was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/01
Page Numbers: 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28
was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
I was born into the Golden Age of Aviation in 1926.
By age 4 I understood that Charles Lindbergh had
done a miraculous thing, flying alone across the
Atlantic Ocean. During the 1930s one-eyed Wiley
Post was famous for setting altitude and speed records
while wearing a pressure helmet that looked like the top
of a hot-water heater. Amelia Earhart flew alone across
the north Atlantic, and her smile was seen on many
newsreels.
Jimmy Doolittle flew fantastic speeds in seaplane
biplanes. Howard Hughes built a super speedster and
was hugged and kissed by movie stars after setting a
boomer of a record. Smilin’ Jack was a famous comicstrip
pilot who saved damsels in distress and brought
bad guys to justice by performing astonishing flying
feats. All were heroes!
As were many boys of the decade, I had my mind on
model airplanes more than girls. The thrill of launching
a black-and-yellow tissue-covered rubber-powered
model of a Corben Baby Ace was enormous! Red-andwhite
Rearwin Speedsters and all-yellow Piper Cubs
were even better. You learned something new or
acquired a skill with each model. Success was not
always easy; patience and persistence were among the
valuable lessons.
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious addiction to
balsa wood and glue. The habit stuck all through high
school and two-and-a-half years in the Navy. By the
time I entered college at Penn State, the habit was so
severe that I had trouble bringing it under control, even
during final-exam week.
What’s worse was that I was sharing a dormitory
room with Warren “Bud” Yenney, whose lust for balsa
and glue was almost equal to mine. Glider wings hung
on all of the walls, bookcases were places to store
fuselages, balsa and building boards stood tall in the
corner, and the floor was often sprinkled with balsa
shavings. We locked our door on “Cleaning Lady Day”
to keep her from ruining our delightful mess.
Bud Yenney had the audacity to pursue almost any
idea that came to him. He had heard of a man named
Walter Good, who flew a Radio Control (RC) model
before World War II. Bud telephoned Walt and asked
for a chance to talk to him. In mid-February 1947 I was
the passenger in Bud’s unreliable 1937 Ford that was
pushing hard in a blinding snowstorm to go through the
mountains out of State college to Silver Spring,
Maryland.
Walt and his wife Joyce welcomed two semifrozen
students to the warmth of their home and hearts. Steaks
and apple pie were followed by furious RC talk well past
Walt’s normal bedtime. Warm beds were followed by a
nearly all-day session Saturday. This was the start of a
long and wonderful friendship that has been one of the
biggest joys of my mostly joyful life.
During the mid-1950s Walt patiently helped me
figure out how to make his single-channel “three-tuber”
then build his five-tube dual proportional control system.
Walt called the system two-tone plus width, which soon
became TTPW. California modelers were deep into
“bang-bang” reed control, and they declared that TTPW
meant “too tough to piddle with.”
I was what you might call “illiterate” in the field of
electronics. Nevertheless, via telephone calls and treks
to Walt and Joyce’s house, after two years of asking
dumb questions about mysterious selenium diodes, etc.,
I got the thing working in the spring of 1957.
By the summer of 1959 I was a virtual hotrod with an
original-design midwing model called the Pittsburgh
18 MODEL AVIATION
Two Sunsets
Circa 1963. Captain W.A. Sellers, commanding officer
of Dahlgren Naval Surface Laboratory, congratulates
Maynard (L) on his first world record. John Worth,
then AMA president, inscribes altitude achieved.
Fremont Davis photo.
Old Faithful III (R) set two duration records, and
Marvelous Martha set four distance records between
1992 and 1998, leading to the conclusion that a
transatlantic flight might be possible.
IPointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Pointer. With it I could fly a pylon course upside-down
and do Outside Loops and Cuban 8s that were smooth—
free of the jerk-jerk-jerk often seen in reed-controlled
models.
Californian Bob Dunham with his Smog Hog and
Midwesterner Ed Kasmirski with his Orion had highspeed
thumb-twitching skills, so they flew smoothly and
accurately enough to win places on the US team to
compete in the first Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale (FAI) RC World Championships in
Zurich, Switzerland, in 1960. I came
within inches of being the third team
member.
Team members were picked on
the basis of points scored in regional
contests, with the Nationals (Nats)
as final input. In the east I was
narrowly ahead of Harold (Hal)
deBolt all during 1958 and the
summer of 1959. At the Nats in Los
Alamitos, California, my Pittsburgh
Pointer rolled 10 inches outside the lime-lined landing
circle and scratched off points that otherwise would
have been awarded for a “greasy” landing.
Hal deBolt came in fourth and I came in fifth, so he
was the third team member. Walt Good was to be the
team manager. I regretted my failure at the time, but
several years later I looked at it as a blessing.
In 1960 I left my job at the research laboratories of
Westinghouse Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and took a job at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
of Johns Hopkins University in Silver Spring, Maryland.
I had grown tired of “basic research” that didn’t seem to
be going anywhere useful and I liked the word
“applied.”
