Modeling Spoken Here - 2006/05

ave you noticed the trend toward
recapturing the best of the good
things of the past in our society?
It seems that many are taking a
look back over their shoulders and fondly
remembering experiences from an earlier,
perhaps simpler, era.
People are willing to pay greatly in some
cases to own even a small part of something
that reminds them of their younger days. An
example of this would be the cars sold at the
Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction,
featured on the Speed Channel television
network.
Old stuff from the 1950s and 1960s—
and in most cases American Iron from
Detroit—is selling for astronomical prices.
Cars that originally sold for, say, $3,000
new are routinely fetching prices in excess
of $100,000! That’s really putting your
money where your memory is!
In our hobby this nostalgia trend has
been going on for quite a while. Certainly
one successful and popular manifestation of
this is the Society of Antique Modelers
(SAM) movement.
This group is dedicated to preserving and
even repopularizing the models and
competition events from a long-bygone era.
In the March MA we featured coverage of
the 2005 SAM Champs that was contested
in the high desert in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Old-time FF models converted to RC assist,
FF replicas, and, for the first time, Old Time
and Classic CL models were invited to
compete.
Another successful nostalgia group is the
Vintage Radio Control Society (VR/CS). It
is dedicated to preserving all aspects of the
early RC movement, including not only the
models but also the radio-control units that
were used in the early RC models.
Have you ever watched an escapement
work? How about a Galloping Ghost
system? That will leave you twitching for
sure! Check out the VR/CS booth at any
hobby consumer show for a lesson about
how far we’ve come technically.
Technology is great, and it’s a safe bet
that given the choice we’d probably opt to
keep the equipment we have today for
routine use. But I’d also bet that most of us
would book a trip to the past a couple of
times each year if we could, just to enjoy
things at a slower and perhaps more
enjoyable pace.
As my good friend Bill Werwage
(current F2B World Champion) once said in
reference to the Classic CL Stunt event,
“The past is a nice place to visit but a
dangerous place to live. Don’t forget to
work on the new stuff too.”
His intent was, in my interpretation, to
remind us that the stuff of today will be the
nostalgia stuff of tomorrow and that we
should strive to push the technology to a
higher level while giving a more than
occasional nod to where we’ve been.
Aeromodeling Editor Bob Hunt
I could easily see myself
building one of those
character-filled airplanes …
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Another nostalgia modeling group, like
the VR/CS, focuses on early RC modeling.
The Senior Pattern Association (SPA) is
dedicated to the preservation of, and
participation in, RC Pattern (Aerobatics)
flying. The VR/CS also has events for
Pattern flying, but its focus is on more than
one aspect of RC nostalgia.
This issue contains an article that is
dedicated to explaining and promoting the
efforts of both organizations in respect to
early Pattern-type flying. The author of this
“State of the Sport” piece is Duane Wilson,
whose father was active in RC Pattern in the
early 1960s. It naturally followed that
Duane’s “heroes” in modeling would be the
famous modelers of that era that his father
also revered.
Duane flew Pattern into the 1980s and
then took a long sabbatical. He recently reentered
the hobby, and his interests
immediately gravitated toward the vintage
Pattern events. His positive insights about
how the vintage events are being conducted
and about the people involved in them is
interesting reading.
We convinced Duane to expand on his
original idea of a revisit type of piece to a
State of the Sport report, including a list of
plans sources for those who might be
interested in getting involved and contacts
for the SPA and VR/CS.
I found this piece to be extremely
inspirational. I have always liked flying RC
Pattern and did so semicompetitively in the
1980s. I did not keep up with the technology
and the new patterns being flown. I did not
feel that I would have the extra time to spend
in the future getting up to speed enough to
be competitive in modern Pattern events.
I have always loved the designs of the
Pattern models from the vintage era,
Modeling Spoken Here
6 MODEL AVIATION
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