark: Yes.
• Martin: Only with her consent! Seriously, I use a metal straightedge and a plastic cutting sheet, with a single-edge razor blade.
• Mather: Usually I do, but I have found Peck's strips just as good or better.
• Peck: Thanks for the plug, Clarence! I usually use regular strips, except when building strictly indoor models.
• Linstrum: When a single 1/16 square costs 10 cents here in Florida, yes. I use Jim Jones' superb stripper or a Fairgate metal rule on Plexiglas, with a #11 blade.
• Clemens: Only rarely, like when I need an odd size for a wing spar. Mostly I use commercially cut 1/16, 1/8, and 3/16.
• Warner: Yes, 90% of the time.
• Thompson: Yes, I've been forced to. Good wood is hard to come by, and strips are so expensive now, it just doesn't pay.
• Mooney: Sometimes. Only if I want particularly lightweight strips. Usually I select existing cut strips. Unfortunately, I often end up with three fuselage longerons alike and one that is just different enough to cause a problem.

How do you store your balsa wood?

• Warner: In the refrigerator! Not really. Just in a few boxes like everyone else. Refuse to state where, as it is so valuable I'm considering keeping it in a safe-deposit box.
• Thompson: I have a vast pile of sheets in the attic. I keep them straight with rubber bands around some hardwood sheets on the top and bottom of the pile.
• Mooney: I have about five big Kodak film boxes stacked horizontally, and a couple of open-ended boxes standing vertically for ease in picking out sizes. Trouble is, anything shorter than full-length stock can only be retrieved by dumping out the entire box! The total quantity on hand varies, as I seem to be the supplier for some neighborhood kids in addition to my own sons. My approach is to look through available stock on sale every time I enter any hobby shop. When I find exceptional stuff, I buy enough to last, figuring that eventually it will come in handy. After 40-some years of building, I guess I'll keep on for a while and eventually use it all.
• Linstrum: Mine is in Sig or other cardboard boxes and in large, 4-in.-dia. drawing storage tubes with metal caps.
• Martin: The average humidity in Florida is about 78%. I just let the stuff lay around and use any "aged" stock that isn't all warped.
• Clemens: Horizontally. Most large sheets are on several shelves, uncovered, as is an open box of strips. Prime strips and sheets for indoor use are in boxes with covers. I do make an effort to keep large sheets as flat as possible.
• Peck: In racks — balsa lays flat — try to keep it from warping.
• Stark: No special way.
• Stott: Flat, in a cabinet.
• Mather: In a large box — the only important thing is for sheets to lie flat to keep from warping.

Motives: Do you have a philosophy of modeling?

• Stott: Do it all you can!
• Mather: I like to do my own thing.
• Clemens: Rarely build from another's plans — even if I know they are tops. I like competition but also enjoy sport flying. I regard modeling as a pleasant, challenging, stimulating, and fun pastime. I enjoy competing, but also enjoy flying alone, talking to myself as I try to debug a new Scale ship or wring a few more seconds from an old one. Building and flying small rubber-powered models brings simpler, basic pleasures of personal creativity and skill. I also enjoy knowing other modelers and seeing the never-ending variety of their creations.
• Peck: Each person has his own reason for building models. To some it is a form of art; others like the competition, or find it relaxing. I personally build models as a way of trying out ideas. Modeling teaches many things — how to reason and understand, creativity, how to use your hands, how to work with tools and materials; basic engineering, physics, and chemistry. All of which can help you in everyday life.
• Linstrum: My approach is to build pretty airplanes to take best advantage of existing rules. Go for optimum, not extremes.
• Martin: My philosophy is to spend a lot more time flying than building!
• Thompson: Build what interests you — what looks like an interesting airplane yet has a chance of being a passable flier. I rarely pick a plane solely because it might be a good flier. For example, I'm building a Fiat CR.32 now: an interesting plane, but mid-Thirties fighters are a lot of airplane with many details that add weight. I often airbrush my models with a fog of color to retard fading; it looks nice but adds weight.
• Stark: Choose subjects and methods that are always challenging. I try to pick subjects that are unusual. Contest work is the ultimate test, requiring lots of practice and preparation. Never compete with an untested model!
• Mooney: Have fun! If you're not having fun, quit. Take up something else until you do have fun.
• Warner: Build what you're interested in, regardless of whether or not it's "competitive." Never force yourself to build or fly when you don't feel like it — go day and night when the spirit is upon you! Never put more work into a model than you are willing to see wiped out in a crash or lost in a thermal. Build models no one else has ever heard of if you can.

