Free Flight: Sport and Scale
ALUMILITE CASTING PLASTIC: Alumilite is neither aluminum nor is it light. What it is, though, is a low-viscosity urethane casting plastic that beats the daylights out of everything else I have ever used. It is definitely lighter than normal craft-shop casting resin, and it produces almost bubble-free castings of a homogeneous texture. The two-part stuff pours easily, and changes color as it sets up. The process takes approximately three to five minutes. Make a dummy part, paint it with liquid latex (available at craft shops) and you'll have a female rubber mold in which you can pour your part.
Free Flight: Sport and Scale
SUPER PHATIC ALIPHATIC resin glue is emphatically approved by this columnist! It's a recent arrival on the modeling scene from SAMS in England. It's has a very thin consistency like normal cyanoacrylate (CyA), but it's water-based. One can pin all of the parts together, run a little SP glue around the joints, and then wait until it wicks in and cures. It takes a while to dry (which may upset the "instant results" crowd) but it penetrates the wood well and has excellent strength without the well-known CyA hazards.
Free Flight: Sport and Scale
News from Brno-Medlanky: The big international bash in Central Europe at the end of May is the "Openscale" meet. Free Flight Scale devotees from the Czech Republic (the host country), England, Austria, Holland, France, the US, and Slovakia enjoyed a fine weekend of camaraderie, good food, and excellent flying at the famous Medlanky airfield near Brno, Czechoslovakia. It is interesting to note that although the top American competitor, Charles Hill, finished 12th in Power Scale, models of American airplanes placed first in both Power and Rubber Scale (Jan Kubica won CO2/Electric Scale with a Curtiss P-1; Pavel Stranik took Rubber with a Bellanca trimotor that did 76 seconds!).
Free Flight: Sport and Scale
UFO SEEN Over the Kitty Litter Factory! The Burbank-based Blacksheep have an Annual over the Memorial Day weekend at Taft, California, that must be seen to be believed. They run more than 70 free-flight events, Scale, non-Scale, Indoor, outdoor, including one for the "most unusual." All sorts of flying machines from Ken Johnson's flying saucer to Skip Ruff's spaceships were seen it the air over the three days and nights (night fliers used Lunker Lights-a type of cyalume fishing lure). Among the more memorable sights at the 1994 bash (besides Sal Taibi's great 1/2A Texaco flight on his Corben Ace to the only tree within 20 miles of the flying site, and Mik Mikkelson's new giant 3x enlarged-from-a-Stahl-plan Fairey Barracuda) was my candidate for the "most unusual" category:
Free Flight: Sport and Scale
"TRY IT, YOU'LL LIKE IT!" says the one and only Dave Stott, when referring to putting panel lines, control surface outlines, etc. on models. You may remember Tom Arnold's theory, summarized in my March visit with you, where he stated that you couldn't see panel lines on a lot of aircraft, and that modelers overdid the lines on their models. Dave went about studying the 18 retired Scale models in his hangar, and came to the conclusion that five variables affect what you see on a model: distance, viewing angle, amount of light, glare, and contrast. Dave's models used .040 to .050 black tissue strips, ink lines, and separate pieces to show separations.
