Jim Messer

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I was going through some old items in my scrapbooks, and came on this most interesting newspaper article. The place is Jamestown, NY and the year is 1945. Here are some excerpts from that article:

Quote: "The Jamestown Optimists Club held their third annual Model Airplane contest, which was featured by breath-taking flights and freaky crashes. These were for ABC gas model planes; there were 54 entrants, and well over 100 planes were flown in the meet. The throng of 2000 spectators, which crowded the edge of the north-south runway was "leveled to the ground", like a receding wave, by one particular flight. The gas model took off, rose to an altitude of about 20 feet, suddenly wheeled and bore down on the unsuspecting crowd, a 30 foot section of which dropped to the grass in a hurry. The unruly plane crashed to the ground beyond, ripping off a wing and damaging the nose and motor."

"A plane owned by Ken Koeppel took off, made a perfect loop in back of the audience and headed for the ground in a power dive. Koeppel covered his eyes, but the plane landed nose first on top of the refreshment tent. It was unharmed when removed from that soft haven."

"Another model caught a high wind and perched itself gently on the roof of the large hanger".

"The last event, the fast and exciting control line gas plane race, kept the eyes of the audience going around in circles with the planes. One of the contestants fell to the ground from dizziness after guiding his plane around and around many times. One of the most unusual crashes in the race took place when a gas model plane cut loose and tried to enter the Airport Snack Shop through a window. It shatttered the pane and startled everyone inside."

Yes - it was exciting to see those old free-flight/U-control models fly and crash, and that accounts for the large number of spectators that turned out at every contest that I ever went to. In 1946 I attended the NY Mirror Meet in Bethpage, Long Island where 150,000 spectators turned out to watch. Just imagine something like that happening today.

I am attaching three photos:

First is a photo of my "Zipper" winding in at a field in Portville, NY. Notice that I am ducking, as are others. That's the same way the model would have looked to the spectators in the news article.

Second is a photo of the type of free flight that we flew at the Jamestown meet. I am the kid in the middle. My brother Bob is on the left, and Ken Koeppel is on the right.

Third is a newspaper clipping from the Mirror meet in NYC to support the 150,000 spectator count. I am the guy in front, holding the Goldberg Interceptor, with the dark shirt.

Hope you all enjoy this old stuff.

Deadeye

Jim, that's fantastic! Sounds like it was a helluva show. Just imagine those crashes happening today, the AMA police would be all over that.

DBCherry

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Fascinating stuff Jim. It's really too bad that we don't attract crowds like that anymore, assuming you discount Top Gun of course. But Top Gun is the only event that I'm aware of that attracts close to what I'd call large spectator turn outs today.
Dennis-

J3FAN

Thank you so MUCH for the look back.
I am about 8 or 10 years behind you, since I was only 8 in 1945...BUT I can still remember that whenever we flew MODEL AIRPLANES a great deal of attention and interest was shown by the spectators.... at age 11 in 1948 my free-flight was the British Tomboy and those were the stunts we used to DO...! ..... even shortly after in the early 50s when we had a Line Control going - in a Public Park ! all the commentaries were favorable.
Times have changed, now flying Electrics in my Park close by, nobody pays any attention, and I mean even children ignore them.
Aviation has lost its glamour.
Generally

Cyclic Hardover

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You know I go back home to New Hampshire and do the family thing every couple years or so. Theres a family that was across the street from me whos son and I were buds. He was flying radio control since before my time started (56). He shows me scrap book stuff from the 40's. He is still flying inthe Laconia area and his name was Armand Cote. He's around 78 now and is flying 1/2 a's now cuz their easier to tote around.

Bruno Stachel

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Wow, 150,000 at a show in 1945! Other than possibly Toledo or Joe Nall, do we get crowds that huge today - for a flying event?

Jim Messer

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Well guys, since you seem to enjoy this old stuff, here are some more excerpts from the newspaper clippings that I have saved. Let's go back to the giant Mirror meet in 1946. Talking about all the models the reporter had this to say:

Quote: "Sound like a Flash Gordon world? That's only the beginning. All in all, the meet had the air of a tremendous carnival - a carnival with wings. Along the huge lawns near the runway, thousands of families sat enjoying picnic lunches. Kids played with balloons, and grandparents, who once had come to county fairs by horse and buggy gazed into the sky with wonder."

"The Nassau County Women's Band and the Oyster Bay Fire Department Band played and Lucy Monroe of the Metropolitan Opera sang the Star Spangled Banner."

"The Mirror made certain that even the littlest children had something to cheer about. Moving through the crowd were gay clowns, and actors made up like L'il Abner, Mickey Finn, Joe Palooka, and other characters from the Mirror comic pages."

"So tremendous was the excitement generated by this event that throngs began arriving as early as 7 am., although the first contests didn't begin until 8:30. From planes overhead, all roads in Nassau County seemed studded with long lines of cars moving toward Grumman Field and over 20,000 cars were parked."

