Telemaster Sales UK

This is the second story. The word "gay" did not have any connotations when the football ground was first named and the football I refer to is Association Football not the trench warfare version widely played in the USA.


I was about fourteen years old in the early sixties and I was a member of my school's model flying club. I was mainly interested in free flight but we had a good 1/2A team-race team in Nick Salmon and John Royle who once beat the British Champion in a proper competition. No mean feat for a couple of kids running a PAW 149 against Oliver Tiger Cub opposition. Well this event hit the local papers and soon afterwards we were invited to fly some models at ShrewsburyTown's football pitch during the half-time interval.

We decided to fly four team racers in one circle in one half of the pitch and two or three Peacemakers trailing streamers in another circle in the other half of the pitch, all models to be hand launched of course. The Peacemakers were not intended to indulge in combat; the streamers were merely there to show-off the manoeuvres. My role was to act as pit man for one of the lesser lights in the team race circle, I forget who he was.

We turned up early and placed the lines out of the way alongside a low wall that surrounded the pitch so that we only had to connect the already fuelled aircraft to the lines before running out and starting the engines. We duly ran out and took up station, "Would it start?" I'm pleased to be able to report that mine started first, followed immediately by another team racer and soon all of the models were flying and I was aware that the announcer was telling the crowd all about us over the Tannoy.

Suddenly there was an enormous roar from the crowd, I had my back to the Peacemakers and could see nothing wrong with the team race circle so I turned round to have a look at the Peacemakers. What had happened was that the lines had become tangled and that one of the pilots had let go of the handle so that his Peacemaker was now a free-flight model trailing the lines and handle!

Of course it was totally unstable and proceeded to fly over the crowd, constantly swooping and climbing and diving and changing direction all of the time. Most of the crowd thought that this was a great laugh but those beneath the model were pushing and shoving one another to get out of the way and running up or down the terraces as the model zoomed and dived above them. For some reason the patterns they wove reminded me of waves ebbing from the sea shore!

Fortunately the model flew over the stand, across the river and into the hospital grounds on the other side of the river were the lines became tangled up in a tree and the model's bid for freedom was stopped!

We were never invited back again but we were the cause of the loudest noise the crowd made on that day!

jsr1017

I was looking for an "Introductions" or similar sub-forum here and didn't find one, but this thread seems to be as good a place as any ... so let's give it a shot here.

I just barely meet the 50+ criteria, since I'm a not-so-robust 51 year old. I like to call myself a "serial hobbyist" - over the years it's been buildng and programming computers (which turned into my actual career), advanced juggling, long distance running, R/C airplanes (more on that coming), culminating most recently with motorcycle road racing. That last one was particularly intense, and sadly ended this summer with a particularly bad crash that resulted in a helicopter ride to the hospital, shattered collarbone, seven broken ribs, and a nasty concussion. I healed up pretty well, and If I was single I'd be back out on the racetrack already, but my wife put the kibosh on that ... had to sell my bikes and now I'm looking for something to do, so I'm thinking really hard about getting back into R/C planes, with the end-goal being a .90 helicopter (I'm drooling over the Avant RC Aurora ...).

My model aircraft history goes way way back to when I was twelve or so and my Dad bought me a Lil' Wizard control line model. I built it myself and powered it with a Cox Babe Bee .049. I think that plane is still sitting on a shelf down in my mother's basement somewhere. I had a lot of fun with it, but it never really took with me (back then), I got interested in computers back in the very first days of home-built microcomputers (wonder if anyone will recognize the name Altair 8008?).

Skip forward nearly thirty years and I was living in Germany, in a small village in Bavaria that happened to have a Modellflugesellschaft (model airplane club) just outside of town. I stopped by one day and got hooked. Started with a catapult-launched glider from Graupner, can't remember the name. I have some very fond memories of catching thermals and staying aloft for hours. My second plane was a SIG Citabria powered with an OS .46. Oh man I loved that plane! That one kept flying for 4 years, almost to the end of my time in Germany, until one day I lost radio contact and down she went. I never did completely figure out what happened, my best theory was that I somehow managed to fold up the receiver antenna wire so that once I got far enough away there was no more control to be had.

