Free Flight: Sport/Scale
A beginning Free Flight Scaler has several power plants available: ignition or glow engine, diesel, CO-2 piston or jet, and electric. Which to choose for contest work? About six years ago when glow engines were in style, the "experts" said that electric power would not be able to compete due to the extra weight of the batteries, which would make it impossible to add the necessary scale detail. That year, an electric job won the Flightmasters Annual. CO-2 was thought not dependable enough to make long contest flights. Then Larry Kruse won the Nats in Lincoln with a CO-2 design. Only recently the conversions turned to the advantages CO-2 and electric had over gas (due to better flight realism stemming from the gradual loss of power rather than the abrupt cutoff of the glow or diesel). About that time first place at the 1981 FM Annual went to a diesel-powered model! (BW: Yeah, Stroman's Taube!) So, you can see that they are all competitive choices, although gas engines do deliver the most power.
Free Flight: Sport/Scale
THE VALUE of cereal box tops to a kid growing up during World War II should never be underestimated. When sent to the proper purveyors of breakfast food sometimes with, sometimes without, a few cents for postage and handling, they could bring lumpy letters containing magic rings or secret decoder badges to any kid's doorstep in America. Running home from school to hear the latest installment of Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, one would be kept up-to-date on whether Betty had escaped the fierce Dyaks, if Billy had recovered from that blow on the head, and whether Uncle Jim had arrived in time with the autogyro to save the day for one and all.
Free Flight: Sport/Scale
A FINE BOOK. Model Aviation and the American Boy 1927 to 1934 is the title of a great new publication from Frank Zaic. It is a collection of model airplane articles, hints, advertisements, news and plans of the period in history which saw the flowering of real model aviation (which means Free Flight, in my estimation).
Free Flight: Sport/Scale
THIS MONTH'S coveted TWA award: an eighteen-min. and one sec. flight on his Peanut Tailwind by Fred Ewing. This Thermal-Worthy Aircraft, a flying museum-piece if ever I saw one, landed only 200 feet from the launch site, believe it or not! Fred's Tailwind, a modified Andrew Morehouse kit from Peck-Polymers, stayed over the site for the entire time, becoming a tiny speck in the sky as it rode three different thermals. It's fitting that the fantastic flight took place at the 1982 Eastern U.S. Free Flight Championships and garnered a well-deserved first in Peanut before an astonished crowd of fellow SOTS and assorted competitors.
Lee-Richards No. 3
It's certainly a most unusual airplane, you'll have to agree. Yet it flies extremely well. The scale prop adds much to the realism. It's finished in flat black, burnished with a thumb. Protruding bolt/nut assemblies in the hub are plastic from a model railroad shop. If you want to make heads turn, show up at the field with this FF Scale model. Surprisingly, it's a remarkably stable flier. For O2 electric power. Churchill's delight on seeing an aerobatics demonstration flown by the No. 3 doughnut-shaped monoplane was second only to my own as my electric-powered model disappeared into the 4 a.m. darkness at the Sepulveda Basin on its first test flight. Seldom will I get up out of a sleepless bed to do anything, let alone go and test a model airplane, but the L-R was something special.
