Free Flight Old-Timers
THIS MONTH I'D LIKE to continue my discussion from the July issue on modifications to make the Korda Wakefield (or other models of the era) practical and long-lasting. Last month fuselage modifications for dethermalizers were covered. Many designs (although not the Korda) could benefit from moving the rear rubber-attachment point forward. Some plans show this point somewhere below the stabilizer, even as far back as the trailing edge! If this is the case, move it forward a few bays (like the Korda). Less ballast will be needed to achieve a flyable center of gravity. This will also lower the total weight. Replace the rubber-retaining dowel with an aluminum tube, so a wire can be passed through it to hold the model securely for winding.
Free Flight: Old-Timers
SOCIETY OF ANTIQUE Modelers (SAM) president Don Bekins sent me the two great action photos you see here. They were taken at the 1995 SCAMPS Texaco Dawn Patrol at Taft, California. During the contest, a surprise 75th birthday party was held for Sal Taibi. I calculate that if Sal was 75 in 1995, then he was 18 or 19 when he designed the Powerhouse! If you are interested in joining SAM, send a SASE to Larry Clark, Secretary/Treasurer, Box 528, Luceren Valley CA 92356. As part of your membership you get a rule book (and voting privileges for rule changes), a list of eligible designs, and a subscription to SAM Speaks, an excellent publication that has just about reached magazine status.
Free Flight: Old-Timers
WITH THIS COLUMN I will conclude my discussion of the Korda Wakefield project. I covered my Korda 1939 Wakefield winner with the expensive grade of imported Japanese tissue (about $1.25 per sheet) from Oldtimer Model Supply. Domestic tissue is expensive too, and I think the good stuff is worth the difference for open structures. Domestic might be considered for sheet surfaces. I like to put tissue on by the Walt Mooney method: Thin white glue with a little water, about like milk in consistency. It has a good tack, making undercamber a cinch, yet the paper can be removed and repositioned if needed (unless you use the domestic tissue, which will tear; then you have to start with another piece, and there goes your big saving).
Free Flight: Old-Timers
DAVE THORNBURG IS A GREAT DESIGNER AND FLIER of RC sailplanes who also loves free flight, and who also writes like I want to be able to do when I grow up. In a paragraph or two he can center a thought with the same ease and grace he centers a thermal. In the December 1980 Model Builder magazine he wrote: "As modelers, R/C or otherwise, we all pursue an impossible dream: the next model (or flight, or contest) will be the perfect one. It's a dream that, if we're lucky, always recedes in front of us, staying just out of reach. Like a mirage on the desert. Or our neighbor's wife. It's the dream that carries us through all those long, lonely, spine-warping hours at the building board, while the rest of the family is improving their minds with Charlie's Angels or The Dating Game. It's a dream we pursue in spite of criticism and condescension, through thick and thin. But only free flighters pursue it through dry corn stalks, through knee-deep mud."
Free Flight Old-Timers
THIS MONTH'S COLUMN is devoted to the changes I recommend in building the Korda 1939 Wakefield from the original Air Trails/Megow plan. Many of my suggestions will apply to almost any Old-Timer rubber model. The design is important not merely because it won the Wakefield contest in 1939, but because it was and is the most-built rubber design ever. It was simple; it was cheap; any kid could make one; and it flew! For a detailed contemporary account of the 1939 Wakefield contest, get a copy of Frank Zaic's 1939 National Model Airplane Meet in Pictures, $7 plus $2.50 postage and handling from the Supply and Service Department at AMA (catalog number 3086). You might also like to review my column in the July 1988 issue of this magazine for my view of the results of that contest versus current Old-Timer contests.
