Control Line: Aerobatics
HERE'S MORE on control line handles as a follow-up to the column on the building of the "Paul-Robbert Super Handle" (April 1983 in Model Aviation). Firstly, Lew McFarland will shortly be marketing the George Aldrich handle through his X-Cell Hobby Shop, Eastland Shopping Center, Lexington, KY 40505. This handle was very lightweight and adjustable for inside/outside turning equivalence. Secondly, I received a very detailed letter from Windy Urtnowski regarding some flying experiments with handles. Excerpts are as follows. (Keep in mind that Windy flies with many of the New Jersey crowd including Glen Meador, Lou Dudka, Lou Woolgast, Bob Hunt, Doug Stout, and Bill Simons-and this group is never at a loss for words for advice, questions, encouragement, experimentation, and lots of good old bench-flying!)
Control Line: Aerobatics
PAINT FINISH. The following article on paints and finishing has been in the works since last August with the tremendous cooperation of Windy Urtnowski, which included several letters back and forth for clarifications. He displayed great patience as I kept returning his letters for more and more details. Windy's modeling and Stunt career go back to 1959, and his painting career goes back to 1969. He has done extensive work with all custom finishing techniques used on custom motorcycles, as well as painting guitars, custom vans, boats, etc. For the past three years, he has experimented with many two-part finishing systems with both good and bad results. His 1982 Nationals airplane, The Executioner, was the PAMPA Concours D'Elegance runner-up-even after a crash that removed the nose and the top block two weeks before the Nats! To start with, we will describe the finish on the Executioner.
Control Line: Aerobatics
PICKING UP where we left off last month talking about painting your latest creation, let's see what Windy Urtnowski has to say about repainting an old airplane with Imron. He stated, "I've used Imron over silkspan that has old dope on it, as the silkspan and dope seem to stay flexible with age. As an experiment, I tried refinishing my three-year-old Ringmaster: I cleaned it off well, wet-sanded with No. 600 paper using PrepSol, then toweled it off and sprayed on clear Imron over the old, dulled-out finish. It worked great, and my Ringmaster helped me get first in OTS at the 1982 Nats! Lou Dudka has done a similar experiment with an old `Matrix,' and it came out looking brand new. This process is definitely worth considering if you have an old ship that flies well, needs nose weight removed, and can stand the extra ounce of weight on the wing loading. The weight will be mostly behind the center of gravity, so don't do it to a plane that needs two oz. of nose weight now."
AMA Nats 1983: CL Aerobatics
A BUNCH of us packed up and went to New England to the 57th National Model Airplane Championships held at Westover Air Force Base near Chicopee, MA-many of us with a little trepidation about the site. But, did we ever find a fantastic site: I've been to every Nats since 1971, and Westover is the best site I've yet seen. Not only did we have great official Control Line circles, but we also had about eight circles for practice which were very near the official circles, and everything was level, clean, and with very few "line walkers." Many thanks should go especially to Control Line category director Bev Wisniewski and to District I Vice-President Ed Izzo, who saw to it that CL had the best competition circles I've ever seen. A person could be watching the CL circles and look up to see RC Pylon, Scale, or Pattern as well as Free Flight within a quarter of a mile. Furthermore, to cap it off, to the far right of our site there were full-scale operations including fighters, trainers, cargo planes, and other miscellaneous aircraft.
Control Line: Aerobatics
U.S. CL AEROBATICS TEAM. The 1983 FAI team tryouts was held once again over the Labor Day weekend, which is now traditional, and the flying was held in Dayton, OH which has hosted many FAI tryouts. Two of the winners were repeat members of the team. And, for the sixth time, Keith Trostle was the Event Director, which probably sets a record for the number of consecutive times as the ED. Bob Baron (Claremont, CA) came out the overall winner, as he led all the way from the first round on Saturday. He will be making his second appearance in the World Championships, which will be held in the United States next summer. The fliers flew three rounds on the first day, adding the two highest scores to the two highest of three rounds on Sunday for their overall scores. Eight-time team member Bill Werwage (and World Champion in 1970 and 1972) finished second in the tryouts, with a score of 3983.25 to Baron's 4102.50.
