Radio Control: Old-Timer
THE "OTHER" SNOW WHITE. To a layman, Snow White was a dark-haired chick that lived with seven little fat guys in an old Walt Disney movie. To modelers given to leafing through old MANs, Snow White is one of the prettiest FF designs of the 1930s. Many of us have drooled over those pictures for years and wondered why plans were not available from John Pond. The reason for that omission is simple, really. According to Berkeley Bill Effinger, the model Snow White was designed by him in a rough-penciled form and built by Joe Raspante, at which point the plans were filed away and forgotten. Only one was built, and it was rarely flown. Never published or kitted, the Snow White design has languished in our collective memories as a very pretty but unavailable Old-Timer design.
Radio Control: Old-Timer
Ugly but Pretty. This month's Old-Timer was designed by George Austermann in 1935. First flown at Logan Field in Baltimore with a Baby Cyclone A, the all-white, uncolored ship was damaged upon landing. George and the Kramer Brothers (a large hobby distributor at that time) returned the King Burd to the car and flew it no more. It was repaired and final-painted with the classic scallops seen in the old ads. Kramer Bros., through their subsidiary, Burd Models, sold the kit for $3.00. Though advertised rather extensively, a total of only about 75 kits were sold. Though there were very few gas-powered kits on the market in 1936, there obviously were even fewer engines in the hands of modelers. As a matter of fact, the ads even suggested building a King Burd and powering it with rubber until the builder could afford an engine!
Radio Control: Old-Timer
WE ARE REACHING the point of needing new subjects for the Old-Timer of the Month! If any reader has photos of any suitable model that we have not previously used (or any photos, period, for that matter), we would appreciate them. Therefore, this month we thought we'd feature the engine-prop-rpm table as published in Model Craftsman, August and September 1946. While the prop sizes given for these ignition engines may not be optimal for a particular model, they certainly provide a starting point for those of us whose memories have faded or who are running some of these antique sparkers for the first time.
Radio Control: Old-Timer
BACK in the Bad Old Days. Let's take a time-frame jump this month from the pre-war era into the immediate post-war one, to take a look at RC flying as it was in 1950. In visiting with younger modelers, we are frequently stunned by the presumption that RC models and equipment have always been as they presently are. Most of them have only a vague appreciation of the incredible changes in technology this hobby has undergone in the last three decades.
Kloud King
THE EARLIEST RULES governing competition of models with internal combustion engines were based on fuel allotment. Engine runs were limited to try to reduce the alarming number of fly-aways being experienced in contests. Generally, the fuel was allotted based on the model's weight. The Texas Oil Co. donated a perpetual trophy for the winner of the annual National Model Airplane Championships, and to this day fuel allotment events in the Society of Antique Models (SAM) competitions are referred to as Texaco.
