Just for the Fun of It: Plane Talk
AS JACKIE GLEASON used to say, "How sweet it is!" My flying is in the African-drought stage, but nice things rain like manna from Heaven. I've Purple Planned my way through an exciting Electric model (motor on cabin bulkhead, prop speed reduction, long extension shaft, and a big folding prop), and I am gnawing my way through that incredible Kadet Senior. The latter is a novel approach to a trainer if you like big airplanes that can fly like a Free Flight and that offer the fun (for blokes like me, as well) of gluing together Old-Timer-like sticks. For me, it is a fun thing, and I don't need a trainer. I'm trying a strange spoiler combination on it. In and out as usual, but . . . a switch allows me to use them individually (no ailerons on the Senior). While doing so I can have proportional openings, and if I wish I can "CAR" (cross control) them with the rudder in that mode.
Just for the Fun of It: Plane Talk
THEY SAY you can tell a man by his books. We tell our fellows largely by the kinds of models they build and fly. Before this column sets sail on a three-year journey in search of the Great White Whale, I owe you a landmark. Resisting the impulse to explore the Alice-in-Wonderland science of preparing competition Scale documentation, that calculated science of thought-controlling judges (show 'em everything but show 'em nuttin), be it known that documentation done for its own sake can become a book. This book is about the Albatross-the double S tells you it is not about Scale. The Albatros (one S) was a WW I German fighter.
How to: Convert a Glow RC Kit to Electric
ALTHOUGH RC ELECTRICS are well-established, many still believe such aircraft have to be fragile floaters-or battery-laden "bombs" for rocket-like climbs on short runs. Although there is a good spectrum of Electric kits that offers everything from aerobatics to soaring and Scale, we often view them as the only things we can fly with electric power. Can you electrify a Falcon 56 or World Engines Robinhood? Of course! Theoretically, any kit could fly with an electric motor for power, but common sense tells us that a Pattern model would require structural redesign, whereas a light cabin sport model would perform well with electric power almost as it comes out of the box. There are many naturals: Gentle Lady, Butterfly, Monarch, Piece O'Cake (sureshots which offer small challenge in the conversion). However, the higher the power-to-weight ratio of a glow-engine model and the higher its wing loading, the more difficult it is to convert.
Just for the Fun of It: Plane Talk
WHY THE 1/4-SCALE ARISTOCRAT? Another impulse! There is always one plane that is never to be forgotten. I always dream of planes to build, but they remain fantasies. But I build things I never thought about. The subconscious? I always wanted one big one. Buried in some pigeon hole of my mind was a dimmed memory of a long-ago 9-ft. rubber-powered Cessna (1920s), the prop carved from a 24-in.-long balsa 2 × 4. It took two of us to manhandle it to one row of knots of sliced inner tube rubber-no winder and no stretching. Tissue-covered, the Cessna skimmed aloft, never above 6 ft., a slow-motion Jumbo-Jumbo, only to land gloriously in a blackberry patch. One flight-but Lindy was happy with one flight. When the Aristocrat flew "off the board," it was as if a desk-bound environmentalist went back-packing to see bees and bears and came upon the "Lost Ark." That airplane is more indelible now than the first model I got to fly, my solo in a J-3, or any magazine I ever edited.
Just for the Fun of It: Plane Talk
ALL OF THE KING'S MEN hope to put Humpty Dumpty together again. I'm the victim of a benevolent Sting. I can see the jump-start cables. Taking away For Fun is as heinous as murder by axe. For every guy into all that high-tech "in" stuff, there is one or more who want no-pressure enjoyment. Roses to smell are hard to find. Just For the Fun of It began in carefree innocence, but it grew to such awesome proportions that the author became the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. In the future we plan to talk about reader-built fun craft, with nice pictures, your data, and appropriate commentary on "feeling good" stuff. Obviously, we have to wait until you proud builders resume sending in those great pictures of your fun airplanes with enough info for us to describe them (freewheeling comments, please). You had no trouble with that before, by gosh.
