Radio Control: Giants
ALTHOUGH SPRUCE, plywood, and fiberglass play their parts as RC Giant Scale construction materials, balsa, the good old standby, is the wood of choice for most builders. It's light, strong, easily formed, and has served modelers since the days of the five-cent Megow and Comet rubber-powered Scale kits. Balsa tail surfaces help balance even the most sophisticated Giants. Model builders have had to compete with a host of other users for the limited supply of balsa. Back in 1927, Ryan used it to streamline the struts of Charles Lindbergh's NYP. During WW II, flying model kits were limited to the use of pine, spruce, and cardboard because the balsa supply went to insulate the hulls of oil tanker ships.
Radio Control: Giants
WITH ALL of the common and technological distractions, it's amazing that people have time to build and fly Radio Control Giant models. If it isn't the television, it's the computer monitor; if it isn't a fax, it's a collection of E-mail from the Internet. Somewhere in there, a person has to go to work, eat, sleep, and find the hours to glue stick "A" to longeron "B." Although it might not mean much, I'd like to send "attaboys" to all of the readers who have bolted together a Giant. If you can find a couple of extra minutes, why not shoot some great photographs of your pride and joy? I can use them in this column!
Radio Control: Giants
THOSE OF YOU who have followed my column throughout the years may remember that I'm not all that thrilled with computer Radio Control (RC) radios. Although there are a couple of computer transmitters in the local "inventory," they're only set up for single-model applications. Part of my aversion results from the confusing instruction manuals that come with the transmitters. Some instructions are the product of foreign manufacturers, and the translations leave much to be desired. Setting up an RC computer transmitter for three or more models may also become frustrating.
Radio Control: Giants
GIANT SCALE MODELERS have strong opinions when it comes to the models that they build. Although the number of potential prototypes is vast, builders narrow the field to subjects that please them; if World War I aircraft are preferred, Fokker products (the D.VII or the triplane Dr.I), Sopwiths (the Pup), or Nieuports (the 28) are usually chosen. Good Giant drawings or kits are available for all of them. If modelers prefer between-the-wars aircraft, the field is wide open: Curtiss Robins, Boeing biplane fighters, and a host of great Golden Age racers (Gee Bees, Folkerts, and others) have been drafted in Giant Scale sizes. Then there is my favorite - the Bell YFM-1A Airacuda.
Radio Control: Giants
IN ARTICLES by model designers, the old cliché, "It flew right off the drawing board," appears with agonizing regularity. The models do not always do that well, but the models that don't fly as planned never make it to the pages of the magazines. Scale designs are more frequently the victims of "no-flightitis" than their freelance brethren, often because their prototypes weren't world-beating aircraft. Also, shrinking a full-scale airplane to model size often presents balance, airfoil, wing area, angle-of-incidence, and decalage problems that are impossible to overcome. The tradeoffs in producing a true Scale replica often produce a "dog" when flight is attempted.