I do not deny that my friendship with Walt Good
influenced the decision. We spent many lively lunch
hours talking RC, and we had many sessions on the
flying field.
In 1962 Walt pulled some strings with the organizers
of the forthcoming second World Championships for
Aerobatics. I had written the first RC judges’ guide for
AMA, and Walt pointed out that I’d make a good chief
judge at Kenley Aerodrome, England.
More than 20 years earlier Kenley airfield had
housed hundreds of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots and
swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready to fight
against Luftwaffe bombers during the Battle of Britain.
Although that battle was won and past, there was still a
military presence; in 1962 the Cold War with the Soviet
Union was hot.
The Soviet Union sent a team of modelers to the
contest. They were a bit standoffish and reluctant to
allow their models to be examined. I was shocked by
what I saw from my privileged position as judge.
The Soviet modelers could not purchase smooth-cut
balsa in a hobby shop, their propellers were handcarved,
some capacitors were homemade from waxed
paper and aluminum foil, and at least one control
transmitter was an olive-drab box with “RCA”
embossed on it because it had been shipped by the
United States according to the Lend-Lease Act during
the war. Clearly the model-airplane hobby was not part
of the “Five Year Plans.”
The contrast with other countries’ models and
equipment was astonishing. Tom Brett’s sleek navyblue-
and-gold low-wing Perigee won for the United
States, and the British team finished first in the team
competition with lots of flashy red, white, and blue. All
of these models were colorful beauties. All of the pilots
had handheld transmitters. The Soviet team, with their
January 2004 19
&Still Flying
By age 9 I had acquired a fairly serious
addiction to balsa wood and glue.
Circa 1963. DCRC club organized a world altitude
record attempt. The Navy provided 40-power
binoculars on a gun mount for manual tracking of the
model. Maynard is shown at the controls. Davis photo.
by Maynard Hill
Photos by the author except as noted
s
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:55 pm Page 19
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21
Even though I had left Velitchkovsky in the
dust, I continued chasing records because it
was fun and educational. By 1991 I had 18
records under my belt. With Old Faithful III
and Marvelous Martha (shown), this number
was escalated to 23 by 1999. These two
models played a significant role in inspiring
my dream of flying across the Atlantic
Ocean.
Old Faithful flew for 33 hours and 39
minutes October 3-5, 1992. I was the sole
pilot because the FAI had a “Hail,
Lindbergh!” rule stating that only one pilot
was allowed. We beat this rule with
technology. Paul Howey made a directionfinding
receiver that we put in the wing,
then we placed an amateur radio beacon on
the ground slightly upwind of me.
The airplane automatically steered
toward the beacon, made a loop downwind
when it passed the beacon, then repeated
this pattern for most of the flight. I was half
asleep on a chaise lounge most of the time.
After this success I started joking about
building an 11-pound airplane that would fly
for 60 hours. I would find someone with a
huge 30-knot cruiser yacht (or maybe a
Navy destroyer) and gather the big crowd of
friends formed setting all of these records,
and we would have a big party on the fantail
of this ship while the model chased a beacon
that was on the mast! What a blast! It was
fun to talk about it even though I knew it
wouldn’t work in a moderate
wind.
Marvelous Martha conjured
visions of a different approach.
First, we chased it down routes
81 and 95 at airspeeds up to
approximately 70 mph, as
measured with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) in the
chase convertible. Second, I
built a dynamometer.
Using horsepower numbers I
calculated what aerodynamicists
call CDnaught, Cdo; that is, the
drag coefficient caused by the
profile and skin friction,
exclusive of drag caused by lift.
Martha had a Cdo of 0.019,
which is smaller than the
famous super-clean WW II P-51
Mustang’s 0.021. The other
significant number came from
Martha’s last record of 808
miles in closed course, piloted
by my son Scott on June 26,
1998.
I was angry with the FAI for
refusing to list me as a part of a
team for the two earlier Martha
records. Rob Rosenthal was
named record holder for the distance flight.
He’s a nice guy. I like him! But all he did
was pilot the airplane part-time for roughly
nine hours. I had worked for two years to
develop the model! I certainly would have
flown it if I weren’t nearly blind!
TAM 5’s launch in Newfoundland. The launch needed to be into a west wind, but slopes
or launch clearings facing that direction were scarce. This location was a gravel lane
1,000 yards west of the tip of Cape Spear. Photo by Loretta Foster.
Cyrus Abdollahi (in black jacket) and
Maynard watch as Joe Foster steers TAM 5
during climbout on August 9, 2003. TAM 5
was programmed to avoid parking lot in
background for safety’s sake. Foster photo.
Nelson Sherren (R) serves on the board of the North
Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, Newfoundland.
In appreciation of his help, Maynard donated TAM 23
to the museum.
I buried my head in Gay’s shoulder
and wept unashamedly for joy.
January 2004 21
01sig1.QXD 10/27/03 1:56 pm Page 21