Letters to the Editor
5161 E. Memorial Dr., Muncie IN 47302
Corrections
The Indoor Free Flight competitor on the December 2001 cover—Doug Schaefer—was misidentified as Ben Saks.
A caption of Bill Brown on page 142 of the December issue cites him as the winner of the Moffett event; Ed Konfess won the category.
At the top of page 75 in the December issue, Bob Benjamin is shown with his Taylorcraft—not his Aeronca.
Our apologies for the errors.
—MA staff
Look! A Microhenry!
I thought your readers might get a kick out of this photo. Mike Naylor is flying his Tiger Moth with Ed Hawk watching his fancy maneuvers.
Someone observing the action said, "Hey, that would make a good picture. It looks just like a Microhenry over there." I grabbed my trusty camera and took this candid picture!
—Gerry Randa Wooster, Ohio
No to the Nats issue
I am writing in response to Bob Hunt's December 2001 column in Model Aviation.
Although I am one of those guys who reads all the columns in MA because (even though I'm primarily interested in R/C [Radio Control] Scale and recently in RC Helicopters), I agree with Bob that there's often a trip or idea you can pick up from other aspects of the hobby/sport.
But I have to put in my two cents worth on the competition thing. (I imagine at least 90% or more of modelers have absolutely no interest in competition. I don't want to do it—and I don't want to read about it.)
I enjoy flying RC airplanes and I enjoy the camaraderie of other fliers. I much prefer sharing with and helping other fliers than trying to "beat" them.
I don't mind a small section of competition results in the back of each issue of MA, but an entire issue full of Nats coverage is a major waste of an otherwise great magazine.
I just accept this and realize that one issue per year will be really boring and a waste of paper. I still have 11 other issues to look forward to, anyway. But I dread that issue.
Hard as I try to read it, there's absolutely nothing interesting about who scored what with what airplane. I don't know these people and don't care what they're doing. And I'm sure almost every other AMA member feels the same way.
I understand Bob's rationalization about competition bringing about benefits to us all. Auto racing brings about benefits for our everyday cars, but if the car magazines I read ever produced an entire issue full of boring race results and almost nothing pertaining to the 90+% who enjoy driving regular street cars, they'd have most of their magazines languishing on newsstands unsold and be besieged with mail canceling subscriptions.
Most modelers have absolutely no interest in competition of any kind. Yet we all have to suffer this unreadable issue once a year so the 5 or 7 percent who compete can enjoy seeing their names in print. I really don't understand this thinking. Thank God it's only once a year!
The other observation I have is that in his Org and Zok example, I don't think the loser would go home and try to think of a way to kill the mastodon better. A true caveman would go home and build a better weapon to kill the other caveman who just beat him up over the carcass.
That's the true spirit of competition!
Sorry to complain, but I've suffered through the Nats issue every year since 1988. It feels good to finally tell somebody how annoying it is.
—Lance Novak Studio City, California
FF Indoor Nats coverage
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article and seeing all the many fine and different photos of the airplanes and the folks who built them. In fact, I've reread the article several times. You did one heck of a fine job of covering and photographing this event. My hat is tipped to you.
I would have never imagined that there was such a variety of aircraft and events for this type of contest. It blew me away!
I did chuckle though when I thought of the bunches of rubber being compared to one another like wine enthusiasts talk about the good years for grapes. Do you have a "rubber cellar" for storing supplies of favorite months/years? Just joking of course!
Great articles covering wonderful events like this will continue to draw both Juniors and Seniors into the hobby, and it will encourage more folks to step forward as mentors too.
Thank you for taking the time to put together such an interesting and really complete article about US Indoor Championships/AMA Nationals. Great job—really great job!
—George Biederman Des Peres, Missouri
What this hobby needs
Building and flying model airplanes is a great hobby, and one that we should pass along to the next generation. It is a hobby that should be available to all, boys, girls, men, and women, not limited to the few who can afford it.
Unless we can instill a love of building and flying in all young people, where will the next generation of modelers come from? What this hobby needs is to go back to its roots, back to a time when even the poorest youngster could afford to be a modeler.
As someone who built his first model in 1942, I can remember the model magazines of the day were filled with plans for inexpensive rubber-powered models, Free Flight models, and a new thing called U-Control.
It was a time when one could buy a rubber-powered stick-and-cover kit from any candy store, five-and-dime, department store, drug store, and, of course, hobby shops. These kits ranged in price from 10 cents to five dollars.
My first kit was a Continental Flyer, which cost 10 cents, and another five cents for a bottle of airplane glue (yes I said bottle, glue came in a glass bottle with a cork stopper).
Since my allowance was 25 cents a week, it took less than one week's allowance to introduce me to the hobby. It must be remembered that in 1942 we were at war, and my dad was in the Army, and we lived on a $21-a-day, once-a-month Army private's allotment, and whatever mom could earn.
It wasn't till 1949 that I was able to get my first engine; it was a K&B Infant Popeye, which at the time cost about six dollars.
What is all this leading to? If we want to be able to pass this hobby on to the next generation, we have to ensure that they can afford to build and fly models. We also need a place for the kids to fly their airplanes.
Here in NYC, all the school yards where we used to fly our Control Line models are closed to us. All the parks and open fields where we flew Free Flight are closed to us or have become building sites.
Most of the small, private airports where we used to fly our models have been closed by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to facilitate traffic patterns at the major airports.
Letters to the Editor
Not competitive enough
When I read on page 66 of the December 2001 issue of Model Aviation that in this year's ½A Texaco Nats Electric event 10 of the 15 entrants maxed twice requiring runoffs, somewhat a repeat of last year's performance shows that there is a lack of challenge.
The rules of the event need to be addressed by comparison to the regular ½A Texaco glow-powered event proven by its record as the most popular Old-Timer event, attracting the most entrants year after year.
Let's compare the Elexaco rules, which should be used. The Elexaco event proved to be truly competitive and incidentally may or may not be restricted to Old-Timer by option of the director.
½A glow Texaco defines power as a Cox .049 and fuel capacity which is run out for limited engine-run.
Elexaco defines power battery, Max 4 Dymond 400 motor, and prop which is run off for limited motor run of two minutes with shutoff by radio.
In both the power and run is controlled with a run relationship to that proven and popular ½A Texaco event. Elexaco is the vehicle that will carry the same popularity and tradition for Electric, not the rules that are being used. MA
Joe Beshar Oradell, New Jersey
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
