Hi everyone...

Finally the day has come when I think I'll be posting my final photos for this thread, (always looking for more though), so here they come:

The one plane we haven't talked much about is Nimbus 1, Tom's first real pattern job if I remember correctly. Nimbus 1 flew during the 1961 contest season. The major difference between it and its successor Nimbus II is the wing. Nimbus 1 is double tapered, while Nimbus II is single tapered like Perigee as mentioned earlier.

Nimbus 1 flew at the 1961 NATS and was damaged by a runaway rudder-only job. Here are some quotes from Helen on the story of the first Nimbus:

"...Tom and Russ were in the ready circle waiting to move to the flight line when a rudder only plane went berserk and ran into Nimbus, barely missing Russ, and taking out part of the wing and aileron. As I noted in the scrapbook, Tom packed "everything but the lathe and Band saw" when we left home. It looked like repairs were possible, so with help from several people we retired to a hangar. One man built the aileron while Tom put Humpty Dumpty back together againas I said, he had plans, silk, balsa, pins dope, glue etc. packed in the car. It was very hot and humid and the glue didn't want to dry, but after four hours and only 15 minutes left in the day to qualify, he told the judges he was ready to try. He took off, flew away from the crowd and did all maneuvers. When the flight was tallied he had the high score for the day. There were a lot of anxious moments and flights involved, but in the end he placed third for the team...."

We had a lot of shots of Nimbus, black and white and a couple of Tom with the plane. By the time the color shots were taken the sun had faded the pink silk quite a bit. I have two taken just before we went to the Nats.

You notice in the picture how the pink silk used for the repair was a lot darker than the rest of the plane. Helen says that a few days after returning from the NATS, it crashed. Soon afterward, Nimbus II was born. This was the plane featured in Tom's first article for American Modeler in June 1962 where the differences between the two were discussed. In that article Tom seemed to refer to Nimbus as a single entity with differences in the wings.

About the pictures, one was taken from a slide, and the other from a photo dated AUGUST 1961.

Duane