ORIGINAL: 8178
I built a Goldberg Skylark kit in 1966 and as I recall the kit was pretty good.
The bad part is that I probably remember the details of your Skylark better than what I had for breakfast this morning. (G)
I was flying control line combat right before I switched to R/C. I should state that it was easier to find a place to fly R/C than it was control line anything in my area. That's the only reason I stopped flying control line. Not because I took up R/C. Had I been able, I would have done both.
Anyhoo, after flying such high speed, highly responsive combat ships, R/C models flew like sedated cows, if you catch my drift. So, when the wife started building her Goldberg Skylark kit, I suggested making the ailerons from larger aileron stock.
As you certainly know, the early Falcons and Skylarks (56, of course) required you to modify the included trailing edge stock into ailerons, which didn't give you large enough ailerons to fly with, if you were a control freak like me. Being 22 years old and just married, I passed along this observation to my wife, who had just soloed flying control line and her AAMCO OS .35 powered A-Ray trainer. Being a dutiful wife, she bought some balsa and made two humongous ailerons and fitted them to her Skylark 56. You should have seen the guys expressions when the Skylark 56 she built made its debut at the field.
The theory was that if it turned out to be too much control authority for comfortable flying, we would simply begin removing a 1/4" of aileron of the trailing edge at a time until it was "just right". It actually worked out quite well. The wife could even fly it well with all of the humongous ailerons in place and left them uncut. She was and still is, an incredibly fast learner when it comes to flying those models and was a good builder right from the git-go. Unfortunately for me, she tired of R/C and switched to other hobbies. But she still pits for me occasionally.
The R/C system malfunction god (small g) finally imposed his sacrificial requirement and claimed the Skylark 56 as his own. But the wife did get in a summer's plus worth of flying before the 1968 Micro Avionics system claimed the Skylark.
Ed Cregger