Radio Control Slope Soaring — 2007/04
Dave Garwood [[email protected]]
A short history of the life and times of Brian Laird
Brian Laird is one of the luminaries of slope soaring. He’s a designer, a maker, an organizer, a writer, a photographer, and a top-gun flier who has contributed a stunning amount of knowledge and enthusiasm to the sport and hobby.
More amazing than how much he knows about designing, building, painting, and flying is how consistently willing he is to share his experience and expertise to help other fliers advance their own skill and knowledge of slope soaring. I met Brian at Soar Utah in 1995 and remember being impressed by how magnificent his and Paul Masura’s warbird gliders looked and how amazingly well they flew them.
Slope-traveling buddy Joe Chovan and I were mightily astonished by the adrenaline-pumping action of "Slope Scale Party"-style flying, where five or more fast, heavy fiberglass warbirds fly in a tight half-pipe formation. They shoot up and pull stall turns at each end of the course, and they race by together at the bottom of the pattern in the lane, or close in front of the group of pilots standing at the lip of the ridge.
Is it risky to the sailplanes to fly like this? "As long as we’re all going in the same direction, sailplanes can tap wings, exchange paint, and suffer no real damage," said Brian. "If someone gets going in the opposite direction, a head-on collision can be disastrous."
Brian Laird was born in Scotland in 1964. At age 10 he and his mother, father, and brother immigrated to the United States, moving to Torrance, California (near Los Angeles). That area is basically the heart of Gliderland in the USA. Brian had an early interest in airplanes, and he remembers seeing RC models in hobby shops. For years he built plastic airplane models. He first flew RC at roughly age 14 with a Sig Colt: a high-wing trainer with a .15-size engine. "My first flight lasted 15 seconds and consisted of a takeoff, a spin, a stall, and a crash," Brian remembered. "I kind of gave up. I did put the airplane back together but did not fly it again. It sat in my room until my dad knocked over a bookcase and flattened it."
By chance Brian saw RC soaring in action. "We were bike riding and saw guys flying gliders off of hi-starts at California State Dominguez College," he said. "I bought a Craft-Aire Drifter, and Bryon, my first flying buddy, bought a Mark’s Models Wanderer."
The two Brians embarked on a journey of self-instruction. "My second flight was in 25 mph wind," said Brian. "The launch went fine, but when the airplane came off the line it went downwind and, of course, out of control. My balsa glider hit a baseball backstop and was pulverized."
The young wannabe soaring pilots did not know about flying clubs. "No one told us gliders are supposed to fly in still air," Brian claimed. "We had no training, no support. Basically I went through four more airplanes before I could keep one in the air for more than 30 seconds."
The two Brians then discovered slope flying. "Bryon and I were riding bikes in Palos Verdes and we saw models flying so we pedaled over," said Brian. "No hi-start? This looks good, I said to myself."
The flying site was an old Nike missile base on the coast, a popular spot for flying floaters. "The next weekend we had our parents drive us to the slope with our thermal gliders," recalls Brian. "There were plenty of people there, and they watched two young newbies crash—over and over and over—without offering an ounce of advice."
It seems that these early experiences with unhelpful flying companions led Brian to his untiring helpfulness to less-experienced fliers later in his life. In the years since he has taught model designing, building, molding, painting, finishing, and extreme flying to almost anyone who has asked for his help.
Back to where Brian and Bryon taught themselves to fly on the slope. "In thermal gliding, when you lose control you're likely to crash in the same field in which you're standing," Brian has said. "In slope gliding, when you lose control you can crash quite far away, and in some very tough terrain."
He and his bike-riding and flying buddy kept at it. "After enough times tossing the thing off the hill, you eventually grasp the concept of how to control it, and your flights get longer and longer."
Then they saw their first slope jet (power scale soaring glider). Brian saw a scratch-built F-18 Hornet at a hobby shop, and his imagination raced. He found an Advanced Glider Concepts F-16 Falcon molded-fiberglass kit for $109—priced almost out of reach for a teenager. "Plunking down $109 as an 18-year-old kid, when I'd never spent more than $40 for a kit before, I was expecting something wonderful," said Brian. "It was very difficult to build, but I finished it with decals and panel lines. It flew better than anything I had ever flown, and I was accepted into the slope soaring in-crowd."
