CONTROL LINE NAVY CARRIER
Dick Perry, 427 Live Oak Ln. NE, Albuquerque NM 87122; E-mail: [email protected]
Mystery Airplane
For the Mystery Airplane contest in the February column, I asked you to identify the first tricycle-gear aircraft to operate aboard a ship. The answer is also the first heavier-than-air aircraft to operate from any ship—the Curtiss Pusher. The aircraft had a tricycle landing gear in its landplane configuration.
Eugene Ely flew from a platform aboard the USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, VA, in November 1910. On January 18, 1911, Ely landed on and took off from the USS Pennsylvania at San Francisco. Ely was a demonstration pilot for the Curtiss company, and he flew the Curtiss Pusher for these demonstrations.
The Navy did not own the aircraft, but it was the same type purchased by the Navy in July 1911. As the first US Navy aircraft, the Curtiss carried the designation A-1.
Carrier at the 2000 Nationals
The Navy Carrier events will be flown Thursday through Saturday, July 13–15. This is earlier than in prior years.
Bill Melton will be the Carrier Event Director. He has already identified volunteers for most of the key positions necessary to run the events, but there is always room for more help.
If you are willing to participate as an official or as a facilitator for the events on either day, please contact:
- Bill Melton: (505) 522-4685
- Bill Calkins: (630) 466-1531
Event schedule:
- Profile Carrier will be held Thursday, with processing on Wednesday evening.
- Class I and Class II will be flown on Friday.
- Saturday will include all of the unofficial events.
Sportsman Carrier will be sponsored by the Navy Carrier Society, and I'll sponsor Nostalgia Carrier. I expect there will be .15 Carrier and Skyway Carrier as well, but I don't know if there are sponsors as this column is being prepared in December.
I will miss the events this year because of work commitments. Therefore, I am seeking a volunteer to run the Nostalgia Carrier event on Saturday.
I will provide scoring sheets and awards, but will need someone to process the aircraft, tabulate the scores, and keep the event running efficiently. If you are willing to take on the job, please contact me.
ARF Carrier
I've written about various kits for Navy Carrier events. There are a few kits made specifically for Carrier. Others—mostly Radio Control Combat models—could be modified for the event.
The appeal of a prebuilt model for starting out in Navy Carrier could be enough to get a few new modelers into the event. There are appropriate prototypes modeled as almost-ready-to-fly (ARF) radio-control airplanes, but they have traditionally been too large for the 44-inch wingspan limit.
In the past few years, smaller ARF models have been introduced. I've been looking at them to see if they could be readily adapted to Carrier flying, but I have yet to find any that fit within the 5% scale requirement for Class I and II.
If you have to modify the outlines of the model, you might as well build a model and get exactly what you want.
Relying on advertising is not adequate. Few ARFs are designated as "scale" in their descriptions. Of those that are, the descriptions are deceptive. I obtained one model that was labeled "S" (sport scale), but it was the worst of the lot as far as outlines were concerned.
Deviations of plus or minus 20%, and outlines only suggestive of the original aircraft, are more common than any real effort to represent the full-scale airplane.
One of the major advantages of patronizing a local hobby shop is that you can inspect the product before you buy it.
I may have missed a few points, so I'd like to hear from you if you know of any ARF models that have potential for Navy Carrier. If I find one that could qualify as a decent Carrier model, even with a few modifications, I'll let you know. The search goes on.
Rules Proposals
There is one rule-change proposal on the books for the Control Line Navy Carrier events. It was published in the March issue. The deadline for Control Line Contest Board (CLCB) voting on proposals is February 28, so you need to hurry if you want to comment to your CLCB representative.
The proposal would increase the displacement limit for Profile Carrier engines to 6.0 cubic centimeters (0.3661 cubic inch). It seems that most of the engine-manufacturing world uses the metric system, and doesn't read US rules when making design decisions.
There are more-affordable 6cc engines available than there are real .36 engines, so the rule makes good sense—at least from an equipment availability point of view.
The minor increase in displacement will not be noticed in performance. The change will even make the more-recent Fox .36 engines legal again.
This rule probably should have been proposed for other events, as well.
Photos of Winter Projects
I'd like to be publishing photographs of your latest projects, but I can't; you haven't sent any. If I don't receive some photos soon, you'll be looking at pictures of my grandchildren in upcoming issues.
MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
