Spaces
"RIGHT ON," Time magazine reported, and right on it was. The success of the Columbia carried an air of excitement that even pilot John Young couldn't hold back. As Young took his first checkout walk around the Columbia and then waved his arms in the air, you can just imagine him saying, "right on." I had considered an RC model of the Shuttle to ride on Snapshot Twin ever since the Twin was completed.
Summer Breeze Balloon
DURING Lou's presentation of the Slow-Year Blimp at the Northern Virginia RC Club Building Contest, I stood in line with many others to try my hand at his fascinating project. For years I had pondered how to fly RC indoors without needing a large hangar. My indoor Control Line experiments were frustrated by the fast speed of the model. The blimp, on the other hand, gave you time to relax and enjoy the model, and there was no chance of damage if you made the wrong move. Being an inventor at heart. I had to see how it was done-and considered building my own. However, I had a number of other projects started, such as Project Snapshot and ParaCraft, and I felt that starting another would be too costly in time and money. Lou encouraged me to join him, but it just had to wait. Watching the blimp at the shopping mall displays that year always enticed me to build one, but it was a non-modeling group that finally caused me to give it a try.
Paracraft: The Powered Parafoil
When Lincoln Beachey proclaimed he could fly a barn door, he hadn't heard of the Wizard of Oz. This `Beast,' `Praying Mantis,' or `ParaCraft,' as it was finally demurely named, would baffle any mere wizard. It's strange and it does strange things-touch-and-goes, figure eights, climbs steeply and slowly, or descends like a helicopter. Now it will star in a Show Team act. I have just about concluded that a show team is a group of modelers who are all in search of a cure for the itch to do something unusual. It leads them to put just about anything into the air, or at least a flying machine that appears to be just about anything. It seems that with a little aerodynamic modifications, an ironing board, dog house, flying saucer or stop sign may take to the air (no teacups yet?). Some appear to fly backwards or upside down, but all the seemingly unflyable are well thought out and tested engineering feats designed to entertain their audiences. It seems that I, too, have this bug for the unusual and, after flying Snapshot 3 for the Virginia Air Show Squadron for a year, I began to work on a new craft for the next year.
Project Snapshot on the Road
IT SEEMS that most hobby projects become more complex with time. The beginner who is satisfied with a two- or three-channel radio is soon eager to work with five or six channels. The models and equipment often become more involved and expensive. But along with the extra time and money goes a greater satisfaction when a more challenging project is completed. However, the extra time and expense sometimes goes for things you cannot buy at a hobby shop.
Project Snapshot
I IMAGINE most modelers have a dream project in the back of their mind that waits for the right opportunity to be taken off the shelf of ideas and become a reality. An article on the Sparrow Teleplane (American Aircraft Modeler, Sept. '73) started several years of daydreaming about building a camera-carrying model like it. Aerial photography began as early as 1858, when photos were taken from a hot air balloon. Kites were also used successfully by a gentleman who suspended an 18 1/2 by 48" camera from a bank of kites. The photo showed spectacularly clear detail of San Francisco after the great earthquake of 1906. Modelers have been putting still and movie cameras in models for years and many have enjoyed the view of their flying field from "up there."
