Date approximate: 1952-1953.
After an earlier unsuccessful effort with an AJ Firebaby (in a residential/commercial busy neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY - no room to get the OK Cub .049 (?), the slack-balloon tank and the 20' lines going at a busy intersection (( we lived above a dry goods store!)) ) , I kept on with semi-serious rubber free flight 10 cent Comet and Monogram kits. Good building experience. And some engine experience - first engine an Anderson Spitzy .045? - on a rudimentary bench. Learned how to start and 'tune' an engine, anyway.
Next real effort was a Pee Wee Zilch with an OK .049. Younger cousin tore the rudder and stab off at launch... Age-related problem for both of us... About a year later, having read Air Trails and Flying Models mags intensively since 1949, I "designed" a simple CL model for a McCoy .098.
Flat bottom wing. Sorta sport single-eater appearance. WAY too heavy for wing area and power - but with a good hand launch, IT FLEW! Still not in high school, so before Fall 1953...
Weight meant strength - way in excess of needed strength.... It could and DID loop, which was more like a climb and dive in which I didn't turn with the model, but leaned over backwards to see it on the "back half" of the lap. Whipping? ubetcha!
Even so learned a lot from it. Later (not by much, actually!) models flew wonderfully more easily. True joy! Until I tried a first release Flite Streak (McCoy Sportsman 35). Tailheavy! Model got three laps ahead of me, but flew less than a single lap.
Repaired (ultimately several times repaired!) it lasted me over two more years, and taught me a whole lot more. All good and inspiring, leading to the next 60+ years of preferring CL as the way to fly.
Last edited by Lou Crane; 11-26-2016 at 05:24 PM.