124 MODEL AVIATION
Also included in this column:
• How to fly the Horizontal
Eight
• Dr.I flight habits
• From the bookshelf
Farewell to Claude McCullough
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Scale Stan Alexander
Left: Claude McCullough by his WACO
trike-gear biplane. He was a keen
competitor, winning many different
contests.
Builder Claude and pilot Scott Christensen with the scratch-built Cuban WACO at
Claude’s last AMA National Championships, in 2007.
Below: Claude’s pusher-powered
Trella T-106 at the Scale National
Championships. It had twin booms
outside the propeller arc and trike
gear.
The FAI F4C-class diagram of the
Horizontal Figure Eight, starting from the
right and going left.
I HAD INTENDED to start this column with
an update of contests you might like to attend
this spring. But that will have to wait.
On January 30, 2008, Claude McCullough,
AMA member 10, passed away at his home.
He was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he
grew up. He served in the US Army in World
War II, as did many others of his generation.
Claude had a career in farming and began
modeling competitively in 1935. He entered
his first AMA National Championships in
1941.
He embraced AMA; he served on many
committees from 1948 until his death. Claude
was elected AMA president in 1957 and was
inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of
Fame in 1979. He served as an AMA
volunteer for more than 59 years, which is
thought to be a service record for an AMA
member on the national level.
Claude was a technical writer. He also
designed kits (the Kadet, Senior, Seniorita,
etc.) for Sig Manufacturing and his own Scale
designs, which were published in several
magazines through the years. A photographer
as well as an experimenter, Claude kept busy
with many projects.
One of the many things modelers around
the world admired about Claude was his
willingness to help them with documentation
or finding a unique way to solve a problem.
He never owned a computer, but he wrote
many articles and magazine columns, and he
took many cover photos.
Later in life, Claude realized that his
piloting skills weren’t up to snuff for
competition. Team Scale became his event,
with either Mike Gretz or Scott Christensen
as his pilot. Some of the many memories I
have of the Nationals are of Claude sitting on
his milk stool working on a model and getting
it ready for the next flight.
05sig4.QXD 3/25/08 9:29 AM Page 124
Edition: Model Aviation - 2008/05
Page Numbers: 124