Free Flight: Indoor
REPAIR FIXTURES REVISITED. A couple of columns ago, I showed a photo of my field repair fixtures in use during a repair session. Some of you wanted more information on these gadgets, so here goes. Photo 1 shows the basic setup as it might be used on the bench during model assembly. On the left is the fuselage cradle, and if you look closely, you may be able to see two straight pins Xing across the motor stick to hold it in place with gentle pressure. At the rear is a simple, adjustable-elevation support, which is more commonly used to support the bare tail boom during initial assembly. If you look closely, you can also see that the rear support has been taped to the table for stability.
How to work with Microfilm
IT HAS BEEN noted that Indoor modeling is not hard. It is just so different from other kinds of model building that it has seemed difficult. After all, most all of Indoor modeling consists of just three disciplines: picking wood, cutting wood, and moving slowly! One area of Indoor building which is so different that it is almost incomprehensible is that of microfilm-covered models. This is the "high technology, high performance" end of Indoor modeling, and it remains a real mystery to many who build Easy B, HLG, Pennyplanes and Peanut Scale. How do you make microfilm, store it, cover with it, etc.? This whole area is an art, and just like any other art, there are many simple things which can improve your success. The rest of the art remains in doing it often enough to develop a skill and "feel" for it.
Free Flight: Indoor
ANOTHER really big show! It has already been noted elsewhere that the 1981 Indoor Nats will be held at West Baden, IN in the super-site atrium of Northwood Institute. The Nats will be followed by another Peanut Grand Prix and the annual fly-in of the National Indoor Model Airplane Society (NIMAS). The Nats will lead off a really wild week of activity with a day of test flying and three days of competition. The Peanut Grand Prix will give the Peanut Scale fliers another crack at each other, both in relatively normal events and in the far-out fun events, which spring from the fevered imagination of John Martin of the Miami all-Indoor club, Miami Indoor Airplane Model Association (MIAMA).
Free Flight: Indoor
WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED to know about indoor will be answered by Building and Flying Indoor Model Airplanes, by Ron Williams. This Simon & Schuster publication has been eagerly awaited by all who knew about it, and has finally appeared. Order the book from your local bookstore; the paper-bound version is $12.50, and the cloth-bound version is $19.50. Ron is a professor at Columbia University in New York City, teaching drawing to architecture students. He may be considered by some to be a relative newcomer to Indoor, but he has tapped the expertise of several noted Indoor fliers.
Indoor Nats
FROM ALL THE DISCUSSION we heard, one would assume that the 1981 Indoor Nats was a unique happening; in a way, it was. The reason for all the discussion is that this event was handled and considered as a totally separate event, split off from the rest of the Nats by both time and distance. The Indoor Nats was held in late June in Indiana, and the rest of the Nats-Free Flight, Radio Control and Control Line-was scheduled for Seguin, TX. in early August. Even though several past Indoor Nats were separated by great distances from the rest of the Nats, this was the first time the two sections have been held in spearate months.
