Just for the Fun of It
HOW DO YOU define "fun?" I don't have a marimba band in my shop. My eyes don't dance when I think of flying, building, or, horror of horrors, maintenance. The three-letter word fun is short to look up. The dictionary says: providing entertainment, amusement, or enjoyment. "Enjoy" sounds right. And there was a note: ". . . a person to be with." Joe Wagner is a person to be with. I have not met Joe face to face. But he has been with me a long time. Joe is the Dakota man. That versatile little all-balsa biplane lives on and on. Joe is an authentic pioneer in FF Rubber, FF Gas, and CL Stunt. Long ago he was a designer/production engineer for Veco. He is not "above" RC, a man of surprising interests, beyond modeling. Thanks to the April issue writeup by Ed Whitten, you probably know about his fun organization, Fun Flyers. Joe does know how to "enjoy," as you will see from his comments and pictures.
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
FRIDAY MORNINGS are a lot better than Mondays, especially after an exhilarating evening's flying. I had modified my 2 1/2:1 Leisure LR50-powered model to a cabin configuration to make comparisons. Parasols have a minor drawback, especially if you use a high, pretty tail. You can understand why if you consider that Pattern jobs have a high forward profile to assist in knife-edge flight. When you put a parasol into a banked turn and then go hands-off, it tends to tighten in the turn and, if uncorrected, begins to go into a spiral dive. That requires opposite rudder (for two- and three-channel jobs that are supposed to have FF-like good gliding ability). The cabin configuration, in this case, reduces the need to use the rudder to stay hands-off once you are trimmed to circle in lift.
Just For the Fun of It
FOR A GUY who "never" builds, my planes appear from nowhere. I keep getting water on the Gremlins. I have a crazy airplane, another new one, in spite of draconian efforts to get rid of old ones. With today's radios I never seem to totally crash anything. I don't deserve such luck. The rafters are filled with dust gatherers, heirlooms as hardy as attic trunks. I did take a saw to a cardboard monster which loomed like a dinosaur in the Museum of Natural History. I dish out airplanes to helpless victims. Nondescript vagrants are scattered from here to New England, and two are beyond the Mississippi. Some gather dust in other guys' rafters, but some sail on like the Flying Dutchman. Three that are actively flown are over 20 years old. You can't take them with you! Every cannibalized radio adds one more hulk to the graveyard of ships. Ever meet yourself coming and going?
