RE: Vintage ducted fan (1975)
Funny you should mention the Boxster, we are finally about to say farewell to ours after a few years of use. The wife bought it
because it was "cute" and "spiffy" that is her criteria. One thing I have found is that there is often a certain unwarranted
sense of self importance and a lack of appreciation for anything "less" in certain people. And when those people gather in groups
and reassure each other of their status it often becomes unbearable. Car groups are a great example. I cannot attend Porsche or
Lambo owners groups because there is such a lack of honesty and a tension of ego. The Subaru groups on the other hand are so much
more social and relaxed. To sum it up the Subaru attitude is that our STI out performs most Porsches but there are a few over
$100k that are better performers and that is a nice position to be in. The Porsche attitude is that it's a Porsche so it's
better, period. The turbine revolution has exacerbated that problem in model aircraft. I have a turbines myself, they are an
absolute marvel no doubt, but that doesn't mean that the ducted fans are dead and that at 1/8th the price that they aren't great
performers for the money. They were great fun and very flyable 5 years ago before turbines became widely available and they didn't loose that just because turbines exist. There also seems to be no appreciation for revolutionary steps in the path that lead to the turbine being available. I did oversimplify the history of DF prior to the Ziroli/Kress era (wasn't trying to write a retrospective) but there is no denying that kit brought practical DF R/C to the hobby.