Building the Citabria gave me a passion for building, and from there on I pretty much scratch-built everything I flew. I think my favorite plane to fly was a Clancy Aviation Speedy Bee with an OS .26 four stroke. What a great experience flying that thing at walking speed down the runway, the sound of the four-stroke was amazing. Also dabbled in R/C combat planes with a P-51 (from a kit) and a P-38 with two OS .15s built from plans I found in R/C Modeler magazine. My pride and joy as a builder though, was my Gee Bee Z. That one was also from R/C Modeler plans. The raw build before I covered it was a beautiful sight, with all the stringers down the fuselage ...

I ended up having to return to the states in 2006, and it was impossible to bring all of my models back with me so I ended up selling everything as a huge bundle to a big club near the city of Cologne.

So that's me. I guess I qualify as a beginner again since it's been nearly ten years since I flew the last time. For my first step back into the hobby I think I'm going to try to recreating the Speedy Bee. I searched and searched for plans for sale and couldn't find any, but I did manage to find a file on the internet that looks like it has pretty good images in it. After I post this I'm heading down to a nearby FedEx Office store with my USB stick to see if they can print it out full size for me. I hope that's not taboo to say here ... I really *did* try to find plans for sale, but all the links on the Clancy Aviation website go nowhere.

donnyman

Telemaster- jsr1017

I enjoyed your stories. when I started this thread what you have done is basically what I had in mind ......thank you

Enjoy this site and chime in whenever a memory pops up.

jsr1017 try the outerzone free plan web site, you may find all the plans of your dreams there, it is loaded with them.

Happy holidays..................Donny

donnyman

why dId this double post????????

skylark-flier

JSR! Gotcha - Clancy Speedy Bee - - http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=2315

Nice plane!!!!!!

jsr1017

Thanks for the tip on outerzone.co.uk! That's actually the exact same .zip file I downloaded, without knowing that it was from a site dedicated to free plans. It printed up beautifully at the Fedex shop ... $18 for three sheets, not too bad I guess. Now I gotta get a building board and some balsa, and find some room at home to set up a workshop.

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

I can tell you the shorter ones were a heavy diameter, the shop owner thinks the long ones are the ones you are looking for. I just sent you a PM.

Mike

donnyman

Was looking at videos from 1994 of my son and I flying our kaos's , We flew most of the day and a lot of formation. I wanted to find pictures to post here but all my equiptment is dated and nothing is compatable. even my scanner won't talk to my computer, ...Looking for upgrades....

JSR............ I have a file of all the speedy bee's someone sent me if I run across it I will pass it along. There are a lot of sites on line that have plans for download many are free, As a scratch builder plans are one of my weakness.(lovin it) so I have quite a few, now if I could only organize them enough so I can find what i want when I want it.

The picture is just a few of my plans so you can see I got problems and I am open to suggestions I don't like folded plans.

donnyman

Telemaster

I just reread your post, would you have pictures of the planes etc. you mentioned?

Renegade

My Feedback: (1)

