100 M ODEL AVIATION
Stan Alexander, 3709 Valley Ridge Dr., Nashville TN 37211; E-mail: [email protected]
RADIO CONTROL SCALE
in 2003 The first indoor Radio Control
(RC) Scale National Championships will take
place using AMA Sport Scale rules including
documentation and flight requirements. To be
held at the Neville Island Sports Center golf
dome, the primary difference between
outdoor RC and this event is a weight limit of
20 ounces and a wing-loading limit of 2.5
ounces per square foot of wing area.
Hosted by the Greater Pittsburgh Aero
Radio Control Society, the event will take
place August 15-17. Static judging will take
place the first evening, and flying will be
during the following two days.
This is a new event for an exploding
segment of our hobby. Indoor events have
been taking off across the country in the past
two years. Scale modelers have seen a large
increase in this activity. Many of the smaller,
older plans sets for Free Flight (FF) or
Control Line (CL) Scale with spans of 50
inches or less are prime candidates for this
activity.
The National Indoor Remote Controlled
Aircraft Council (NIRAC) AMA Special
Interest Group held the first national Scale
event after the static portion of the Scale
Nationals at Muncie this past summer.
NIRAC used a different set of rules than most
RC Scale modelers are used to. That event
was a great beginning, which has led to the
2003 Nationals.
NIRAC continues to work to improve and
promote indoor RC flying and competition.
Expect to see a complete indoor RC nationals
format in the near future, including Scale,
pattern, racing, duration events, payload, and
others.
The sports center is located 10 to 15
minutes from hotels, restaurants, shopping
Ramon Torres Sr. and his son Ramon at the flightline during
competition. Dad had the shakes just a little that day! Mike Gretz’s Demoiselle during indoor RC Scale at the Nationals.
Mike’s electric-powered, 50-inch-span 1909 Antoinette finished second at the Nats.
areas, and has a host of activities for the
family; miniature golf, ice skating, and a
water park are just a few of the options
available. The center has plenty of room and
is used on a regular basis for club “fly-ins.” I
guess they really do fly in there each month!
AMA Sport Scale rules will be used,
including documentation for RC Scale rules.
The primary difference will be a strictly
enforced weight and wing-loading limit. The
club’s practical experience flying at this site is
that a 20-ounce airplane of approximately 2.5
square feet is a maximum. The GWS Scale
models fly very well in this environment.
There are no motor limits; however, a
maximum of a geared Speed 400 is
recommended.
Fun Scale class will include profile RC
models, which is a departure from the
standard AMA rules. Models such as the
Roadkill series will be allowed, provided that
appropriate care be taken to make the models
as realistic as possible. There is no builder-ofthe-
model rule in this class.
Sportsman will also be included with
Almost Ready-to-Fly (ARF) types allowed,
but there will be no relaxation of the
documentation or static-judging requirements.
January 2003 103
There will be 100 points scored in static in
Sportsman. For all other Scale categories,
model documentation and static requirements
are the same as for AMA Scale RC events
held outdoors.
Flight requirements will be the same as for
outdoor RC Scale competition, with 100
points for each flight and 10 maneuvers
including Takeoff, Fly-Past, Figure Eight,
Landing, and Realism in Flight. The other five
maneuvers include options available in the
AMA rules under Scale competition or
documented scale maneuvers selected by the
pilot.
Several sponsors have already lined up to
help, including Mark’s Hobby Warehouse,
Island Sports Center, and Brodak Distributing
Company. Several demonstration flights will
be flown at the Nationals, including CL
indoor and FF Indoor. If time is available,
fun-flying will be held after the official events
each day. For more information, please
contact Jim Rediske at [email protected]
or (724) 457-1730.
Why indoor RC? In the photos are a
couple of the models built from kits: the Sig
Antoinette and Demoiselle. Most of the
Neville Island Sports Center will be the site of the 2003 indoor RC Scale Nats.
Bert Kinzey wrote SBD Dauntless in Detail
& Scale. It’s a good book for research and
models we see flying indoors are slow flyers
such as the World War I models or pre-World
War I types. Home-built aircraft and light
types also work well in this environment.
Expense is one of the main reasons for
flying this type of model, and you can fly it
anytime. You don’t have to worry about
sunlight, wind, temperature, bugs, and a host
of other stuff that can get in the way of
enjoying Scale models. As far as contest
models go, these are also much more
inexpensive to build and fly.
Many modelers out there enjoy Scale
models that are, well, a bit different. There are
also a great deal of models you don’t see too
often because there isn’t a kit to build—just
plans. But within this segment of modeling,
Bill Hannan falls right into place.
