Free Flight: Sport & Scale
INFORMATION FOR BEGINNERS: Many of the letters I receive are from guys who have been doing radio control for a long time and are ready to move up to FF scale, or from others who have been out of the hobby for many years and are coming back in and finding little to help them in the magazines. I often get requests to include more "beginner" material in the column. I needn't tell you that my bimonthly 1,000-words (which is worth about one picture) do not go very far in that direction.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
AT LAST! X-Acto makes knives that have been favorites with modelers for years and years. However, these knives have some characteristics that we occasionally find perplexing. For example they are round-handled knives with cranky prehistoric collets that roll off the table and onto your lap with interesting results. But the company has produced a new knife worth walking down the street to buy!
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
WHAT is hot vinegar good for? According to Tom Comparet, who telephoned the company that makes the wonderful new Titebond II, it is the only thing that will debond that product. Isn't that good to know? The only problem is that people using this method develop a craving for fish and chips, much in the way that using cellulose glue denatured with mustard used to produce a craving for hot dogs. Len Sherman's P-38 is one of the finest Scale Rubber jobs around. Maybe it's because he worked on 'em in WW II. The fine scale appearance of the monocoque booms helped Len win the 1991 NW FF Champs.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
"ISN'T IT a little foolish to have rules that promote lost models?" Don James asked readers in the January 1949 Model Airplane News. His thesis was that modelers could have a lot more fun if models were built to be thermal resistant. Don had just attended what was billed as "The First Western Sport Contest," put on by Joe Meckoll and the Los Angeles Thermal Thumbers. The basic rules of this contest were a three-flight total of 4 1/2 minutes, engine run between 20 and 30 seconds, all flights hand launched, and the flier with the total closest to 4 1/2 minutes was the winner.
Bob Peck Eulogy
BORN in Salt Lake City, Utah near the beginning of the Great Depression, Bob had the misfortune to be stricken with rheumatoid arthritis during his early days in high school. When a new drug came along to aid sufferers of this crippling and painful malady, its use made it possible for Bob to function at a level of activity nearer to normal, but the disease continued and worsened throughout his life. It slowed him down, but he was never one to let it get in the way of his interests in things mechanical (cars, bikes and airplanes), fishing, animals and nature.
