Free Flight: Old-Timers
Remember the movie, "Back to the Future"? Well, we're going Back to the Past here. My column in the April issue stimulated many of you to write of your own happy memories of Towline Gliders - even of two-line Gliders. (The latter is sort of an inside joke - go back to the April column to find out about it.) Joe Wagner, who says he writes three columns for Model Airplane News (good grief!), says he flew two-line style in 1940-41 and even set a record, which was disallowed on the basis of an interpretation of the 1941 AMA rule book concerning the use of "an inextensible line." I think Joe was had by a bad call, but I guess arguing with umpires and Contest Directors paid about as well in 1941 as it does now. Joe says he often put the bellcrank and associated linkage external to the fuselage so he could get at it for adjustments, but that it was ". . . a real mess to get out of a tree." Joe goes on to say, "I never had really consistent luck with any of the pre-autorudder techniques . . . I found the offset tow hook particularly troublesome . . . it did help when the Glider was low . . . but past 45° the offset hook worked to accentuate the rudder's turning action. I had better luck with Henry Struck's 'golf stick,' especially after I learned the trick of adding weight to its 'nose' to optimize the dynamic effect."
Free Flight: Old-Timers
LAST WEEK my doctor told me I had pneumonia. I was really happy to know I had something, and that the way I felt wasn't the way I was supposed to feel. I was having a telephone conversation with one of my ol' flying buddies shortly after I got home, and he asked what my prognosis was. "Well," sez I, "I noticed they wanted to be paid today." Anyway, I am still a bit tired and weak, so this is the time I am going to take advantage of the permission the editor and publisher of MA gave me to use certain material from the old Okie Free Flight Flyer newsletter I used to write and publish. He said I could use some of my favorite bits "once in a while." Well, that will be a big help this time, because it will take up about half of the usual column space. If you like it or don't like it, let me know, and that will help to determine how often "once in a while" should be. I call the piece, "One Saturday Morning."
Free Flight: Old Timers
Oversight was what it was. In my most recent column (February 1990) I told you about some of the fine Old-Timer kits available from Hobby Horn (you'll find their ad elsewhere in this issue, if you want the address). I forgot to mention the Thermic 100 partial kit that is listed in the Hobby Horn catalog but not yet in the ads. As with the other partial kits, this one consists basically of ribs and plans - and in the case of the Thermic 100 there are lots of both. The wing spars have been strengthened enough for RC purposes, and the fuselage is shown in both the pre WW II pod-and-boom version and the built-up fuselage version which appeared after the war. I know that there were many of you who, like me, in your youth stared longingly at the photos and ads for the 100 and then bought the Thermic 50. Now is your chance to really do it!
Free Flight: Old-Timers
FRUSTRATION! The time delays involved in magazine writing drive me up the wall! As I write this it is not yet Halloween, and when you read it New Year's Eve will probably have passed! It does make it hard to be timely, and if I also take into consideration that I only get to write for every other issue (with time out for the Nats and maybe other special issues), I come to the conclusion that I cannot do contest plugs or reports. With such precious little space each year, maybe I can be forgiven for not doing obituaries. My mail indicates that what you want is "where to get it," and "how to do," and that is what I am going to do as long as I can.
Free Flight: Old-Timers
COME ON-make my day! It makes my day when I hear from you. I love to get something in the mail other than bills and advertisements. I will make an effort to answer questions that are accompanied by a SASE (a postcard will often do). Anyway, this month's column is the happy result of some recent mail. But first a confession! In one of the photos in my September '89 column, I identified a model wrong. C.J. Gordon's plane is a Modelcraft Black Bullet, not an Earl Stahl design. (Well, I guess that's one . . .)
