Free Flight: Sport/Scale
A COUPLE of months ago, I got a letter that seemed to deserve more than a casual reply. It was from Will Volny, Jr. in Palatine, IL, a town not known for it's Free-Flight Scale activity. Having gone through a similar situation many years ago. I feel that his questions point to one of the reasons FF Scale has not grown larger than it has. I'll bet 99 out of 100 kids, boys at least, have tried to build (or have built) a FF Scale rubber model. Of these, 85 were never finished or flown (according to a representative for one of the largest kit makers in the country). I would guess that of the remaining few, only one percent (and probably less) ever experienced the heady delights of consistent success, and only a tiny fraction of this number becomes hooked to the degree of a Flying Aces Clubster.
Free Flight: Sport/Scale
This month's Thermal-Worthy Aircraft award goes to Chuck Markos of Deerfield, IL and his Comet Piper Cub for a very respectable six-min., eleven-sec. exsursion into the ozone. Originally made for a kit scale contest, the Cub has had a modest increase in stabilizer span to 8 in., to go with it's 25 1/2 in. wing. The model flies on one 18-in. loop of 1/8-in. Pirelli, which might seem rather weak until you consider the fact that the ship weighs a mere 21 grams (with 13 grams of nose ballast added!)
Free Flight: Sport/Scale
MULTIPLE monkey-motion contraptions and gearboxes are nothing new to modelers. You can shorten the space required by the rubber motor by having two or more short motors driving the same prop instead of the one long one. This reduces harmonic vibration and makes it easier to keep the model's CG where it belongs when the thing runs down. Small props on short landing gear, or props with clearance problems in nacelle-mountings, beside or above the fuselage, can be spun at higher speeds than the usual 1:1. Models with huge cowls, like the Gee Bee's, might benefit from a slower-than-normal spinning of a large prop. In some models, the position of the thrust line makes it easier to use gears to space the prop away from the rubber motor(s), even if no step-up or step-down of the drive ratio is used.
Free Flight: Sport/Scale
OVERWEIGHT kit models, revisited. Bill Miller is not a newcomer to Scale. Flying Aces members know him well as the creator of the Hungorilla, a mythical simian whose power is unleashed the instant the unwary modeller winds in that "one turn too many" and who shreds all but the most solid of models from the inside out. Bill is a devotee of the Guillow's (pronounced GWILL-ows) kits which many have found lacking in performance, and I would like to present his case for the "heavy" model. Bill points out that in the mid-Thirties, Cleveland used to advertise a "hollowing-out" option for their Superscale kits which involved leaving out ribs and stringers, hollowing block parts, etc. to get flight performance. His technique is to use the kit
Zippy Sport Peanut
If you plan to fly this peanut outdoors, you might want to deviate from the authentic blue coloring, as that blends into the sky too well on those long flights that this model already is known for. Better yet, go for the authentic coloring, and fly it indoors. Ever fly a blue model against a blue sky? Ha! After about 30 sec. all you can see is the yellowish prop spinning merrily, sort of like the legendary Cheshire Cat! I had never intended to fly the Zippy in competition for this very reason. It was a plane that, like a puppy in a pet shop window, exercises a certain magnetism. Having built it in a fit of enthusiasm, the temptation to at least try it at the U.S. FF Champs, against my better judgment, proved irresistible. After a first flight of a minute and a half, I decided to retire it from this silliness; its future now lies indoors! With judging after flying at Taft, I considered second place a gift (mainly of that yellow prop and Gabe Mora's sharp eyes while chasing it). World's shortest competition career - one flight!
