Letters to the Editor
Still Loves His Work
5151 E. Memorial Dr., Muncie IN 47302
Over the years I have seen letters to the editors complimenting me on my drawings. I always take an enormous amount of enjoyment and appreciation from reading them. I was especially touched by the comments made by Frank Hasty in the December 1999 issue. Engineering drawing in college was a whole new world to me, and I found it fascinating. Many years later it became the main reason that I began doing this work.
Bill Winter called me in 1975 after publishing one of my articles and asked if I would draw a plan for Model Aviation. Of course, I was honored. It is now close to 900 model drawings later, for many magazines, several kit manufacturers, and an occasional individual.
Through it all, I got to talk to many icons in the hobby and made many friends, too numerous to list. I also get the chance to build these fantastic models in my mind.
I am thrilled when a new package is dropped off at the door, and I still get excited when I open up the job and figure out, “How am I going to make this look great?”
During the process I try to find errors and make sure that the parts will fit. I do apologize for the occasional miss that I didn’t see or sometimes caused.
Enjoyable, rewarding, satisfying—not enough adjectives to describe the last 24 years of this work.
Joe DeMarco Oceansport, New Jersey
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RC Wind Effect
Mr. Schwarzen (“Letters,” December 1999) is quite incorrect in his assertion that the mechanical connection to the ground produced by the control lines is the same as that produced by radio waves.
The fact is, with a steady wind of any speed, the RC craft has no way of knowing the wind is blowing, since the radio has no such control input.
Mr. Schwarzen may appreciate this if he assumes there is no wind but that the ground is moving relative to a still air mass at a speed equal to the actual wind speed. Since there is no air movement, there can’t be any effect on the RC aircraft. This interchangeability of coordinate systems is exactly why wind tunnels work!
The classic problem is, of course, how to make the transformation from still air to the now-moving ground or vice versa without damage to either the airplane or our egos. Picture the problem of getting on and off a fast-moving escalator.
S. Cole Boulder, Wyoming
An RC aircraft is very different from a control-line aircraft. A control-line model is mechanically connected to the pilot, whereas an RC aircraft is a free body in the air mass. As such, it is not connected to anybody by anything (materially, that is, although one might make an argument for a spiritual connection).
A controller standing on the ground is not a free body in the air mass. The pilot controlling from a balloon is a free body and if he were to duplicate the pattern (in the air mass) of the ground controller, the pattern would move away from him at the “wind” speed. However, the model would experience exactly the same forces and perform identically.
Except for transitions occurring at launch/takeoff or because of gusts or wind shears, the only wind that the airplane knows anything about is the relative wind it generates itself. The pilot could be standing on the ground, aloft in a balloon, sitting inside his 25-foot-wingspan model (working the radio), or be sitting at a desk in London controlling the model via video and satellite hookup; it makes no difference.
Lewis Merton College Station, Texas
I would like to give Dave Schwarzen more ammo on the wind and its effect on our models.
One reason the wind affects our airplanes is because they fly slowly compared to the wind they are in. I notice that as my airplane flies into a 10 mph wind at 20 mph, the airplane has a 20 mph airspeed. But when I turn that airplane downwind, the airspeed drops to 10 mph until it accelerates to 20 mph again or stalls first.
We pilots compensate for the wind conditions by not turning too quickly or banking to catch the wind to help the airplane accelerate to 20 mph again.
I remember when we always went flying early in the morning when it was calm. Today’s airplanes and equipment allow us to fly almost anytime, barring limited visibility. I’ve flown my Hobby Shack Super Fly in our 25 mph Santa Ana winds, just for fun.
Glenn Sparks Yucaipa, California
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