I also have been involved for 50+ years on and off. My first was a Cox TD-3 received at Christmas 1960, which I never did get to fly, as my Dad and Uncle crashed it on its maiden flight, in the spring. Dad attempted to repair the thin plastic and used a wooden round part from a tinker-toy set for a new motor mount, but it never did fly again. I still remember that red and white checkerboard pattern of the plane hanging from my bedroom ceiling. How ironic, my Mom didn't want me to fly it, cause she thought I'd get dizzy turning in circles, so she insisted her brother and my Dad fly it, if I remember correctly neither of them got it to fly more than 180 degrees out of the 360 circle before being "Doinked in nose first " Anyway, I now had a Thimble-Drone Baby Bee engine to put on something! My first all balsa model was a profile CL Corsair, don't recall the manufacturer, but I do recall the adventure of scoring the balsa and bending the angles required for the wings for that distinctive Corsair look. I figured that the Wen-Mac and Cox people knew how to build better aircraft than I and I went thru a good number of them....PT-19, P-40's and the Sprite Airplane and race cars. Ah, the race cars, the Chapperlle, Corvette, Buick Rivera, 57 Chevy and others were another source of 049 engines and parts after they wore out their tires or were crashed! I even had one race car that was powered by a c02 cartridge, but that was short lived as using one cartridge per run was an inefficient use of a days supply of power for plinking with my Daisy co2 BB gun, an it didn't have that race car sound! Flash forward a few years got into building with balsa, control line, lil wizzard, little toot, piper cub, then jumped up into Double Voodo combat wing with a Fox19. (Oops, I just looked in the box, they are McCoy's red heads , not Fox ) then back down to a Otto .049 combat wing, with which I split my flying buddy's little satan in half. Not on purpose....after all it was combat! That's the afternoon I remember while cleaning our engines, we'd start 'em up and with the cleaning rag attached to the rear , toss them up and watch 'em fly!, I still have my original (patched up and repaired )Lil wizzard, one of the voodoo's and a few other gosh "vintage" balsa Ringmaster skeletons. Even my first electric foamie, before they were called foamie! It is a Matel Super star. Which got me into FF models, which lead to the question, which is worse, crashing them in a circle or watching them float away on a thermal, never to be see again ? I can remember running across the open pasture of the near by dairy farm chasing that Superstar after having caught a nice thermal, keeping one eye on the plane and one over my shoulder looking to make sure I wasn't being chased by the big mean bull! It ended up landing 2/3's up the side of a huge gravel pile from the gravel quarry on the other side of the pasture. I climbed up the side 2 steps up, slide one step back, thru the loose gravel till I reached the plane. I'm sure if the Pit Boss or any workers would have been there I would have been chased off with shovels, for causing a minor rock slide to retrieve my model. I did have a safe walk back down the two track path the trucks used to reach the gravel pit, which was fenced off the from the dairy cows and that bull. Never flew it with a full charge after that!
Reading this thread has been a real hoot, knowing that there are others who have shared the same or very similar experiences having fun with this hobby. Thanks for starting this thread Donnyman!

Renegade

My Feedback: (1)

Oops double posted. Dumb thumbs!

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

I confess, I hoard plans as well! I just like to stare at them really. One of the designs that I always wanted as a kid was the Midwest Das Bipe stik. Well, it took a while, but I located a set of those plans, and will get around to building it eventually. Amazing how small some of these models are starting to look to me now. Must be all the big airplanes I am building now.

Greybeard1

Hoarding plans isn't my problem, I only have a few designs I think are interesting. It's hoarding the balsa scraps, if I have one kit box full of scraps, I have a dozen, and not enough of usable size to build an ROG. Time I sent an order out, after the first of the year, after I recover from my property taxes. (My inner child ran off with my credit card last month, hope he had fun.)

Rich.

Greybeard1

Just for fun, I'm trying to get working on a couple of Santich's Magnum 40, from RCM plans, Then comes an RCM Basic BIpe, the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Anyone else scratching something from that time period?

Rich.

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

I want to build another Schoolmaster. I found the kit plans, landing gear and engine from my first one, and it's a simple build. I built the first one in 1971, but killed it due to image reversal late one evening. That's when I learned to trust the sticks and not my eyes. Less than ten years later, I was in the same club with Ken Willard in California. At that time he asked me to fly a demo flight at a local school, which worked out well.

Telemaster Sales UK

The Peacemaker was a very popular stunt trainer/combat model in the UK in the Sixties, usually powered by a diesel engine of between 2.5 and 3.5 ccs. It was an American design by George Aldridge.

Try googling "Peacemaker Model Aircraft" and you'll get some idea. Similarly if you google " Veron Cardinal Model Aircraft," you'll find a few pictures. I regret that I do not have a picture of the brown and yellow one!

I do however, have a story about how the Cardinal met its end. If I can find it I'll post it.

Telemaster Sales UK

I do however, have a story about how the Cardinal met its end. If I can find it I'll post it.

Here it is.