Is there a separate philosophy for Peanut models?

• Linstrum: Eat plenty!
• Stott: Eat 'em or fly 'em, whatever you like.
• Martin: No Peanut should take more than a week to build. Documentation should be minimal. Make 'em all competitive. Have lots of fun, lots of flying.
• Warner: Don't build 'em superscale — takes the fun out of flying 'em. Fly the hell out of them; wind, rain, hail, or whatever. A superscale model may win a contest, but spends most of its life in a box! If you want to go ape, build a regular-size Scale job.
• Thompson: Build what you like. A few years ago I built the first Lacey and swept all before me for a season. Since then, better builders and fliers have taken over and I've been more than just shut out — I've been stomped! So, I'll go back to what I like.
• Peck: Peanuts are an interesting challenge due to their small size. They are very rewarding, as you find they can perform as well as larger models if you try. They force you to make everything really accurately. Peanuts require little space for flying and are inexpensive, which is good for people with families. They have many advantages: low cost, small construction area required, and they can be flown in small fields and gyms, which is important since there are so few larger areas left for model flying.
• Clemens: Peanuts are like the edible kind: you can't keep from enjoying them or wanting more! I feel strongly that Peanuts are flying Scale models and should reflect both scale appearance and flight performance. If you can build such a model and win meets with it, fine; "loophole hunting" to win contests puts a wrong perspective on the event. I'm referring to "ghost" models that may be capable of considerable duration but are scale in the wildest delusions of their builders.
• Mooney: I think flying and scale fidelity should have equal value — moderation in all things. Not superscale, but certainly not ghost ships either.
• Stark: For performance, choose clean airplanes with retract gear in the retracted position. A long fuselage is desirable. Single-engine World War II bombers, Golden Age racers, and long-distance aircraft make good subjects.

Any "inside tricks" or hints for Peanut builders?

• Stott: Nope.
• Thompson: Nothing that better modelers haven't come up with. Don't watch me at a meet; watch Dave Stott, Fred Hall, or Chet Bukowski!
• Mooney: All of my secrets are available for the asking — and are probably worth just what you pay for them!
• Warner:

1. If it won't fly on a loop of 2mm Pirelli, it's too heavy.
2. Plasticize your nitrate dope.
3. Make your own ballasts and wheels.
4. Use a Peck-Polymers nylon thrust bearing.
5. Fly left.
6. Learn how to spot thermals.
7. Watch Clarence Mather.
8. Steal all of Hannan's secrets.
9. Throw your Peanut at least 30 ft. high before the prop starts (puts in a few more turns from wind pressure!).

• Peck: With enough patience, one can build and fly any size model. Nothing is impossible!
• Mather: No secrets. I've told everything I do regarding building and trimming in published articles.
• Martin: I'm too tricky to divulge my secrets. Did Houdini tell Blackstone? Does Nathan tell Bradshaw? I told a few white lies in my October 1975 Model Airplane News article and tipped my hand in a few issues of Hangar Pilot, but my darkest, darkest secrets will never be known.
• Stark: Build light, and pre-shrink the tissue.
• Clemens: From the first stick you pin on the plan, make a constant effort to keep the weight down. Lightweight Peanuts result from cumulative effects of light wood, using no more of it than needed, careful assembly to ensure proper alignment, careful covering with light tissue, and Litecoat dope. Good prop and rubber selection are important too. Don't assume any one prop is the "best." Build in some means of changing props without too much difficulty.

How do you select a prop for an untested Peanut?

• Clemens: As a trial-and-error builder/flier, I'd choose a prop based on experience with a similar model — using a prop that had worked well before. I like to let the prop help contribute needed nose ballast, so I often use a plastic one. On lighter models with longer noses, such as my BD-4, I'll make a lighter prop, probably with sheet balsa or 1/32 ply blades and a hardwood spar.
• Warner: I'd stick a Sleek-Streek prop on it, and if it wouldn't perform well, I'd try a Kaysun, and if that wouldn't do it, I'd try a Peck-Polymers. Sleek-Streeks usually work. I don't like wood props — too much work to get them just right, then snap!
• Linstrum: Trial and error; props of more than 13 in. diameter do not seem to work well.
• Martin: See my article in Hangar Pilot. I use the sheet-wood-blade type of prop.

