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
CONTROL CABLES: Control surface actuation by cable is commonly used on Scale models of aircraft that have exposed cables. Its most notable advantage is its light weight. In the short lengths we use in our models, there is no stretch and, therefore, no loss of motion, when using stainless steel cable intended for operation of Control Line models. The cable is inexpensive, found in most hobby shops, and is flexible and available in various diameters to suit model sizes. Its main disadvantage is that it cannot be soldered. Terminations must be made by swaging. Other materials have also been used, such as fish-line leaders and plastics, but our experience with these has been that even a slight amount of stretch is objectionable because motion is lost, and the loss varies with airspeed.
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
FAI RULES: We have begun to hear suggestions from U.S. Giant Scale advocates, and also from other nations, that an FAI classification be established for this class of Scale model. Large models in international competition always bring to mind the transportation difficulties we have encountered with even our present-day, so-called "standard-size" models. These have grown in size markedly in the recent past. The Europeans can have international contests for large models, and transportation of the model is not a serious matter. But, when the model and its container cross an ocean using airline transportation, the situation changes.
Radio Control: Scale
UNEXPECTED STALLS: Warped wings are deadly. Warps that result in a greater angle of incidence at the wing tip than at the root are the worst. This condition is known as washin. A model with this type of warp on one wing needs lots of aileron trim control at the transmitter to keep the model from rolling into a turn. The condition worsens when we add a high angle of attack, as when using elevator to increase climb or during a steep turn. It affects the model differently at various speeds. The elevator is the trim control. It is used to trim the wing's angle of attack-the angle at which it meets the oncoming flow of air. A warped wing, with a tip that is already near stall, will suddenly stop flying when Up elevator is applied, since its angle of attack is increased beyond the critical point at which lift is lost.
