Tattoo
Posts: 2124
Joined: 2/10/2002
From: Wichita, KS,
Status: offline
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quote:
I'll try to answer your rhetorical question while risking being branded an "unholy" troll.
I have seen the light, you're not the unholy troll you once were, you are indeed Father Reverend Balsa.
quote:
Some people believe payoff is proportional to investment
Some people see me pull out my Spa3d, and they see a $5 airplane that is ugly. They see an airplane that took me an hour to build and don't think it's fair. They see me having a blast, defying the ground, with thumb reactions I never dreamed of, and think I am an instant gratification junkie. Some don't think this is modeling. Well, I have to ask, how did it come to be?
Here is what the Spa3d represents to me.
It is the culmination of everything that came before it. It started by not being happy with the grocery store gliders my Mom got me when I was 6. Even then I was modding them. It didn't take long before old school notebooks became gliders.
My first store bought kite broke in half. I wasn't even in second grade yet and I discovered that I could make something better myself than I could buy. When my first dowel rod/trash bag kite took to the sky, I learned the satisfaction of something I designed far outweighed something designed by someone else.
By third grade I bought an Estes model rocket. My $2 investment rotted at the top of a tree that was too tall to climb. All my rockets after that were made from paper towel tubes for pennies and flew just as good as my buddies store bought rockets.
My Cox PT-19 exploded after it's first figure 9 into the parking lot. The engine promptly went onto a flying wing made out of thin door skin, and I'll be darned if my first attempt at a C/L plane didn't loop great!
From 4th grade through high school I built everything from Lil' Wizzards to Lil' Satans to my pride and joy ringmaster. I became a master at dope and tissue. Not a single one was ever stock. Larger wings and bigger control surfaces made better flyers. I never bought the same plane twice. Yet flew many versions of each. Most were scratched for much less paper route money.
I built somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 Balsa R/C airplanes from 77-98. Again, not once did I leave one stock. I was never satisfied by flying something that someone else had already proven would work. You can ask Kraut, I was the king of kit bashing. Some of my finest work was blending 3 or 4 wreckage piles into another flyable airplane. Incredable sense of accomplishment.
My past experiences gave me the confidance needed to make something fly out of alternate materials when we discovered them. When my current life's financial situation should have dictated that I get out of the hobby, my tenacity caused me to continue on with the newly discovered plastics.
My designing has rarely included knowing formulas or aerodynamics. It has much more to do with feel, TLAR, trial and error, and most importantly the balls to try.
there are currently 36 designs listed on the Spad Originals index. This does not mean that kraut and I have designed 36 airplanes. This means that Kraut and I have designed hundreds of airplanes, and only 36 of them were good enough to make plans for. That my friend represents more time and effort and balls over the last 5 years than most people put into this hobby in a lifetime. I won't even mention the time and effort that has been put into the web site.
Personally, I consider the Spa3d my finest work. It represents sticking my neck out and trying something that I had absolutely no idea if it would work. It represents hundreds of hours and airplanes, trying to get things to their absolute simplest form. It represents 5 years of being willing to try new ideas, and it took 30 years before that to get to the point of being willing, and having the knowledge to try.
So, when I see someone pull a beautiful scale master contender out of their trailer on a perfect weather day, I can admire it's beauty, it's workmanship, and the time and effort that was put into it. Even if it was built from a proven design, or even a kit. Even if the design was built and successfully flown by someone else before, I can still appreciate everything that has gone into it, because it's owner has made the choices required to get the utmost out of his hobby. That's what this is all about.
I can turn right around and pull my Spa3d out of my car, and my enjoyment of the hobby and sense of accomplishment and pride in workmanship is every bit as high, if not even a little more. Because I know how much time and effort and my entire being has been put into my $5 airplane that I put together after supper the night before.
And when I add to this formula the fact that a few other people in a few other places have also enjoyed what I've done, well I don't even know how to calculate that into the formula.
One of the dreams I've always had is to build a scalemaster quality 1/4 scale Spitfire. It may someday be a reality (no time soon though...saving this one up until I retire). I can also guarentee you that I already know what it will be built from. I really don't know what it will feel like to see it take off, since I already know I will have to follow a set of dimensions already known, and already proven. It may be an incredable sense of accomplishment, but then again it may pale to the feeling I get when I read a post that goes something like this:
Thanks Kraut and Tattoo, I never thought I could afford this hobby. I built a Debonair after I creamed my first trainer and it flies awesome. I never considered my self a designer, but after reading some ideas here I tried it, and my own design flies great. This is a great hobby. Sincerely, Fellow Spadder
< Message edited by Tattoo-RCU -- Jul 10 2003 5:27PM >
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All Forums >> RC Airplanes >> S.P.A.D. Aircraft - Coroplast design >> Interesting Debate in the Clubhouse 
Interesting Debate in the Clubhouse - 
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