1. Select a high-pitch prop only for a very stable model configuration. This rules out most low-wingers, short fuselage, and small-tail-area types. On these craft, use a low-pitch prop.
2. We have an R.O.G. requirement in our club, which limits diameter. A 7-in. prop is great for duration, but it sure looks funny.

• Mather: The plastic props available are about as good as anyone can make. Williams Brothers props, cut down if necessary, are excellent.
• Stark: Start with a plastic prop and get the airplane trimmed. Measure the thrust of the prop with the rubber size that works, then make wooden props that perform better than the plastic.
• Peck: Past experience is my guide. I choose as large a diameter as will clear for R.O.G., usually cutting down a longer prop for more blade area. I prefer plastic props, but if necessary I will carve a wooden prop to obtain the pitch and area I desire. For competition on a light model, I prefer a high-pitch prop with larger area blade.
• Stott: First, try one like the one that worked on a similar model.
• Thompson: Carve a 5-in. block into a prop, and see what you get. These can be cut, shaped, twisted, or fiddled with in so many ways; you can nearly always get a satisfactory prop out of one.

Peanut Parley — Continued

What ideas have you contributed to Peanut modeling?

• Martin: The art of whittling with very little talent. The concept of "stand-off Peanut Scale" (judges are 50 feet away from the model). Coined mottos: "Peanuts forever" (sic semper Peanuts) and "Indoor is not for everyone (non semper indoors)."
• Mather: I can't think of any.
• Stark: I may have started the trend toward fat-fuselage models with my Cougar in 1963 or '64.
• Stott: Took HUNGorilla out of the jungle and made him what he is today.
• Peck: I believe I have made it easier for the average person to build Peanut Scale models by offering kits that have all the parts and understandable plans for construction. Also designed and produced precision nylon thrust bearings used by many modelers.
• Thompson: Very little. If Peanut Scale has caught on, that is due to Dave Stott and other modelers who have made these things go. Perhaps we have reintroduced a feeling of "having fun." I tend to be slap-dash and slap-happy; my contest record shows the poverty of my approach, but I enjoy myself my way.
• Warner:

1. Have invented several new words to accompany breaking a motor or model: (a) Golly gee dinbunghers! (b) You murt! (c) Gosh, maybe I shouldn't have stopped one turn ago!
2. The Lomecock; invented by my models long before it was tried in a real plane.
3. Stomping your model to relieve the stresses (in the plane).

• Mooney: Perhaps my landing gear design, which uses music wire mounted external to the gear legs so it is free to flex and absorb shocks. Not exactly innovations, but I typically use plastic props on almost everything and probably put my center of gravity more forward than most. My models usually fly. (Walt's wife, Carol, interjected that Walt's best "innovations" were his children's names — all aircraft oriented: Curtiss, Ryan, Douglas, Martin, and Chrislea Bee Mooney.)

Any questions you wish we'd asked?

• Stark: Yes — about my best Peanut models and duration times:

1. Heinkel He 119 — 80 sec. outdoors, 60 sec. indoors.
2. Cessna Turbo Centurion — 51 sec. indoors (with a plastic prop).
3. Nakajima C6N "Meryl" — 60+ sec. outdoors, 55 sec. indoors (difficult to fly).

• Martin:

1. Does modeling have anything to do with divorce?
2. Is modeling good therapy for those out-of-touch with reality?
3. What are the sociogenic aspects of aeromodeling in a world fraught with complex schizo-effective pseudo-craftsmanship?

• Thompson: The past year I've been so busy and harassed there hasn't been time to really concentrate on my ships. Flying models is mainly concentration. The guy who has two or three ships he knows well and tunes will win in most situations. He may only build two or three planes per year, but he builds them carefully and superbly. Clarence Mather is a good example. Instead of concentrating, I run around and build more models rather than working on what I've got. So I do poorly. I'm just too busy with the "new," the "next mountain," to properly use what I already have. But I said I was slap-happy!

Hannan: On that rather heavy note, we seem to have run out of time. Did you have one final question, Dave?

• Stott: For $128,000,000, who is buried in Grant's Tomb?

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.