Dawnwalker III
THERE IS NOTHING NEW under the sun! True. In the late Sixties, George Perryman was flying a 2 1/2-oz. Unlimited Rubber (subsequently renamed Mulvihill) ship that featured a 5-min. motor run, fixed prop for dethermalizing, and condenser paper covering. On the Zaic three-view drawing, notes pointed to a heavier, "regular" version that obviously would survive better in competition. Since that time, of course, there have been changes both in the AMA FF Rubber events and the emerging "special" contests that, I suspect, will eventually find their place into the rule book.
Flying Wing Fever
FLYING WINGS? Flying wings? It's a concept that's intrigued and bedeviled aeronautical-minded people ever since man got the idea he could imitate birds. After all, only a few natural forms fly without benefit of the stabilizing effect of a tail structure: the manta ray, the maple seedpod (more a helicopter than anything else), and-that master of locomotion, he of the complex electromechanical parameters-the bat. For the most part, nature doesn't mirror our efforts to achieve the feat of tailless flight.
U.S. F.F.C. 1987
TO GO TO TAFT, California is to visit Free Flight's Land of Oz, Aeromodeling's Mecca, and Kitty Litter HQ. Taft is the venue of our largest, most exciting contest, the United States Free Flight Championships. This annual blockbuster occupies the Memorial Day weekend, and it's where the A1 Unsers of the world of Free Flight gather to test their equipment against man and nature in a paroxysm of competition unlike anything else in our sport/hobby. The town of Taft itself is a small but important oil and agriculture hub, spotted with friendly mom-and-pop-style motels and diners, fast food outlets, a modern supermarket, and lots of peace and quiet. Four miles east of town lies the field. Several hundred acres of hardpan circled by scrubby pucker-bush colonies that stretch out for miles, this field is the stuff of Free Flighters' dreams. Manmade obstacles are few: oil pipelines, the California Aqueduct, a power line or two, and not much else. Nature is in abundance, and kit foxes (lovely little food beggars), an occasional sleepy scorpion or rattlesnake, hawks, and the like are not uncommon sights.
50th Anniversary Wakefield Commemorative at Taft
TO MODELIZE Noel Coward, only modelers, "mad dogs, and Englishmen go out in the midday sun"-especially in the midday sun of Taft, CA during the summer solstice, when hostile temperatures and airplane-eating thermals abound. Perhaps we shouldn't mention the sign at the field entrance that reads, "Warning, Rattlesnakes in Abundance." But this was a very special event-one that overrode the threatening conditions and drew us along the freeways and connectors to the California desert.
