Free Flight: Duration
A COMPUTER in every bathroom? So you can do your chores while . . . you do your chores? I don't know about that, but there is no question that computers are now. You don't have to live in a very affluent neighborhood to find that every third kid either has a computer or has access to one-or at least a programmable calculator. Certainly the computer age will-or might well-have an impact on Free Flight. Why count squares on graph paper when you can punch in the coordinates of a wing outline and get a computer to do the coolie-labor of calculating the wing area? The computer age is bigger than merely Free Flight, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a computer page as a regular feature in the major modeling magazines in the near future.
Free Flight: Duration
NEW KID on the block. Hey! We have a new man on the Free Flight Duration team, namely, Harry Murphy of the CIA. Yes, for reasons I'll get to in a minute, I'm going to take life a little easier, starting next month, and you'll be reading Harry's thoughts on a regular basis. Harry Murphy has been the editor of the newsletter CIA Informer for several years-and it's one of the top one or two such publications in the country. I think he's done a bang-up job of it, so I'm confident that he'll do very well in his new assignment for Model Aviation.
Free Flight: Duration
REPORTS of my death (as a columnist) have been greatly exaggerated. I've received a number of letters that start off with "Now that you're no longer writing your column . . ." and such. Not true! If we told you once, we told you a thousand times, I'm still writing this column-but only once every two months. My alternate, Harry Murphy, leans more toward the gas-engined stuff, I lean more toward rubber-power and sport-type stuff. Both of us have a keen interest in all aspects of Free Flight but have insufficient time to pursue many avenues that we would like to. So, don't send all of your good material to Harry; I need input from you, too!
Free Flight: Duration
CO-2 POWER interest on the rise. Material for this column seems to come in bunches; nothing on a subject for years, then suddenly a bunch of material on the same topic. Anyhow, an increasing number of modelers seem to be recognizing the virtues of CO-2 power; small, quickly-built models; no starting problems or messing with fuels, glow heads, or electric starters, or even rubber-winders; more than ample power giving excellent performance (if you build light). The first item is a letter from Al Lidberg, whose CO-2-powered Civy Boy appeared in the August 1984 issue, written in response to the item on CO-2 power that appeared in this column when Larry Kruse subbed for me.
Free Flight: Duration
THIS IS RATHER NEAT, being semi-retired (or is it semi-employed?) as a Free Flight columnist. I now actually get to see, in print, what I wrote in one column before the deadline for the next one. But it has its drawbacks. Deadline times are always fun times. The deadline for my June column, for example, is March 1st. So, on March 3rd, I get a typical letter from Associate Editor Ross McMullen which reads "THUNDERATION! Here it is, March 1st already, and you don't have your column in! Let's look alive, out there!" (If I had gotten my column in on time, I'd have deprived myself of Ross's latest missive. I look forward to them anticipatively.)
