It wasn't uncommon back in the day for a pattern pilot to take a lot of short cuts framing a plane just to get ready for the next pattern contest. So little time was taken with sanding the fuselage round.

Another thing common also was, since they didn't have to stay within specs as todays SPA and CPA, some guys just built a fuselage to go with a set of wings they had on hand and use the tail feathers from another plane. Remember, we didn't have ARFs. We had to build all our planes and didn't much time between contests to have a plane ready to fly.

We really didn't worry too much about weight either. As long as it was under 9 or 10 lbs, we flew it. They handled better in the wind that way. And when you are flying in a contest and the wind is blowing 20 mph, you still had to fly. We used the strongest engines we could find at the time.

Frank