Bill’s company specializes in books, plans,
and documentation of aircraft you don’t hear
of that often. Some of the designs presented in
his catalog have been built to 1⁄4 scale, and
others have been built as FF Peanuts and
Pistachios. He has several booklets titled
Peanuts & Pistachios. There is information
for Waymann’s Nieuport, Ogilvie’s Baby
Wright, and Hamel’s Blériot. There is also a
complete selection of products from
Windsock Datafiles.
If you have an indoor Scale RC model,
send me a photo and I’ll be glad to get it
published in this column.
Many of these model types would be
excellent for the indoor RC event, so send in
the dollar (refundable with order) for a catalog
and try something different. Contact Hannan’s
Runway, Box 210, Magalia CA 95954, call
(530) 873-6421, or check out the Web site at
www.hrunway.com.
in the november column I wrote about the
Corben Baby Ace model. Having some
technical difficulty with my computer has
really put the column in a tailspin this month.
(I don’t know about the rest of you, but about
the time I get used to something with the
Internet or a program, something crashes or
the computer dies like mine just did.) We’ll
learn a little more about the Baby Ace this
month and dive into the model more next
month.
Production of Corben aircraft began in the
1930s, and they are still built today by Ace
Aircraft Inc. There are two types available: the
single-place Corben Baby Ace Model D and
the two-place Junior Ace Model E. Both are
open-cockpit aircraft and are sold as “plans
built” with optional prewelded assemblies
and precut fittings available. The wing uses
a Clark Y airfoil with a 54-inch chord.
My 1⁄4-scale model is designed as an
earlier version of the Baby Ace with
rounded stabilizer, rudder, and elevators.
The newer Model D Baby Ace has a more
squared-off, modern look. We will work
with the newer, squared-off version.
Put a piece of waxed paper over the plans
and redraw the outlines, squaring them off.
If you have a Baby Ace nearby, you could
check it out for the accurate outline or go to
the factory in Georgia. Ace Aircraft is
located at 8506 E. Tugalo-Aviation Way,
Toccoa GA 30577, or check out the Web
site at http://expaircraft.
com/aircraft/ace/ace.html.
last year while attending the Scale Masters
Championships in Portland, Oregon, we
drove over to the Evergreen Aviation
Museum. This is a fascinating new facility
with several rare aircraft. The centerpiece of
this collection is Howard Hughes’ Spruce
Goose.
While we were there, volunteers were
working on adding the rudder, flaps, and
ailerons to the jumbo-size flying boat. With
a wingspan greater than that of a Boeing
747, the aircraft has been under restoration
for the last nine years. To give you an idea
of its size, the propeller assemblies weigh in
at 1,000 pounds each.
The museum has roughly 30 aircraft
inside, with one Ford Tri-motor under the port
wing panel of the Spruce Goose. When I
asked about tours of the inside of the Goose, I
was told that there was so much damage to the
aircraft’s structure when it was at Long Beach,
California, tours wouldn’t be permitted
anytime during the near future.
Several aircraft the museum has are
common to many museums across the
country, but it does have a few other
significant airplanes, including the Me 109G-
10, the de Havilland Goblin Mk 3, the MiG-
15UTI two-seat trainer, the General Motors
Avenger TBM-3E, and the Curtiss
CW-A22 Falcon.
The museum is open almost every day of
the year. For more information, hours, etc.,
contact the Evergreen Aviation Museum,
3685 N.E. Three Mile Ln., McMinnville OR
97128; Tel.: (503) 434-4180; Web site:
www.sprucegoose.org.
At the scale Nationals this past year, several
younger modelers competed for the first time
and a few competed for the second time. It’s
great to see this infusion of new Scale
modelers into Scale competition.
At the 2003 Scale Nationals there will be a
few new events for the RC contestants who
want something a little more laid-back. The
announcement has been made that unofficial
Scale FF events sponsored and hosted by
Scale Board Chairman Dave Platt will also be
held at the Nationals.
The Bookshelf: SBD Dauntless in Detail &
Scale by Bert Kinzey, published by Squadron
Publications (1996, ISBN 1-888974-01-X),
has 72 pages and contains background on and
history of the Douglas Dauntless divebomber.
There are sections devoted to scale
drawings, exploded views, color photos, and a
good selection of black-and-white photos.
Some of the color photos include cockpit
and instrument panels, which are lacking in
many books about earlier aviation subjects. A
special section is devoted to the cockpit and
canopy, which has a complicated sliding
system of five pieces.
This is a good book for documentation and
background on this aircraft. You can find it in
most aviation-book catalogs for
approximately $15.
Fair skies and tailwinds. MA
January 2003 107
documentation.
