Just for the Fun of It
NO FLYING IS remembered more fondly than the occasional offbeat sessions at the place I call Shangri-la. Spontaneous, getaway stuff. Potluck planes, come as you are. Four of us would meet there, 45 miles away, even though Arcola International is just 13 miles down the road. There, at Arcola, 50 to 75 Sunday Schnuerle-snorting fliers, four and five at a time, would be zooming, looping, spinning, rolling, and twisting in Gordian-knot traffic. An early telephone call. Find something to fly! What I found was the modified, electric-powered Midwest Champ. Don Srull would soothe his Bealeton frustration, where his Schlepp came in second in RC Scale for the second year running (each time by one point). To miss prizes like seven-channel RC systems by one point . . . well!
Just for the Fun of It
"WHO IS BURIED in Grant's tomb?" Groucho Marx asked losers on his quiz program. Some didn't know. We know a guy who, as a kid, flew Control Line in front of it. His is quite a story. John Morrill, this is your modeling life. With a few-years-older neighbor, Gerald Turner, you built your first model airplane during the mid-Forties. You still don't know why you fell in love with the hobby, but you did. That perplexes you when you look back on a steady string of failures to get any models to fly. Both of you lived in Burlington, VT, and you deeply wished for a teacher, or at least a contest to attend. Then you moved to New York, where your dad went to graduate school. For a kid used to open fields and country life, this move seemed to be a disaster. You lived close to Grant's Tomb on upper Riverside Dr. in New York.
Just for the Fun of It
OVER THE RAINBOW. This month, everyone is in an escape mood. With the teasing fade-out of Indian Summer and the present chill breezes, the hibernation and "building season" is upon us. I have been hounded (desist!) for months by guys wanting Pronto plans (MAN, 1972). And for you guys who went Purple Plan I nuts, the composer just rewrote the music. If you wish to be reborn, not rekitted, pick a simple project. There must be danged near 200 pieces in the wing of my old Rookie. Clue: Total pieces, divided by days, equals pieces per day (which equates with total time). If your eyes are bigger than your stomach, you'll end up with a "Dolor de la Cabesa" (sorrow of the head). In 110 days, I have a rough frame-well, almost! Escape? Right now.
Just for the Fun of It: Plane Talk
RECENTLY, Model Aviation announced that Bill Winter had been granted an indefinite leave of absence. Since "Just For the Fun of It" was among the most popular features, and since the magazine and Bill desire to resume the column, we have kept in touch with him. We are pleased to announce, now, that the column will be resumed, starting with the October issue, but with a modified approach-as you might have surmised from the above heading. The problem Bill had with the old format was that the feature evolved, in its five-year history, to a 20-fold work load (in terms of time) from its starting point. Bill says the column turned into a "mini-magazine," requiring the maintenance of an office, and he had all but shut off his activity in the hobby.
