dvint

I am seeing increased popularity of some vintage planes such as the TOP Flight Contender,VK Cherokees,
Goldberg falcons. I assume these made a reappearance because they were fun to fly. On the other end of the spectrum,were there vintage planes that did not fly well? (assuming the pilot had adequate skills)

Gremlin Castle

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There were a number of early plastic fuselage ARFs that were marginal. World Engines imported a line that had plastic fuselages that would split from the firewall to the trailing edge of the wing in the time that it took to fire up and taxi to the flight line. They also had a 40 size straight wing sport aerobatic that would make another full revolution with the sticks in neutral when it was snap rolled. Also some of the sterling RC kits were poor flyers mostly because of poor wood and inaccurate die cutting which greated warped heavy airframes. But over all it was just like today. There were many more fine kits than there were dogs.

CoosBayLumber

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I had problems with the flying qualities of Scientific and Sureflite.


Wm.

maxpower1954

Yes, some of the early ARFs were pretty bad. Laniers flew great right from the start, and were reasonably durable, but some of the others...Du-Bro comes to mind. I never had one but the Aero Commander 100, Piper Arrow and Sportsman were all heavy and poorly constructed. I recall a M.A.N Field and Bench for the Aero Commander that never did get it to fly, in spite of the best efforts of Butch Schroder (the editors son.) Since they didn't want to offend Du-Bro - a major advertiser, it was the most white-washed, apolegetic piece of tripe I have ever read.

I remember flying a Pilot Piper Cherokee ARF around 1970 that was also a real POS. I had a couple of the Dee Bee ARFs (Alpha and Eyeball) and they were wonderful airplanes,
lighter than Laniers mainly because of a cut foam wing instead of molded. I can't recall a single bad built-up model I had - even my Sterling Royal Coachman with 3/32 sheeting on a 42 inch wing[X(] flew great.

There are many great models from that era, both kits and plans built that have vanished into obscurity. My mentor built a Klutz Bug and a Henchman that had appeared in M.A.N.
and they were terrific airplanes. Maybe it's time to start another thread...Russ Farris

GoldenAge

Put enough power in it and even a brick will fly

(Not an RC plane, but though I'd add it in this thread)
Back in the 60's I was just starting out in CL flying with a Cox PT-19. I flew that thing until it wouldn't hold together anymore with all the glue, tape, rubber bands etc.etc. So I got one of those Cox Stuka dive bombers that looked so neat. Got it running, took off, went straight up and then straight down into pavement and into many tiny pieces. I think the only thing I could salvage from it was the piston and cylinder of the .049 engine.

I built all of my models from kits or plans after that. Don't remember ever having one that didn't fly well.

Deadstik

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dvint,

One of the challenges from the "vintage" days was simply getting plane to go up and come back down in one piece. The early radios really suffered as far as reliability went and it took quite a bit of skill to get an escapment controlled plane back to you. The kits were mostly converted free flight planes that would actually fly quite well without any pilot input. The challenge with them was simply BUILDING them !! You never knew what kind of wood you would get, some heavy, some light.... the die cutting (die crushing) was horrible and when it came to the nose portion of these planes, you usually got 4 big blocks of balsa with the the little phrase, "sand to shape"... that one always killed me... especially the Midwest Tri Squire,Esquire, and derivatives, ALL Sterling Kits, and some of the Sig kits. We don't even want to talk about glue drying times......and of course, who can forget their first, totally unintentional Ambroid BUZZ??? Small work area, space heater... building a Taurus...I fell OUT of the little shop my Dad built in the back.

To get back to your question.. planes that flew poorly??? Not that many... I agree with all that the early Lanier ARFs were really questionable.. I blew out a Bronco fuselage with foam trying to stiffen it up...I still would really like to have both a Bronco and a GO GO. Anybody got a kit?

It's a shame the builders are fading away....it is one of those skills that shouldn't be lost.

Deadstik

jlingrel

I flew a Lanier Jester back in the early 70s. Lousy looking airplane, but it did fly a pretty decent pattern. Think it might have been better with todays more powerful engines. I actually flew it in compitition in Europe for a couple of years. That was my only ARF.

John

MajorTomski

Not classic but an older design that came back, in virtually it's original form was the Top Flight Elder 40. It flew well but it had some quirks that it inherited from the original Elder which was a .20 size airplane. THAT ONE always surprised me that it got such rave reviews. I build a little elder just like in one of the magazine reviews right down to the sweet little HP .21 sleeve valve 4C. That poor airplane barely had enough power to get out of its own way. But it did teach me to fly on the wing and not depend on power to get me out of trouble. And since it was only a three channel, the biggest shock is that with the stock rudder, it would NOT turn on the ground and barely turn in the air. After you doubled the size of the rudder, you then discovered that the effort to replicate the forward anti-nose over landing gear of the early airplanes created a landing gear geometry that absolutely guaranteed you could not, under any conditions land the airplane without bouncing. I finally moved the gear back to somewhere around the LE of the wing, it landed smoothly after that and still didn't tip over. The final fix that made the little one lots of fun to fly was add ailerons. Now I've never owned the 40 sized airplane but was shocked to see that it too has a small rudder, and that waay too far forward landing gear.