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[TR]
[TD="width: 90%"] "How the Cardinal Met its End!"[/TD]
[TD="width: 10%"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
You may recall my Uncle Geoff referred to in a previous article; he taught me how to build model aircraft. He died of cancer in 1960 while his son was still a baby. Spool on 35 years and his son, Nick, is now a dentist living in Norfolk in the east of England while I'm a jobbing builder living in Devon.

Now Nick was once the Midlands Area Schoolboy Cycle Champion and still regularly competes on his bike, however, in the mid Nineties the bicycle racing had forced him to go into hospital to have an operation on his knees. At the same time his mother gave him a plastic bag containing his father's old model aeroplane engines and suggested to him that he could build a model while he was recuperating. The engines included; an ED Racer; an ED Competition Special; an ED Bee; a Mills 1.3 and three Mills .75s. He phoned me to recommend a suitable kit and I suggested the Cardinal.

The model was duly built, the lad had obviously inherited his father's skills, and he brought it down to me for help with the covering. We chose Solarfilm, (Yes I know!) yellow fuselage and dark blue wings, (Yes I know!!) but we didn't have the time or weather to fly it before he had to go back to Norfolk.

The following summer he asked me to come and paint the outside of his house. My painting kit went into the van. Then he asked me to fit an outside tap. The plumbing kit went into the van, and to wallpaper the lounge, the wallpapering kit went into the van, and to wire up a couple of spurs for the hi-fi and computer. You get the picture.

In the end there was no space for even my smallest R/C model so I dragged the Cardinal out of a thirty year retirement the night before setting off for Norfolk. The engine still turned but the yellow tissue was now very brittle. I soon had that off and ironed on some pale blue Solarfilm (YES I KNOW!) that I had lying about, ironed Solartex onto the top and bottom of the fuselage, degreased the remaining brown paint and painted the fuselage with dark blue Hammerite, a type of metallic paint which dries to a hammered finish intended for protecting metal, but in the time available....

I got to Norfolk, got stuck into the job and one beautiful summer's evening we took our Cardinals out into the fields near Nick's house. We glide-trimmed both models, then we started Nick's engine for the first time in over forty years. We launched it on low power but it dropped its starboard wing and hit the ground. We persevered for a long time trying various trim tab settings but in the end we agreed that Nick had incorporated too much right side thrust and that that was causing the problem.

By now dusk was falling, but we started my Mills and observing that Nick's engine required about half a tank to run for twenty seconds I put the equivalent amount of fuel into the thimble and launched the old thing! It climbed in right-hand circles, and climbed .... and climbed until it was a tiny cross in the sky, reminding me of its performance over thirty years ago but this time there was a slight breeze and the fields in Norfolk are divided by dykes rather than hedges, so we couldn't chase it. It was a long way from us when I thought I saw it land in front of a stand of pines. We went back the next night and the following evening but couldn't find it. We enlarged the holes in the engine bearers of Nick's model, straightened up the engine and flew that successfully but we didn't manage to find my model.

I put a couple of notices in the pub and the local post office. "£5 Reward for the Recovery of a Small Model Aeroplane." No response until the following Saturday when I was in the house by myself for Nick and his wife Nikki had gone away for the weekend, and the phone rang. The voice on the other end said that he'd found something which could be the remains of a model aircraft. I went round and saw the chap, a local farmer. He took me to the spot where he'd found the Cardinal. It was a long way from where I'd thought it had landed and all that remained of it was the engine, the bearers, the undercarriage and the pale blue Solarfilm.

"Where's the rest of it?" I enquired.

"The cows have eaten it," he said,

"Where are all the cows," I asked.

"They're all dead," he replied. I had visions of the biggest insurance claim in history being lodged against British Model Flying Association but then he added,

"I took them to the slaughter-house the day before yesterday!"

It seems that cows like vintage models but don't like Solarfilm.

I expect most of you vintage model enthusiasts are the same!

I suppose I'll have to build a new Cardinal after all this!


Happy Landings!

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

I have started an aircraft called a .50 Caliber, which is a twin .25 sized Pattern type model. Designed by Dick Sarpolous in the 70's. He has a bigger version for twin .40's called the Magnum 80. Supposed to be a great flyer.

