The Wit and Wisdom of Alexander Lippisch
AVIATION HISTORY recognizes Dr. Alexander Lippisch as the designer of the world's first operational rocket-powered airplane and the father of the delta wing concept. Dr. Lippisch also did important pioneering in the fields of gliding and soaring, tailless aircraft, ground effect vehicles, ducted fans, and wind tunnel design. We modelers remember him as a fellow builder, designer, writer, and researcher who continued to recognize the value of model building in research when others were abandoning scaled-down aircraft for reels of computer tape.
Sandpaper Science: For Small Models
IF YOU'RE a horror movie fan, you know about the versatility of the modern chain saw. Sandpaper, the tool that you buy in a sheet, has been with us longer, but it's equally versatile. As a check of the how-to folders at the hardware store shows, sandpaper can do anything from grinding rust off the old Volkswagen to polishing an expensive coffee table. What the folders don't tell you is how to work on 1/32 balsa or two-pound-density foam. While the soft materials and fragile structures of our small models require original methods, they also open up some unique possibilities. A creative modeler can use sandpaper not only for smoothing the exterior of his model, but for major cutting and shaping operations as well. Sandpaper can replace the handyman's lathe, router, sander-and, yes, even the chain saw.
Foam for Small Models
BUILDERS OF commercial and homebuilt full-scale airplanes use foam extensively. Foam-core wings are routine in Radio Control and Control Line. Ready to fly models, kiddies' toys, and fast-food meals have been using plastic foam for 20 years or more. But the acceptance of foam by builders of small models has been very slow. There are reasons for this. Some are obvious engineering reasons and some are more psychological. I won't go into the psychological reasons, with one exception: There seems to be a widespread feeling that using foam in a model means that the model must be "all foam." After building a two-foot Lockheed Vega that most observers would call "all foam," I went back and carefully noted all of the different materials that had been used.
Foam Zanonia
THIS GLIDER is a three-generation aircraft. Dr. A. M. Lippisch first showed me an actual zanonia seed. His son, Alex, demonstrated how beautifully a zanonia-like model could fly. And my son, Scott, showed me how much fun you can have with one. At the time when Alex first astonished us with the efficiency and stability of his zanonia models, Scott and I were looking for modeling projects to use the plastic foam trays that food is packed in. Alex's simple all-wing glider proved to be an ideal subject.
