Radio Control: Scale
TOLEDO AIRPLANES: This was a bountiful year for high-quality airplanes at the Toledo show. Judges selections of winners in all Scale classes would be based upon a concerted search for minor imperfections and slight variations in quality between the top airplanes. All were fine examples of Scale modeling at its best. Winner of first place, as well as the Best-of-Show award, was Steve Sauger's familiar Stinson A Trimotor. A commonly-heard remark from viewers around the table for Precision Scale models was that they are pretty, but never flown. This expressed opinion was securely put to rest at Toledo. Steve's Stinson has not only been flown, it has placed him on the FAI Scale team. We have watched while Steve made a landing with two dead engines. Only the right outboard continued to run, and there was no apparent loss of stability.
Radio Control: Scale
MEASUREMENTS: A letter from a reader in Finland asks for elaboration on methods of taking measurements of full-scale airplanes. We have, in past columns, expounded the virtues of having the prototype available for examination, photos and dimensional data, but then neglected to explain procedures. We made the incorrect assumption that everyone knew the necessary steps. Juhani Sederholm asks specifically for the method of determining exactly the shape of an unknown airfoil, without damaging the surface of an airplane, after permission is granted to make dimensional checks. When the airfoil designation is known, its outlines can be copied from a standard reference source such as our Handbook for Airfoil Sections by M.S. Rice.
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.
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
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.
