Getting The Word Out
FOR OVER 70 YEARS, model aviation has been a growing and important hobby. Beyond that, it is a sport, a recreation, it provides young people with a wholesome challenge, and it has spectator appeal. But how many people know about the full scope of aviation modeling? Not enough! Too many people still think of model airplanes as something for pre-teenagers, something for middle-aged men trying to re-capture memories of their youth, or as a devious medium that provides "heads" glue to sniff. Maybe there's a reason! Why is the word not getting out? We modelers can sit around and blame the news-media for being more interested in violence, sex and political intrigue. Or we can growl at the peer establishment in the recreation world for being only interested in such things as mass pastimes like football, baseball, fishing and hunting.
Happiness Is An Old Engine!
1934! A revolution comes to model aviation. Bill Brown Jr. produces an easy starting, practical miniature airplane engine...Maxwell Bassett sweeps major East Coast contests with his angular model plane powered by a Brown engine ending the long reign of rubber as king...The Junior Birdmen of America threaten to boycott the gas model...Harry Loutrel introduces a model engine in kit form...J. Danner Bunch of Los Angeles creates both a model plane and engine of his own design! The day of the gas model had arrived! In coming years developments rapidly followed, favorites were chosen, and legends were born. Today, collectors worldwide still savor those favorites and relive those legends, sometimes choosing new favorites and frequently dispelling old myths. These are the collectors of old model airplane engines.
The Paper Airplane Grows Up
THE PAPER airplane has been around as long as aviation, and even preceded flight by man-carrying planes. If surveys were taken they would probably show that there are more paper airplane enthusiasts than any other type of modeler, if you count those paper planes flying around the schoolroom. These enthusiasts are rarely as avid as other model buffs, but year-after-year people, all the way from school kids to business executives, continue building paper airplanes. There is true fascination with the little craft, as evidenced by The Scientific American Great Paper Airplane Contest a decade ago.
Shoot that Model on Movie Film
ENGINE SCREAMING like an angry banshee, the trim model of Art Chester's Racer plunges across the finish-line. In a final flourish the model climbs skyward, flipping over into a victory roll. A moment of glory, only to be cherished in the modeler's memory? No! Every second of that dramatic moment has been captured on movie film, providing a lasting chronicle of victory for the modeler and entertainment for his friends. Radio-control model aircraft and movies go together like hot dogs and relish. There is no hobby that has more motion picture appeal than RC flying, and thousands of builders have bought a camera to film their planes in action and to record club activities. But what about showing these films to non-modeler friends? Will they be interested? Or what about showing the pictures to modelers from other clubs? Will the films bring yawns instead of "oohs and ahs?"