Now accepted by the local flying group, Brian struck up a conversation with the designer/maker of the F-16 kit, asking why he didn't make the airframe stronger to better resist crash damage. The reply was, "Because I wouldn't sell as many kits."
Another early experience shaped Brian's design philosophy, and then he started down the path of a kit maker. "Another guy hanging out at Bluff Cove made his own airplanes," said Brian. "He showed us how to cut wing cores from foam and to make plugs and molds for fiberglass fuselages. My first mold, an F-15 Eagle, was totally impractical, but it flew."
The plug was carved from balsa, and the mold was made from Ultracal, a concrete-type material. "Next was a Spitfire, while Paul made an Me 109 mold," said Brian.
Brian Laird and Paul Masura joined forces to begin designing and making high-performance warbirds under the Slope Scale business name. They generally had balsa-sheeted, hot-wire-cut foam-core wings, and molded-fiberglass fuselages.
With 44- to 48-inch wingspans, these models could take inexpensive standard-size servos, receiver, and battery pack. They were covered with tough Solartex fabric, constructed as one piece, and strong enough to withstand a cartwheel landing. "We were doing business as Slope Scale in 1985," said Brian. "Paul, Judy, Lesley (baby), Rachel, and I would go out to dinner with the proceeds of our kit sales."
From the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s Brian, Paul, and Gary Kawamura designed and shipped kits for nine warbirds, finding that World War II platforms looked good and worked well for the kind of rock-and-roll flying these pilots liked to do.
The designs included:
- Messerschmitt Me 109
- Bell Airacobra
- North American Mustang D model
- Supermarine Spitfire
- Mitsubishi Zero
- Grumman Hellcat
- Focke-Wulf Fw 190A
- Bede Aircraft BD-5
Brian also designed and molded, for his own enjoyment, a Messerschmitt Me 262 Stormbird and a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Since then Brian, Carl Maas, and the other members of the Inland Slope Rebels (ISR) have molded an Embraer Tucano and a Lockheed U-2 Spyplane, both for ISR club projects.
A distinguishing characteristic of Slope Scale and ISR designs is that they are heavy. I had spent all my modeling life trying to build light, but these sailplanes did not follow that design philosophy. Their 20- to 30-ounce and heavier wing loadings were quite different from anything I had experienced in soaring flight before.
One reason is that these fliers in Gliderland have serious lift on plenty of days. If it's not strong sea breezes coming ashore at Point Fermin or Bluff Cove, it's Santa Ana winds at inland sites. You've heard of Santa Ana winds, right? They blow trucks off the road and close highways. Well, these dudes fly in 'em, and we need heavy airplanes to stay out in front of the hill in these wind conditions.
Another reason why these sailplanes are heavy is that they are built strong to resist landing and crash damage. "The two main places slope sailplanes have critical damage after a crash is the nose breaks off right in front of the wing or the wing is shattered," said Brian. "You might as well use extra layers of fiberglass in the nose as well as lead weight."
Heavily built Slope Scale models use basswood for the leading edges, sometimes carving an LE from a 1/2 x 3/4-inch basswood stick. "If you can keep the damage from penetrating the LE, the wing will survive," said Brian.
When Joe and I met Brian and Paul at Soar Utah 1995 I asked how they got to be such hot-shot fliers — especially in their spectacular close-formation maneuvers. "Paul and I worked near Palos Verdes and both got out of work at 3:00," replied Brian. "We flew together every day, five days a week, for nearly three years."
When Joe and I flew with Brian the next time it was on our first visit to Point Fermin. That site looked gnarly to us Cape Cod sand-dune fliers. Peering down from the edge, the cliff, the small beach, and the rough ocean looked positively treacherous.
These guys were not only flying close enough to the beach to see the models and their shadows on the sand 200 feet below, but they were flying touch-and-gos off the waves. As you can imagine, this is a good way to splay your airplane into saltwater. "If you lose your sailplane, you build another one during the week," said Brian.
Joe asked Brian how many receivers he had lost in the ocean. Brian gazed at the horizon, mumbling to himself and counting on his fingers. Four, he replied. I vowed to myself then and there to worry less about any given airframe and to become more efficient at building.
I understand that "Laird" means "Lord" in Scottish. The Brian Laird we are fortunate to have with us in slope soaring is an ace-of-the-base flier who was a gift for aesthetic and effective aero design, has unrelenting energy and enthusiasm for the sport, and is willing to share any of it with other fliers. This guy is truly cool. MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
