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
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
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
LITESPAN PLUS AIRSPAN plus Polyspan equals headspin. At least for me it has been very confusing, but I think I have it straight now and will share with you. At last there is a new product that will be superior to my beloved Japanese tissue (and even silk) for free flight models, and many RC models too. The free flight community has not overwhelmingly accepted the iron-on heat-shrink plastics as the RC fliers have. Weight has been an issue, especially for the smaller free flight models, and the structural importance of the inelastic doped papers and silk has limited the use of the plastics. I once had a Goldberg/Comet Sailplane with a Whitecase McCoy .60 that was covered with an iron-on fabric, and it flew great until I opened the McCoy up a notch and watched a vertical climb with the wing fluttering! I also had a Spacer that flew fine on partial power but crashed every time the engine was running right. I eventually figured out that the wing was twisting under load. Most free flight structures depend on the covering material for torsional rigidity.
Free Flight: Old-Timers
KEN SYKORA: I don't usually do obituaries in this column, but is my sad duty to make an exception and report the passing of Ken Sykora, who was the owner and operator of Old Timer Model Supply. His friends filled orders until the business was transferred to Al Heinrich, who also owns Aerodyne Models, R/N Models, and Schlueter Models, and whose business address is 1924 Edinger, Santa Ana CA 92705. So the good news is the baton has been passed, and the valuable stuff available only from cottage industry will continue. Thanks to Mike Myers for the above information, and also for sending me volumes two and volume three of Flying Aces magazine. The columns are paperbound, and are about 190 pages each. They are reprints of Flying Aces construction articles, and the intent is to republish all of the construction articles in five volumes! The original magazine was published from the early 1930s to the early 1940s-the period generally meant by Old-Timer models, and many of the designs of gas, rubber, Scale (and solid) models are still of interest to the Old-Timer model flier of today. And of course there is the flavor of the times with selected old ads, and the immortal Phineas Pinkham fiction.
