Flying for Fun - 2005/05

D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
FOR MANY YEARS I have referred readers
searching for fiberglass cowls for kits and
published designs to Fiberglass Specialties.
The company has sold its molds and business
to Craig Schmidt, 15715 Ashmore Dr.,
Garfield AR 72732. His Web site is
www.fiberglassspecialtiesinc.com/.
Craig’s catalog lists cowls for most, if not
all, of the kits that were originally supplied
with ABS cowls and wheel pants,
replacement units for those with fiberglass
parts, and units for designs published in all of
the magazines for many years. I’ve examined
his products and they are superb, with
virtually no pinholes and nice, thick gel coats.
Also included are various sizes of generic
round cowls for use with original designs or
kit bashes.
One of the magazine designs I still receive
inquiries about is the September 1993 Radio
Control Modeler plans that were published to
convert a 4-120 biplane into a sort of
Ultimate. I can’t give any leads on obtaining a
kit, but the cowl, pants, and canopy are in the
Fiberglass Specialties catalog.
Engine Crud: For as long as modelers have
been running internal-combustion engines,
they have been searching for a quick and easy
way to clean them after extensive use. We
once used compounds that are no longer
available because of environmental concerns,
such as gun cleaners, carburetor cleaners,
oven cleaners, etc.
Several products have been developed
specifically for cleaning the grit and grime off
of our engines. Unfortunately none of the
currently available products are fully effective
and suffer problems with shelf life.
One of the dubious benefits of retirement
is time to hang out in true hobby shops and
visit with others who have similar interests.
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Hal deBolt removable radio box, circa 1953. Note dry cells,
single-tube receiver, wound-rubber-driven escapement.
Bottom view of the box showing switches for 45- and 4.5-volt
batteries, jack for mA meter, and adjustable potentiometer.
A DE Super Aerotrol ad from the September 1953 Model Airplane News. The unit was
available as a kit or assembled. The magazine cover price was 25¢!
That’s something I’ve never had the
opportunity to do. Most of what little I know
about model airplanes has been learned
throughout many years from experience,
reading specialized publications, and listening
carefully at flying fields.
It is amazing how much useful
information can be picked up at a good hobby
shop from the staff and the customers. With
few exceptions, modelers are more than
willing to share techniques, hints, tips, etc.
with each other.
I recently heard an experienced modeler
respond to a novice’s question that the neatest
way to clean the crud off of a well-used
engine is to use a Crock-Pot full of antifreeze.
Several of the others present agreed. I’m told
that the idea was once published in a
magazine, but it was certainly news to me.
A Crock-Pot from the Goodwill store or a
garage sale can be filled with enough
automobile antifreeze to cover the engine.
Left on high overnight, it will remove all
sorts of nasty crud.
Modern antifreeze contains substances to
clean scale, rust, carbon, acid, and corrosion
from the metal as it passes through the
automobile’s engine and radiator. Therefore,
it’s completely logical that antifreeze would
do the same to a model engine when warmed.
Any remaining stubborn spots will clean
off easily with a metal brush. Any rubber
parts, such as O-rings, should be removed
from the engine before immersing it. Wash
the engine thoroughly with warm water in the
sink after treating it, and then thoroughly oil
all of the parts.
Antifreeze is caustic if ingested, and the
fumes are harmful. So use the technique in a
Crock-Pot that is strictly dedicated to this use,
and leave the lid on when heating in a wellventilated
room. This may sound a bit far out,
but it really does work well.
On the topic of learning from other
modelers, a good listener is a poor talker. If
you want to learn from the other person, be a
listener—not a talker. If you do all the talking,
all you will learn is what you already know!
Our little flying group has used some old
front-porch benches and picnic tables at our
flying sites for many years. They have little, if
any, use for flying but are wonderful for
conversations. Several of us old guys fly a bit
and then gravitate toward the sit-down
position to discuss all sorts of wide-ranging
problems. We seem to be good at identifying
what’s wrong in the world but bad at finding
solutions.
We are also adept at starting conversations
with “Now back when ... ”—words that seem
to cause young people’s eyes to glaze over
almost instantly. You young readers need to
understand that the past is more comfortable
to us old folks than the future because we
May 2005 79
A deBolt ad from the April 1952 Model Airplane News. The Senior was similar but larger.
Many other RC and CL deBolt kits were introduced throughout the years.
Variable potentiometer was adjusted to provide maximum dip (or
jump) when transmitter was keyed. Constantly changed as
batteries ran down. From April 1952 Model Airplane News.
Hal deBolt 10 years later with full-house, proportional aerobatic
model, indicating rapid changes in RC that occurred in that
decade. From 1964 American Modeler Annual.
managed to live through the past and have
doubts about our role in the future. We can
learn a lot by listening to younger modelers.
