Flying for Fun
DO CHIMPS HAVE BACKACHES? Ergonomics has become a popular term in advertising, particularly by those selling automobiles. Basically, the concept involves the measurement of effort used to perform a task. Ergs are a measurement of energy. In common usage, ergonomics reflects an effort to maximize the comfort of seating, to make instruments easy to reach, read, and operate, to make entry and egress more convenient, and to minimize of the expenditure of energy needed to operate a machine.
Flying for Fun
THIS COLUMN IS being written in June 1995. TV news and weather reports have shown a continuous series of floods around the country. Pictures of people being rescued from rampaging streams, water to the eaves of homes, automobiles floating down streets like fishing bobbers, and general chaos seem to dominate the news. Considering the human tragedy and the property loss it seems almost profane to write anything about people having a good time around standing ground water.
Flying for Fun
TRAVELAIR: As the 20th century began, oil was discovered in El Dorado, Kansas. Eventually this oil field extended eastward for more than 40 miles from the outskirts of Wichita; at the time it was the largest oil discovery in the US. As so often happened, many struggling oil investors became immensely wealthy, very quickly. Some of these high rollers, wildcatters, and wheeler-dealers had bundles of venture capital; some of that new wealth found its way into the then-infant aircraft industry in Wichita. It's likely that had there not been oil in El Dorado, there would not have been airplanes in Wichita.
Flying for Fun
THE LAST PAGE: My July 1995 column was headed "A Detective Story;" in it I detailed a 20-year search for documentation of the second Ford Flivver prototype (3218) and the eventual discovery of sources for that material. This month's column shows the end product of that search, and can be referred to as the "solution" of the mystery. Have you ever noticed good mystery novels usually solve the case on the last few pages? Did you ever read a magazine mystery only to turn to the last page and find it missing? Not in this instance-the solution is at hand!
ARCSD Defender
In the early days of engine-powered Free Flight, the Texas Oil Company donated a trophy to be presented to the winner of a fuel-allotment event held annually at the National Championships. With the revival of interest in models of the pre-WW II era, the Texaco fuel-allotment event was reborn, and has remained a popular Free Flight (and later RC) event in the SAM (Society of Antique Modelers) movement.