I finished a an old Bridi Sun Fli 5 scratch build last spring, and that plane got a bunch of miles on it this last season. In fact, I took it with me to the AMA nationals as a warmup plane.

Scratch building to plans is what this hobby is all about for me.

edstrek

My Feedback: (49)

Ok so I am 57 but have little history as a kid. Cox plastic control line with an .049 was my first flight other than the plastic rubber band launch gliders that actually flew well. I started with RC about 24 years ago. Using Futaba gear. Now days flying 60 size + as eyes not as good and bigger planes fly better LOL (oops modern stuff.) I purchase estates and resell them also. Just a plug to another side of my hobby activities. I say Fly Well Fly Often. Oh yes 24 years and no body parts in a prop yet!!

Greybeard1

Nice looking planes, Grimace. I probably should be looking at something a little tamer than I am, but thoughts of a twin engine .40 power have come to my mind, and for now, been successfully slapped down.

Rich.

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

Thanks Greybeard. The twin is not mine though as I am in the middle of building it. That is a stock picture. I could not find a picture of the Santich Magnum.

These 2 planes here are practice planes. The Sun Fli has retracts as well, and I use it to keep sharp for my scale warbirds. It really helps me to stay sharp with my landings. The Sun fli is a wonderful airplane, reminiscent of a Kaos.

The .50 Caliber will be my first twin. It is a small airplane with a 54" or so span. It again is a practice airplane for a future scale twin project. I want to start getting experience with a sport twin, so I will have fewer surprises when the time comes. One thing I will be doing is making it a taildragger, as I hear twin taildraggers can be pretty tough. For sure, my scale twin project will be a twin.

Charlie P.

Let me tell you something about "Bean Counters". I was a bean counter for 25 years, and both a private and municipal controller and comptroller for 8 years total. Now I'm a business manager. Bean counters are happy when the budget is followed and the books balance but could care not a bit about where you get what or how much it costs . . . as long as you budgeted for it. For them the world is good when everything goes as planned ("budgeted"). No more, no less. Over budget or under budget just means more work.

The stockholders and the managers with performance incentives are the ones squeezing for more from less. They use "bean counters" the way parents use the boogey man to get kids to clean their room and brush their teeth.

"I know just what you're saying, Bob, but it's those darned bean counters . . ." Bull puckey. "My bonus/stock option depends on coming in 10% under budget, Bob< cut more." It is management - not bean counters.

GallopingGhostler

Interesting story about a free flight. Closest thing to cattle on the Island of Oahu in Hawaii was chickens, I worked on two different poultry farms there during high school in the early 1970's.

Closest story to a loss I have is a home made sport rocket made of an Estes rocket motor shipping tube. This was in the early 1970's prior to such shipping categories as hazardous materials, as these were not considered but combustibles in small numbers and in approved packaging. I put a C-6-7 motor in it, it flew past Waianae Intermediate School grounds across Farrington Highway and landed within the fenced unstaffed National Guard Armory grounds.

I wasn't one to tresspass into government fenced areas, and so chalked it up as a loss. It was such a fine flying rocket. Then, rocket motors were affordable, they were something like $0.25 or $0.35 or so, not like $3.50 each as today. I think the cost of the motors and shipping is basically what killed model rocketry.

BrightGarden

Thanks to all who have added their stories, this IS one of the best threads going - anywhere.
Not sure why I am not getting email notifications every time someone adds, only once every couple of pages or so - I have to stop by more on my own.

May I interest you in considering the Bob Morse Cessna UC-78 - from the Sky King TV series?

http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=2016

I am not sure why this plane has not been covered more - those plans are from 1964.
There should be a few places to modernize, I would think.

I have printed out plans bought the engines for this, but like you am taking an intermediate step - the twin version of Great Planes Super Sportster by James Feldman, Jan 1985 RCM. I'm thinking that if at least a couple of us get going on a plane we can finish faster -

Cheers,
Peter G.

GallopingGhostler

Veron Cardinal 35" (889mm) span FF is available at: http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=4418



It's bigger brother, the 52" (1321mm) span Deacon is also available: http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=291