Free Flight: Sport & Scale
EXCITEMENT! Yes, there are a number of things in this life which set the blood coursing through a man's veins. Beautiful women, fast cars, and Wacos rate up there pretty high, but I think the ultimate excitement for a true modeler is seeing a great plan, balsawood, Japanese tissue, and all the things necessary to produce a great Free Flight Scale model! It's like visiting a real old-time fireworks stand where you don't see the fireworks themselves; rather, you see the promise of what they are going to do. Wow!
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
FLYING ACES NATS, The Home Movie! If all of the coverage of the fantastic 1988 FAC Nats in Geneseo, NY has you eager and ready to get into the air, you will want to get a copy of Dean McGinnes' (Flying Aces Swamp Squadron) coverage of the biggest Flying Scale event in history! I just finished watching it for the second time, and despite all of the usual problems inherent in home movies (i.e., an occasional rear end blocking a model shot, overlong coverage of trophy presentation, etc.), I thoroughly enjoyed it. For those who were there, it's a great souvenir. For those who weren't-what a gold mine! Dean has "atmosphere" shots, close-ups of models, mass launches, and clips of most of the modeling greats of the movement. You can see Don Srull's incredible 12-prop Dornier DO-X electric-powered flying boat in the air, Dennis Norman launch his superb rubber-powered Lancaster, Gordon Roberts competing with his legendary Chambermaid, Bob Thompson in his Captain Midnight getup, Walt Mooney, Allan Schanzle, Fernando Ramos, and on and on.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
ONE of my favorite quotes of all time came from a Hang Gliding newsletter published in the early days of the sport. It advised: "Never fly higher than you are willing to fall." I have always felt that this sentiment was particularly applicable to FF Scale models. You just never should put more work into a model than you are willing to see wiped out in a crash. Many models that started out to be Flying Scale never made it to the "flying" part of the game, because their owners, citing such things as an overweight model, too much wind, lack of tall grass (or other reasons) declined to validate their model's claim to full membership in the class.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
WHAT do you dislike most about modeling? Probably the most oft-mentioned bete noire of the veteran tissue trimmer is repairing. There is a fine line between a challenge and a pain in the butt, and perhaps it is the way we approach it that makes the difference. Meeting a challenge and being triumphant is what makes the encounter fun. Slogging through restoration for hours and hours just to get back to the place you started from can be a real drag! I would like to propose a couple of simple solutions for the repairing problem. Let's just suppose you have either chosen a model for its lousy Free Flight characteristics, or that you have made a model from one of those kits with the pretty colored paintings of the model on the box and lots of fancy formed plastic pieces and heavy wood inside.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
"What goes up must come down." That's a truism for everything except taxes. Certainly, the return to terra firma accounts for most modelers' grief. Assuming that your model is Free Flight and has no pilot to flare at the last moment, it generally flies right smack into the deck, with only minimal help from ground effect. Quite often, the only purpose of the landing gear (I like the word undercarriage better, as the gear serves for more than landings in the classical sense) is to make the plane look Scale, help it ROG (rise-off-ground-Ed.), and cushion the crash. Paul McIlrath (Cedar Rapids, IA) has some interesting thoughts on undercarriage construction that he'd like to pass on. Paul writes: "You should remember that much of the force on the wheel and gear is backward, not upward. That's true for both takeoffs and landings. Although the industry standard (single strut wire) is neat and effective, there is a simple variation that can noticeably improve its operation.
