The Inside Loop
I'm really not into woodworking. Building cabinets, boats, and furniture is an art and I love watching television shows and reading magazines specialized in creative shop projects. What I don't like is that sawing, sanding, routing, and chopping wood creates a giant mess, not to mention the tools used are really dangerous.
But I will build a model airplane. Now isn't that strange?
Not hardly. You can't fly a bookcase or hover a birdhouse. The skills to make either a model or breadbox are respectively shared, but airplanes are cool.
When it comes to models, all of those shop skills converge at the flying field and matter even more. It's not like a dresser or bed frame is going to try to cut your finger off once it's moved against the wall. Our models deserve a certain level of respect at all times.
I'm not saying that the preceding makes us modelers better than people like Norm Abrams (a hero of mine), but after the project is done, we modelers still have to be on our toes. Safety is a constant concern.
Flying, spinning, flipping, and diving objects are a potential danger we must respect. It's a challenge that makes being a part of the aeromodeling activity so rewarding.
We at MA are thrilled to show modelers enjoying the hobby. The images that often appear most dramatic are the flight shots.
Even more striking are the images that show the RC pilot and the aircraft being flown in the same photo frame. Such imagery adds a level of perspective to the excitement we sometimes take for granted.
However, some members have seen our presentation of such imagery as irresponsible. Look at the RC helicopter column on page 109. The photo of a person demonstrating the windmill effect of a helicopter, and the other of an inverted helicopter with its pilot and caller in the background, are of particular interest. Both of these images portray specific lessons that should be clearly understood.
Neither these images nor similar ones printed in the past are examples of safety irresponsibility. In fact, printing them is an opportunity to heighten awareness and sensibility. Do we want photographers to haphazardly run out in front of speeding aircraft to get that stellar shot? Certainly not!
The photos we have printed, like these, have all been subject to questions regarding safety and have been answered to us that every safety precaution was taken. And you know what? That's great to hear.
We could avoid showing you pictures that, from a certain perspective, are deemed examples of less-than-safe practices. But burying our heads in the sand, avoiding the points and examples of why we need to be safe, is also irresponsible.
The topic of safety, being so important, is also why we have a department in the magazine dedicated to the subject of safety. The war stories therein can be very entertaining, but in no way a laughing matter.
Maintain your diligence ...
To those members who have expressed concern over the safety of our members and the photographers who have brought us great imagery, thank you. Maintain your diligence, as it helps us sustain ours. Likewise, go out there and have fun with your model aircraft.
In the meantime, if you really want something to poke your eye out with, or to mud up your lungs with balsa dust, check out Don DeLoach's elegant catapult-launch glider. The Ellipsix is an F/F model with all the bells and whistles. That's because Don designed it well enough that having them fly away proved too traumatic—so he built the version we've presented here, which has a DT.
Notice that the plans for this design fit full-scale on the magazine pages. When Don gave us the model, the wish was that the Ellipsix would help convince young and old modelers to build for the first time or pick it up again. You don't have to have the likes of the New Yankee Workshop to call your build space; this is a project that fits on a folding dinner tray.
Frank Granelli's article, "A Tail of Two Airplanes," isn't a review. On the contrary, it includes some information that moves his feature out of the review category and into the how-to or upgrade category.
Frank knows how to fly better than Santa Claus. His article includes the kind of information we all want and need to make our model airplanes perform better, last longer, and, oh yeah—enable us to fly more safely. —MR
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
