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.
Radio Control: Scale
LIQUID COOLING: Engine cooling in Scale models can be a serious problem, particularly for the modeler who values his engines and searches for ways to extend their lives. The tightly-cowled engine is vulnerable to excessive wear due to overheating damage. Adding extra lubricant to fuel can help avoid the wear, but this introduces another variable, with the possibility that it may be forgotten when the model isn't flown often. A letter from a reader requested information about liquid cooling for tightly-cowled engines. Almost any prototype that has a liquid-cooled engine, for example WW II fighters or those aircraft with pusher propellers, presents a problem to the Scale modeler when there are no suitably large openings for ventilation.
Radio Control: Scale
RENO NATS: High altitude and hot weather in August will have an influence on our flights at Reno. Stead Field, site of the Nats outdoor activity, is at an altitude of about one mile above sea level and this height, combined with expected temperatures of 80º or more, will place the density altitude in the range between 8,000 and 9,000 feet. Combined high temperature and altitude will affect models here as though the field height is over 1 1/2 miles! Modelers who regularly fly at Reno, as well as those in Colorado and New Mexico, tell us that the altitude has little effect. Having witnessed a few problems at the Reno Scale World Championships in 1982, we are aware that there is an effect.