As to the original post the only drawback to any of the Goldberg Falcons, and I've flown all three of the original sizes is that they date way back to single channel operations, so all of them have more incidence/ decolage than is needed for contemporary four channel flight. Raise TE of the Sr Falcon wing an eighth of an inch and it flys like a pattern plane.

GWILLIE

I saw the note on the tribulations with kit building. When you read the problems the new guys are having with their ARFs and think back to the things we went through, you really have to work to stifle a laugh! Fortunately, the work usually paid off. The Midwest Esquire was a great flyer and Midwest balsa was excellent, even though you did sand a lot of it away. A fox 15 with a 10 x 3 1/2 prop, Bonner Varicomp, and WAG 3 tube receiver got me going in RC.

Sterling kits had the lousy balsa and ratty die cutting. I built their Lancer; fits were better than their old ukies (the ribs never fit on a Ringmaster which had only a solid LE, spar, and solid TE), but nowhere near as good as Midwest. With enough fussing, the Lancer came out OK and it too was a good flier. Heathkit propo.

I had a Dubro Skymaster in 1973. Yeah it was heavy, but all the ARFs were in those days. It was much better built than the Lanier ARFs. The Fox Eagle 60 was just out and that's what I used, along with my Heathkit radio. This was a very nice flying plane. Like I said it was heavy, but it would still do the pattern.

RCPAUL

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If you touched the rudder of the original Contender while flying ( without the dihedral in the wing tips), it would head for the ground so fast your head would spin. Thus, the later design change.

The Lanier FunFly was a brick! Further, the plastic would start to crack early after first being flown.

Paul

UltraBob

Yes to what Paul said. The original Contender had the strangest rudder response I think I ever encountered as it had adverse roll coupling! (before it plummeted).
Now deadstik claims his Ambroid BUZZ was unintentional but I can assure you mine was definitely on purpose and so was his after the first couple of times!! [&:]

maxpower1954

GWillie,I don't remember the Du-Bro Skymaster, but it's a great looking airplane - definitely has the Taurus influence. I have heard that the Du-Bro Sea Bird flying boat is the currently available Lanier Sea Bird, or whatever it's called.

Yes, by today's standards those early ARFs were heavy, but that didn't keep them from flying well, at least the Laniers I had (Bronco, Pursuit and Transit) The smaller ones like the Cessna were not as good. The Dee Bees were almost a pound lighter, and performed even better. Deadstik talked about pouring foam into the rear fuselage - that was because the horizontal stab was pretty wobbly, though I never heard of one falling off.

I flew a friends Lanier P-51 in the early 1990s; I was pleasantly suprised that it flew exactly as I remember. All the big Laniers had the same 65 inch wing, and I never had one snap roll unless I wanted it to.

Does anyone remember the Sherlock Models Lear Jet and Boeing 727? I had them both. ABS fuselages and balsa covered foam wings, very scale in outline. They had the engine in the nose, a .60 in the Lear and a Fox .78 in the 727 (it weighed 12.5 pounds with 600 inches of wing area!) The 727 in particular flew very well, huge loops and majestic aileron rolls. In Eastern Airlines colors, it met it's end when that $%^&# Fox .78 quit at a bad time after takeoff. I lost the Lear when it entered a inverted flat spin after an upright snap roll... the price of doing non-scale manuvers with a scale model...Russ Farris

8178

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Jim Kirkland flew his “Citron� design in the 1969 World Championships that was later kited by Lanier RC as the “Jester� ARF. Over the years I’ve had four of them. They are heavy and need fiber glass work on the inside of the front and back of the fuse to keep them together. I still have one and they fly pretty good! Not bad looking,

maxpower1954

8178, that's a nice looking Jester! I like the fact it's not overdone with stripes, stars and such.

Let's give Len Purdy, the founder of Lanier (named after Lake Lanier near Atlanta; for years I thought it was named after someone) credit for some of the longest produced models in the business. The Lanier website says the early ARFs date to 1975. I have model magazines that show Lanier models as far back as 1966. Those early versions had soft wing covering, similiar to plastic shelf covering that dented easily. I never had one with the Aerosheet covering.

At my flying field, they had a reputation of being good, standard airplanes. They were what you flew until you got better or learned to build. I wore out my Pursuit with a Veco 45.
The Transit, Comet, P-51 and Dart all qualify under vintage rules today. The Jester is the same as the Citron, which qualified under VRCS rules, and the Caprice was a George Hill (Jan 1970 AAM article) modified Jester which appeared in 1970. Hopefully I won't get thrown off the meet by showing up with one of those.