When it comes to our favorite hobby, the
past was not “the good old days”—at least
when you compare the hardware, equipment,
and products that were available to
contemporary modeling. However, the past
attracts us because we managed to survive and
conquer all of the modeling challenges,
disappointments, and annoyances of the 1940s,
1950s, and 1960s.
I’ve mentioned this era’s lumps and bumps
before and have received several letters
challenging my memories with accounts of all
sorts of good results with the primitive radio
equipment of that time. Most modelers of that
era remember exactly what I remember: an
occasional rare success surrounded by hours of
failures.
From my current vantage point, I wonder
how sane we might have been to suffer so, yet
keep on trying. On the other hand,
remembering back to those days certainly
emphasizes the incredible simplicity,
reliability, and relatively low cost of today’s
radio equipment.
Armin Lindow and I have been flying
models together for at least 20 years, yet every
once in awhile we learn something from each
other. Not long ago, he arrived at the flying
field with something that started a flood of
memories for me: a Hal deBolt “Removable
R/C Unit” from a project that Armin and two
Medford, Wisconsin, buddies (Bill Heimerl
and Bill Peizsich) constructed in 1953 or 1954.
In it was a DE (Joe Dale and Bill Effinger)
Aerotrol receiver suspended from the corners
with rubber bands. Also still in the box were
batteries, a switch, and an adjustable
potentiometer. The concept with this early
radio set was simple; the gear could be
removed from the model with everything but
the rubber drive for the escarpment to benchcheck,
tune, and change the dry-cell batteries
(rechargeable Ni-Cds came along many years
later) without fishing around inside the
fuselage.
An added advantage, and one we would
never consider today, was the ability to transfer
the radio setup from model to model. This is a
reflection of the cost of the RC gear.
This Removable R/C Unit was a design
feature in many of Hal deBolt’s RC kits, such
as the original Live Wire Trainer, the Live
Wire Senior, the Champ, and the Cub. My
memory buttons were pushed when I saw
Armin’s “box” since I built a Live Wire
Trainer in 1952 and equipped it with a British
ED radio, transmitter, and escapement, and a
Cub .09. For whatever reason, I was never
80 MODEL AVIATION
able to get the receiver tuned to the
transmitter well enough to fly the model.
Armin and one friend assembled, silked,
and orange-doped the Live Wire Senior and
powered it with an Ohlsson & Rice .23 on
glow, while the third partner assembled a DE
Aerotrol kit. These radios were available in
kit form for roughly $40 and assembled for
$49.95. That is not at all inexpensive in 1953
dollars, particularly considering their
marginal effectiveness.
These radio units were availed on 53mc
for those who had HAM licenses, but also on
the new exam-free 27mc band. Previously
only HAMs could legally operate radiocontrol
equipment, but thanks to AMA’s
efforts, an exam-free (no Morse code) license
was available.
At that particular moment these were not
truly license free, as is so often erroneously
reported. It was required that a form be
completed and sent to the Federal
Communications Commission with some
monetary amount. In return, one received a
license in card form that was to be
prominently displayed on the transmitter.
The Live Wire’s design features, besides
the removable radio box, were a deep-bellied
and wide sheet-balsa fuselage, a flat airfoil,
an airfoiled stabilizer on the fuselage bottom
to keep the nose down as the model
accelerated (they were rudder only), a high
thrustline, and deBolt’s novel “egg crate”
wing construction. This consisted of a fulldepth
spar notched halfway at the top for the
deeply slotted ribs. All of this was way
before cyanoacrylate adhesive, iron-on
coverings, and epoxies.
Armin and his friends managed several
successful flights with their model,
interspersed with a few treetop and “arrival”-
type landings. For reasons long forgotten, the
Live Wire Senior ended up in the front
window of one of the partner’s five-and-dime
in Medford, Wisconsin, for several years and
then faded away. Somehow the radio box
survived 50 years of storage.
An excellent source of plans for all of the
wondrous FF, CL, and RC kits produced by
Hal deBolt throughout the years is Fran
Ptaszkiewicz, 23 Marlee Dr., Tonawanda NY
14150.
Fran worked in the kit factory for many
years and has exclusive rights to the
drawings. Send him a large SASE for a list of
what he has for sale.
Mixed in with Armin’s recollections of his
early RC days in Medford, Wisconsin, was a
neat story. “Pep” and Fran Simek ran a “beer
garden” across from the cemetery in Medford
in the 1950s. Fran began making pizza to sell
to their customers to go along with the beer,
and the idea blossomed. Pizza sales reached
the point where the Simeks began to package
their pizza to be sold in grocery stores in the
area.
Sales continued to grow to the point
where they began to freeze and distribute the
pizzas throughout a wide area for take-home
use. The frozen-pizza business finally became
so successful and profitable that Kraft Foods
bought the product and name. The Simeks’
beer garden across from the cemetery is
where Tombstone Pizza was born. MA