Radio Control: Scale
ALTERNATE CUTTER: A letter from Clyde Deatherage tells us of his method of making the cutting blade for the fly-cutter tool we described in our July 1988 column. The cutting blade can be made from a discarded or broken high-speed drill bit. Any size of about #44 diameter (.086 in.) or larger can be used. Clyde worked with a #30 (.128 in.) drill. He suggests forming a cutting point with a blade shape by grinding both sides of the drill to achieve a blade thickness of about 1/32. The grinding should be done on the end of the drill that was fluted, because some drills may have a soft shank which won't stand up well for cutting operations. The grinding must be done very slowly, as a small drill will overheat almost immediately if held against an abrasive wheel for more than a few seconds. Once the drill turns blue, it's too late! The temper is gone.
Oshkosh '88
FOR MOST OF US, the name "Oshkosh" evokes a weeklong series of gigantic air shows, with emphasis on the heavy iron of World War II aircraft and possibly a dozen types of military jets. For most Experimental Aircraft Association members, on the other hand, the air shows are merely icing on the cake. EAA folks gather at Wittman Field for this annual event with an entirely different focus-to absorb information, view the handiwork of others, and see home-built aircraft performing.
I985 NATS: RC Scale
ONE WEEK before the start of the Springfield-Chicopee Nats, Dolly departed from Delafield in our stretched van, loaded with hand-painted signs and two models, the Aeronca K and the ancient Piel Beryl. I stayed behind in Wisconsin to attend the EAA annual convention at Oshkosh, where I met Ken Flaglor, builder of the Grand Champion award-winning Gee Bee Y. Ken was planning a flight to the Nats, to exhibit his Gee Bee at the Westover AFB during the last half of Nats week. My departure on Tuesday was an early morning airline flight, directly across Lake Michigan, non-stop to New York. Ken started from a nearby airport at Kenosha, flew around Chicago's O'Hare Airport and the southern tip of the lake, made three stops for fuel, refreshment, and whatever else cross-country pilots need to do, and arrived at Springfield one hour ahead of me. His air time was seven hours. My flight was only two hours, but much time was lost waiting for bus transportation.
Radio Control: Scale
SCALE DOCUMENTATION: Requests for information regarding documentation material continue to arrive in our mailbox. Doubts usually arise in their hearts when competition Sport and Giant Scale modelers are faced with having to supply photos of obscure aircraft, or those that have been neglected in historical information. If a three-view drawing is available, and the drawing shows color data, photos aren't required. When a three-view drawing alone is the complete documentation, it becomes a one-sheet presentation. To supplement this drawing, some modelers will include several additional sheets of printed data about the prototype, not realizing that judges have very little time to do extensive reading.
Radio Control: Scale
THE Kitchener-Waterloo Scale Rally: The weekend of this annual rally (first one after Labor Day) was blessed with pleasant temperature and virtually no wind. By late Friday afternoon, most of the better parking spots in the large campground adjacent to the Flying Dutchmen's club field in Kiwanis Park were already occupied. Everything about the gathering pointed to a heavy schedule of social activity centered around the showing of large-screen video and the usual corn roast on Saturday evening. 154 airplanes were registered, down slightly from the expected 200 + that appeared in past meets. Some models are displayed only, and not flown, but the excellent weather kept the sky filled with models. Only exhaustion of RC battery packs stopped some from additional flights by late Sunday afternoon.