I'm not looking forward to putting another together - there are balsa kits that build quicker. But somehow, these airplanes have stood the test of time. They must be selling to someone, for how much longer God only knows. The Dee Bee ARFs were better, and they are long gone... Russ Farris

deckerv

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I remember my dad built a Sterling Cub, and if we could get it in the air, it flew great. Most of the time it kept snapping on takeoff. Not quite sure why. It flew very beautifully once it was up, but boy those moments after liftoff were usually nerve racking. Even our Ace AirScout 15 was touchy right after takeoff.. but not nearly as bad.

I also had a Mark Jemco Windward glider that never really flew that well. The rudder never had much control on that glider.

8178

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Thanks! I did all my Jesters that way with yellow and white checkers on the bottom of the wing and stab.

Jeff Foley

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I notice several mentions of the Contender on this thread. Yes the rudder responses were strange at times, but with that thick airfoil it could be slowed to a crawl. Had lots of fun with one way back when. How many of you know that Dave Platt designed the original when he worked at Top Flight?

Jeff

HighPlains

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You still see people having problems with tail draggers like the Cub (or Mr. Mulligan). The reason is because they are taking off with the wing stalled. Feed in down elevator to lift the tail up so the airplane can achive flying speed before take-off. Another easy way is to use down elevator trim. Lifting the tail by extending the tail wheel will also help, since many scale airplanes sit very much nose high.

subarubrat

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The Midwest A-4 Skyhawk, my favorite model is (was) also one of the worst flying models just because the technology wasn't really available to make it work right at the time. The Skyhawk was designed in 77 and made from 78~82 if my information is correct and it was designed for the Kress RK049, a ducted fan unit powered by the Cox TeeDee 049. The problem was that the fan weighing 6 plus Oz and producing 11 or so Oz thrust was installed in a 28 Oz plane (if everything was perfect). The first problem was getting the thing in the air. The model came with a rubber tubing catapault to launch it and that launch would often fuel starve the TeeDee resulting in an immediate landing. When it did run it would stagger around barely holding altitude. Even with those problems it was still an amazing plane and so different than everything else out. Fortunatly with modern radio gear to lighten it up and a better fan unit by kamdax with the norvel .061 it is a viable airplane now with good performance. EASYTIGER has built one with about the same gear as mine although I did include a landing gear with stearable nosewheel so I would imagine his flys just a bit better with less weight and drag.

EASYTIGER

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The story with the skyhawk is that it orignally had a foam wing, but prototypes were too heavy to fly properly, so the tooling for the wing had to be thrown out and a new wood wing designed, lighter and larger. People DID get teh Skyhawk to fly, but only if everything was just so, if the needle was just right, the launch just right, and the flying skills just right...

subarubrat

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True that, and the 1982 RC buyer's guide write-up of that plane got more of my attention than the imtimate apparel section of the Sear's wishbook.

Mike Denest

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I do! It is a great flyer. That's interesting about the rudder response, from what I can remember, I did not see that problem. On the other hand, who uses rudder anyway?
Hmmm, I have some plans, maybe I should build one and find out.[sm=devious.gif]

EASYTIGER

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So true! It was a pure fantasy machine! I found a pair of them on ebay, you stay away now, you hear! I can use them! My current kamdax-powered one is just a little too battered, I want to build a new lighter one. You never showed pics of yours, want to see!

TexasAirBoss

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I bought a Sterling Cub already built, hanging in a shop. I practically had to rebuild the entire thing to get it fly right.
I had a Jester. The tail fluttered. The tail kept cracking. I had a HB61 PDP on it. After about 7 or 8 months trying to keep the tail together, I gave up and pulled my gear.
I have several Sureflite foam ARF's . I liked them . I thought they flew well. The Clipped wing Cub , (with ailerons added) flat spun wonderfully. If fact, thats how I lost it. Fuel starvation. You had to do them with a full tank.
Now, I collect and build OOP scale models from the 60's and 70's. Its obvious that some of these planes had fly-ability issues. And it takes alot of work to build one the way I want it. But they are some fine looking models.

buzzard bait

Believe it or not, I found that the original Goldberg Skylark did not fly very well. I have one built in 1966 and I fly it with an OS 25. It wags its tail coming out of a turn and the dihedral is not enough to roll the plane very much. Feels like I'm walking on eggs to fly the thing. Tried a barrel roll once at a good altitude after building up some speed and it barely got around without winding up in the trees.

This plane really needs ailerons. That, or it needs more dihedral (see the Pronto in another thread); but then the tail waggle would be even worse, so the tail would have to be enlarged very considerably (I've already tried increasing the rudder area some, but that didn't help much).

I have theory that the Dutch roll is exacerbated by the fact that the CG is right at the rearward limit. That effectively puts more fuse area ahead of the CG and shortens the tail moment. It is fine as far as pitch is concerned, but I think it is affecting the side-to-side balance.

I am fitting it with small ailerons cut from the trailing edge. When coupled with rudder, this should give much better roll and turn. I've also gotten a heavy hub to test out my theory about the CG effect. I'll see what happens next summer.

Jim