Skis for Snow or Grass
THEY'RE EASY AND FAST to make, and they'll add very little weight to your airplane. Since skis impart a degree of stability to your model that wheels do not, you may find as I did that they reduce the ground looping tendency on takeoff and landing. These plywood skis are lighter than any of the metal ones I have seen. They also use a "knee action" positioning system that is closer to full-scale than the torque rod system. This article describes procedures for making one ski. Double all parts if you are making a main gear set only. If you are making one for the nose gear, length and width measurements will have to be modified. (Suggested full-size templates for all parts are included.)
Liquids and Chemicals in the Workshop
It seems that hangar talk frequently produces new and better ways of doing things. During a particularly productive recent discussion, it occurred to me that during my 45 years of model building, I have found uses for half-a-dozen or more liquids.
Converta-Cradle
Perhaps it was an undercooked chicken gizzard that kept me awake one night a few months ago. Not wanting to waste a gift of time, my one-track mind started working on a way to prevent the P-47 fuselage I was building from rolling around on my workbench. It kept getting dinged the by knives, screwdriver handles, and conehead-shaped cyanoacrylate (CyA) caps that inhabit the top of my bench. A sleepless hour or so later, I came up with a solution. I devised a rough plan for a construction cradle that
Making Trophies
TROPHIES can be expensive! Your club can spend more than $300 for a single contest with two or three rulebook events, and this kind of outlay will eat up much of your profits. The Grande Ronde Bush Pilots, a sport Scale Radio Control club of eastern Oregon, has made its own trophies for its annual Class AA Scale Contests, and many contestants tell us that the handmade first-place trophies are one of the main reasons they keep coming back. I wish I could claim credit for this idea, but it's not mine. Many years ago, I was fortunate to become acquainted with Dave Platt, who was Top Flite's model designer at that time. On a visit to his home, I noticed a very attractive Scale Masters plaque, about five by seven inches. On it were mounted a small brass plate giving the name and date of the contest and "First Place," and below that, half of a 1/72-scale plastic fighter model, sprayed solid silver as though cast of metal, and glued to the plaque.
Training Handle
I HAVE THOUGHT for many years that there must be a better way to teach beginners to fly control-line models that would eliminate the necessity for "holding hands" with him in the middle of the circle. Navy Petty Officer Second Class John Buhay and I finally sat down one night and in about an hour developed what we call the "B & H Flight Training Handle." It is an exceedingly simple device with no moving parts, and its effectiveness has been such that absolute beginners are soloing in 3-6 flights instead of the 12-20 formerly required.
