Hangar 13 for 1/2A Texaco
The scene is Rock County Airport (mostly a mown hayfield) near Beloit, Wisconsin. The date: August 25, 1935. A young fellow stands on the sidelines watching a huge model airplane being launched. It was the first test flight of a Hangar 13 project, designed by club leader and advisor Conrad Hansen and built by club members. The tension among these present was obvious. Each had peeled glue from his fingertips and patiently fitted bits and pieces to build the 10-foot wing, the bulky fuselage, and the 40-inch-span stabilizer. With its Brown Jr. engine revving to a scream, the
1/2A 1938 Berryloid
The original model was designed in 1937, when I was a sophomore in high school drafting class. Frequent referral was made to the Frank Zaic Year Books and other sources for ideas and information. The late Conrad Hansen and I designed our models for entry in the 1938 Nationals Berryloid Best Finish event. My design had a wingspan of six feet, six inches, powered by a Brown Jr. engine, and weighed less than five pounds. It was covered with silk and had six coats of Berry Brothers red dope sprayed on and rubbed down with Berry Brothers rubbing compound. At the Nationals, Harold Coovert was the first-place winner, Conrad Hansen won second place, and I was third. Conrad and I were members of the Hangar 13 model club in Beloit, Wisconsin. Perhaps visions of sugarplums danced through my head, but I had a hankering to resurrect this old model for many years. Sixty years after it first flew, the time had arrived.
