Radio Control: Giants
THE ALLISON ENGINE purred, hurtling the P-40N through the cloud canyons. The practice stall series, the purpose of the training flight, had been completed, and there was plenty of gas left in the wing tanks. There wasn't any sense in returning to base just yet. Not when the billowing Alabama cumulus clouds were begging to be buzzed. Air Force regulations prohibited "real" buzzing-low flight over the ground. It was deemed to be a dangerous practice. But there wasn't anything in the rule book about bending an airplane around isolated cloud build-ups at a safe altitude.
Radio Control: Giants
EVERY ONCE in a while you come up smelling like a rose! That's how it was, about a month ago. Readers of this column will recall that I've had the "hots" for the Bell Airacuda-particularly the tricycle-gear version of the pre-WW II twin-engined pusher "fighter." Lots of you kind folks provided a wealth of documentation on the airplane. The local file was busting its seams, but I was totally unprepared for the contribution by Bob Winchell! It seems that Bob was so far ahead of me in the design department that I was left in the dust! Not only had he drawn construction plans for the Airacuda, but he did it in Giant Scale.
Radio Control: Giants
A VERY HAPPY New Year to all you Giant Scalers! We may be a bit behind the power curve, but since this issue of Model Aviation will arrive in January, it's the first chance we've had to wish you the pleasantries of the season. As promised last month, we've included photos of Don Hopper's Giant air force. You'll quickly see that Don's a big fan of WW II "heavy iron." He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the sun shines most of the time, so his models get frequent workouts. I had intended to elaborate on my earlier suggestion that it's a good idea to run a voltage check on your RC batteries. An E-mail correspondent came up with a most potent suggestion: a better, more reliable, and more accurate reading would result if the batteries were tested under a load that duplicated that placed on them by the radio itself.
Radio Control: Giants
IT SURE HAS piled up-the mail, that is. Since I had a month off (because the December Model Aviation was devoted to the Nationals) the mailbox has been clogged, so let's get at it. New friend Brian Allen of Sterling VA sent some photos of his latest project. The Giant is a model of the Interstate L-6 Cadet, built from Jerry Bates' plans. Brian duplicated the full-scale version of the WW II liaison aircraft owned by Joe Grotzinger of Brownsville TX. The invasion stripe color scheme is fictitious; Mr. Grotzinger added to his airplane to make it more visible! It sure does make the model stand out.
Radio Control: Giants
JERRY SMARTT IS absolutely fascinated with big Radio Control (RC) models. He figures that aircraft with "only" 84-inch wingspans (which are certainly IMAA [International Miniature Aircraft Association]-legal) are "schoolyard scale." Nothing in his fleet spans less than nine feet! Jerry is from Warsaw, Missouri, and he builds and flies gigantic models-not to say that they're heavy monsters. Jerry's latest construction project is enough to take your breath away. It's a 52% version of the Sopwith Baby-a pre-World War I Schneider Cup racer! He's going to build the landplane version of the biplane. The wingspan works out to be 13 feet with a chord of 32 inches; that will produce about 9,200 square inches of wing area, and the power will be electric! Jerry's Sopwith has a motor and gear box from an outfit in Germany that produces motors for ultralights! His power plant puts out two horsepower, and the sporty laminated propeller for the model is 36 inches in diameter!
