Radio Control: Sport & Aerobatics
WIND ALOFT. When I read John Preston's August 1984 "Safety Comes First" column, I enjoyed the description of what it would be like to fly an RC airplane from an aircraft carrier which was moving downwind at the same speed as the wind. It was such a perfect example of how the aircraft is "unaware" of a steady wind that I mentioned it in my November 1984 column. The description had appeared in a club newsletter, but I had the vague feeling that I'd read it before, several years ago. Sometime after the appearance of the November issue of Model Aviation, I copied a portion of a Frank and Ernest comic from a Sunday newspaper and sent it off to South Africa. The comic had one person (Frank?) saying, "Why is there a difference between ground speed and air speed?" and another person (Ernest?) saying, "That's easy.
Radio Control: Sport & Aerobatics
DONNYBROOK! A week or so ago, a copy of the February issue of a popular magazine which is exclusively about Radio Control came into my hands. (Okay, I subscribe to Radio Control Modeler.) I peacefully settled down to read it and came across the column by the well-known author who always flies on weekends, but never on Saturday (it was the Sunday Flier). Very soon, the author (Ken Willard) got into the subject of flying in wind, and I looked forward to what he'd say, because it's one of my favorite subjects, and he's been one of my favorite writers for years. Suddenly, I recognized a quote out of my November 1984 column. I had written, "You may have heard about how dangerous a downwind turn is. The downwind turn is a 180º turn which is started when the airplane is heading downwind."
Radio Control: Sport & Aerobatics
WHEN is the last time you finished an airplane, compared the center of gravity (CG) with the one on the plans, and found that they were in the same place? I've been building RC airplanes since 1954, and it only happened for me once. Usually, there is only a small difference, but once in a while, I got overly enthusiastic with airplane structure, primer and/or paint and had to add a lot of nose weight. In fact, the only time I've ended up with nose-heavy airplanes is when I built one of Don Lowe's Phoenix series airplanes. The swept wing shifts the wing aerodynamic center well aft and allows a CG to be further back on the fuselage than is normal with "straight-wing" airplanes.
Radio Control: Sport and Aerobatics
EVERY once in a while, a letter arrives from a flier who wants to know how to convert a Control Line model to fly as a Radio Controlled model. I would like to say to them that it's an easy task-but I can't! The problems with trying to convert CL models to RC are usually caused by the constraints of flying a model on relatively short lines. The CL model has to be able to corner tightly. This means that if an unmodified CL model has a radio installed, it will be too responsive for comfortable RC flying. Unfortunately, if a good-looking CL model is modified enough to make it a good-flying RC model, many of the features that make it look good are lost. The penalty of not making enough modifications is a bad-flying model.
Radio Control: Sport & Aerobatics
AFTER the April column (in which I asked for revenge on Ken Willard for correcting me about the proper definition of a downwind turn), I sat back very pleased with myself. After all, I admitted that he was right and deflected the letters that he had expected would set up a "donnybrook," in which he would be the reference. That was the situation until a letter from Ken Willard arrived. Now, you must understand the way I view Ken Willard in order to get a feeling of what it was like to receive a letter from him. Ken Willard has been writing the "Sunday Flier" column in Radio Control Modeler magazine for decades! I've been in RC for over 30 years, and I have enjoyed reading his columns for more than two thirds of my RC experience.