"The Mirror, in cooperation with the aviation industry, had sponsored the day to stimulate air interest, and to make certain that this nation never lags behind in reaching toward new sky frontiers."

"Over 100 Air Scouts, Explorer scouts, and Boy Scouts of Nassau County Council acted as program sellers. The proceeds will be contributed to a fund for the rehabiliation of scouting in Europe."

"At the end of a thrill packed 10 hour spectacle the happy crowd passed onto the sponsors the words - WELL DONE!"

So, there you have it. That's what modeling was like when I was sixteen. Back then, lots of organizations competed with one another just for the privilege of sponsoring a model airplane meet, because they knew that it would bring them plenty of attention.

Here are three more photos: First is the crowd lining the runway at the Jamestown, NY meet - original post.

Second is the newspaper headline for the article quoted in this post.

Third is the printed program for the meet. There were 1122 pre-registered contestants. Maybe you know some of these names: Contest Director - Leon Schulman; Ernie Babcock ( winner of full scale Ercoupe); #123 John Byrne; #244 Harold deBolt; #348 Carl Goldberg; #522 Dick Korda; #556 Chester Lanzo; #595 Edward Lorenz; #615 Frank McElwee; #643 Jim Messer (that's me); #680 George Meyer Jr. #833 Norman Rosenstock.

J3FAN

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI

Jim Messer

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Translation: "So passes away the glory of the world". Isn't that the truth!

Jim Thomerson

I've seen some movies of freeflight contests held at Parks College near St. Louis. The airplanes all have ignition engines: and I think the movies were pre-WWII. In any case, I was impressed that there were a number of female contestants, and also several African-Americans. Remember that St. Louis was very much a conservative and segregated southern city at this time.

Jim

Jim Messer

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Jim Thomerson: You are right. In the early and mid 40's era that we are discussing, all of the engines were ignition, running on three parts of white gasoline and one part of SAE 70 oil. And yes, there were female contestants. Following is a photo of two such young ladies. I believe that the one standing is holding a "Zombie", and the other is holding a Comet "Clipper". I wonder where they are today?

Beneath the photo it says: "UNAFRAID of male competition, Dorothy (left) and Mary Jane Spanpanto of Bayside, L.I. ready sleek models."

Photo 2 is another piece of old memorbilia that I bet very few modelers have in their war chest. It is a photo of the felt patch that was issued to each contestant at the 1941 Nats. Does anybody else out there own one?

ZAGNUT

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gotta love them chics with planes...so here's another but not from '45 as C/L and glow plugs don't go back quite that far



dave

RCVFR

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Jim,

Thanks for sharing this insight. I had no idea that model aircraft had that kind of support and interest involving thousands of spectators. 20,000 cars parked? I'm trying to come up with some contemporary equivalent, and about the only thing I can think of is 100,000 spectators at a football game, and that is'nt remotely close to the sense of experience that must have taken place over a day or more of the flying competitons. Thanks again for contributing these photos and articles. It's amazing.

Jim Messer

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My - how things have changed! Let's now jump ahead to 1947 and 1948 when the Plymouth Motor Division in Detroit sponsored an "international" model plane meet, inviting the top 500 modelers from all nations to compete against one another. I wasn't invited to the meet in 1947, but did get an invitation to the meet in 1948. It was a time that I will never forget. Modelers in the US were chosen to compete in both free-flight and U-control, and the number of contestants were selected to correspond with the number of representatives each state had in the House of Representatives of the US. The selection was also done in such a manner as to spread the contestants evenly throughout the events by age classification. (Isn't that just an amazing way to select?)

Several hundred rooms were reserved for modelers at the Shelby Hotel in downtown Detroit, and we had a ball. About the only rule they laid down was - no running of gasoline engines in the hotel rooms.

I didn't win any prizes at this meet, but the experience was certainly worth the trip. The plaque that I received, not for winning, but just for being there is one of my prized trophies.

But something else happened at this meet that still haunts me today. It was there that I saw Walt Good and his brother Bill put on a demonstration of a "radio-controlled" model airplane. It was hard to believe, (especially for an 18 year old who didn't know anything about radio waves), that an airplane could be controlled in this manner. I recall the transmitter being a huge box affair that sat on the ground, with a wire antenna that was supported a foot off the ground, (like a fence), about 20-30 ft. square. The airplane responded to Walt's every command, and all I could say was "Wow". Little did I know at the time that this would one day play a very important part in my life - when radio controlled model airplanes did become a reality for persons like myself, just ten years later in 1958.

Attached are three more photos. Photo #1 shows me (far left) with my modified American Ace free- flight plane. Everybody lined up, and then in groups of five they took our picture.

Photo #2 is the wall plaque that every contestant received for attending.

Photo #3 is the 1948 Plymouth. Remember them?

Enjoy!