Modeling Spoken Here
Bob Hunt, Aeromodeling Editor
Can you say "visionary"?
I'm always pleased to be able to publish the first works by new authors on almost any modeling subject. Being a designer myself, I'm especially pleased to publish first construction articles. New ideas and original thinking are manifested best in such articles, in my humble opinion.
This month we are featuring a construction article which is neither the first published work by the author in question nor is it his first original design. It is his first design of its type, however, and I believe it is significant in its interest area—so significant that I want to write a bit about the author and his creation here.
The name Phil Granderson will certainly be recognizable by a large segment of our hobby/sport. He is a longtime CL Combat competitor with extremely impressive credentials.
In the early 1970s Phil was designing and winning with original Combat models. His Tarantula was a state-of-the-art design in an era that was noted for an explosion of new technology in that event. To produce a standout Combat design then was something big—and stand out it did. Phil used his original weapon to win the 1978 National Championship crown in Fast Combat.
Phil was also a world-class competitor, giving the United States its first medal in FAI Combat competition in 1980 in Poland. I was on that team as an F2B (CL Precision Aerobatics, or Stunt) member and vividly remember the exciting matches that Phil flew. He was in contention for the win right up to the last few flights.
What the record doesn't show is that Phil was extremely ill during the entire trip. It's hard enough to fly at that level when you are in peak physical condition. Phil showed us all a fantastic performance under extremely tough personal conditions.
What most modelers who knew about Phil probably didn't know is that through all of this he was also designing and flying CL Stunt models. In fact, he designed his first original stunter in 1960 at age 11. And he flew an original design in his first competition. How many of us can say that?
All of Phil's original Stunt designs were different from the norm. His airplanes featured extremely long tail moment arms. Some of them were as much as two-thirds longer than the conventional models of the era.
I asked Phil recently why he did that. His answer was so matter-of-fact that I was stunned. He said that when he started to design, he would look at full-scale airplanes as they flew over. They seemed to have much longer tail moment arms than the models that he'd seen. His reasoning was, "There must be something to that."
Of course, the rest of us who were flying and designing Stunt models in those days sort of ignored such extremes in design and felt that Phil just wasn't "getting it." Let the record show that the modern trend in aerobatic design is toward ever-longer tail moments, and all of a sudden Phil's airplanes don't look strange anymore. Can you say "visionary"?
Phil's Diva design—which is presented this month as a construction feature—has gained a large following, not just because of its aerodynamics, but also because of Phil's philosophy on power-plant application and usage. Phil is using a relatively inexpensive engine package in the Diva, and it is beginning to turn some heads.
I was privileged to be able to spend quite a bit of time flying this airplane. I visited Phil awhile back and went to the Golden State Championships with him. We shared his Diva for the weekend, and I found it to be a friendly, easy-to-fly, and consistent model. Many others who have flown it agree with those points. This design, and Phil's thoughts on its development, have been much anticipated by the CL Stunt community. It makes great reading for anyone who has an interest in designing, no matter what the discipline.
In addition to the magazine article, we are publishing a portion of Phil's material as the first of our MA "Web Extra" features. Sometimes an article is too long to print in its entirety in the magazine. Instead of cutting out meaningful and interesting portions to make the article fit, we will feature these on our MA Web site.
There will be a small MA Web Extra graphic at the beginning of each article for which this is offered, and there will be a reminder at the end of the magazine article alerting the reader that more is available on the Web site.
I have always believed in "printing all the news that's fit to print" instead of just "printing all the news that fits." This new policy will allow us to do just that more often.
Need to contact me? My address is Box 68, Stockertown, PA 18083. My telephone number is (610) 614-1747. My E-mail address is [email protected].
Till next month, have fun designing, building, and flying.
MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
