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Old 02-21-2023, 12:00 PM
  #11201  
FlyerInOKC
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Good looking bird!
Old 02-21-2023, 01:19 PM
  #11202  
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Found Donny's subject plane here: Outerzone.co.uk: 50-in. (1270 mm) span Flower Power II (oz1564)


Photo from Outerzone, 1970 Flower Power by James Trovillion.

That's a very nice sport plane, understand why it would be a favorite.
Old 02-22-2023, 07:05 AM
  #11203  
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Originally Posted by GallopingGhostler
Found Donny's subject plane here: Outerzone.co.uk: 50-in. (1270 mm) span Flower Power II (oz1564)


Photo from Outerzone, 1970 Flower Power by James Trovillion.

That's a very nice sport plane, understand why it would be a favorite.
I built this from the plans but not quite as pretty but it flew well. I spiraled it into the dirt, It was not for the beginner. I don't remember if I rebuilt it or what.

When I divest from quarter scale stuff (soon) this will be the type an about the size I'll build. I will shy away from 60 size birds also. I have a King Cobra in the works.
Old 02-22-2023, 08:16 AM
  #11204  
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Purchased this recently, How to Design and Build Flying Models by Keith Laumer, 1960, republished 1970. It is lacking the colourful publisher's cover but is very clean, an ex-library book. Appears it wasn't checked out much as the pages lack temporary bookmark corner folds, pencil erasures, with only the slightly dog eared original binding upper edge.

The book is a favorite of mine since the mid 1960's. From various libraries, I checked this book out many times as an 11 year old until 15 years ago.


Out of circulation library book purchased from Thrift Books through the Biblio.com website.

Here is a 63 year old photo of R/C then from this book:

Winter was not an obstacle to R/C flyers even 63 years ago. Photo shows an escapement cabin plane, possibly a DeBolt Livewire Rebel. The wing trailing edge shows shims inserted nearby to reduce decalage, a technique to trim a single channel (rudder only) aircraft to better penetrate windy conditions.

It has an interesting forward introduction. The late William "Bill" Winter, then Chief Editor of the American Aircraft Modeler magazine had this to say:
Originally Posted by Bill Winter
The great failing of the hobby, as it is practiced by millions of men, boys (and girls!) today, is the withering away of resourceful initiative, a natural result of the trend to prefabrication, ready-to-use items, and things that require little or no basic know-how. The modern hobby overlaps more and more with the toy field. If model planes are to remain more than toys, keeping traditional values of training and worthwhile accomplishment, it becomes highly important to understand why and how a plane flies.
Spoken 63 years ago and with today's proliferation of ARF's, how much more true is that today!

Last edited by GallopingGhostler; 02-22-2023 at 08:33 AM. Reason: Photo cleanup.
Old 02-22-2023, 08:45 AM
  #11205  
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That book is quite a find. I first saw a copy back in the 1970's in the Enid, Oklahoma public library. We were in town for the Tri-State Music Festival. Being a nerdy kid I gravitated to the library where I found that book. It was quite inspiring. I have a set of Lulla-Bi plans in my build something half-a pile. I don't have a copy of the Laumer book but I do have a copy of "Building and Flying Model Aircraft" by Paul Garber dated 1928. I guess it was capitalizing on the boom in aviation interest that followed the Lindberg flight. The airplanes are mostly gliders or rubber power along with diversions into kites and boomerangs. Going along with the quote above the book goes into detail on how to make practically everything as there were few prefabricated parts to be had.
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Old 02-22-2023, 09:27 AM
  #11206  
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This is


my favorite old modeling book. It was published in 1966 and I rescued it from a the school's retired book pile in 1973.
Old 02-22-2023, 09:51 AM
  #11207  
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Originally Posted by FlyerInOKC
This is

my favorite old modeling book. It was published in 1966 and I rescued it from a the school's retired book pile in 1973.
I've checked out that book before.

It is interesting that Warring, UK, used Ken Willard, US's 20-in. R/C Roaring 20 on the front cover, just goes to show the hobby shows no international bounds.
Old 02-22-2023, 10:00 AM
  #11208  
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A lot of the information is still current and it is a good primer on the basics.
Old 02-23-2023, 06:34 AM
  #11209  
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The books were always on the too expensive side for me in the days gone by, much of the info I gathered was from the plans in kits, my library didn't have many books on modeling. somewhere in my pile of miss placed things is tons of data on how to build retracts. close doors, throttle engines, etc. yesterday I was reading texted I down loaded it contained just about every subject you could think of including making your own fuel.

The older text I have on the theory of flight is fun to read because it is wrong but well written.

Those guys in post 11205 trying to fly while it snowed is what I did a long time ago, that type of dedication is seldom seem now days. we set the engine on fire to get it hot enough to run.
Old 02-23-2023, 06:40 AM
  #11210  
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I inherited several of Harry Higley's books from a R/C estate. They come in handy.
Old 02-23-2023, 06:58 AM
  #11211  
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Swap meets can be a treasure trove of books, and usually very cheap.
Old 02-23-2023, 08:30 AM
  #11212  
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Thanks, FlyerInOKC, my copy of the Warren book should be arriving soon.
Old 02-28-2023, 02:59 AM
  #11213  
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Talking of books I am currently reading "Under the Guns of the Kaiser's Aces," by Norman Franks and Hal Giblin. The book deals with the careers of four German Great War fighter aces: Erwin Bohme, Max Muller, Adolf von Tutschek and Kurt Wolf who were all destined to be killed by British airmen. It also identifies the airmen and aircraft which they shot down.

I found Erwin Bohme's (pronounced "Burmah" incidentally,) story fascinating. He was born in 1879, he was one of six children; five boys and a girl and he proved to be a first rate scholar and sportsman. In his spare time he enjoyed, skiing, skating and mountaineering, all of which he practised to a very high standard. Having qualified as a civil engineer he took a job in Switzerland so thet he could go mountain climbing in his free time, then in 1908 he took on a six-year contract in East Africa. He walked across the Alps and down to the Italian port of Genoa and from there to what is now Tanzania. The contract involved building a railway then extracting timber from the bush which was loaded onto a ship and taken back to Germany where the timber was turned into pencils! I'd never looked at pencil manufacturing in quite that way either!

He returned to Germany in July 1914, doubtless with a fair bit in the bank, looking forward to climbing a few more mountains, but the First World War broke out. Bohme had completed his year of compulsory military service in 1899 and he went back to his old regiment where he enquired about pilot training. In 1914 he was 35 years old but he was accepted for pilot training and though the oldest man on his course, he was also the best pilot! So good in fact that he was held back for a year as an instructor and not sent to the Front until November 1915 where he flew a two-seater bomber/reconnaissance aircraft with an observer called Sanders, who at 47, was even older than he was! The squadron was commanded by the elder brother of the man who was the famous German pilot of the day, Oswald Boelke.

In the summer of 1916 the squadron was posted to the Russian Front. There it was visited by Oswald Boelke who was looking to set up the world's first fighter squadron. Prior to that date German squadrons had both single seater and two seater aircraft on the strength and pilots were expected to fly both. Oswald Boelke was introduced to all of the officers and later on, in a private discussion with his brother, he asked if there were any good pilots in his squadron. "Bohme's good," he replied "but the rest are pretty average." Oswald Boelke decided to invite Bohme to join his new squadron. They then set down to dinner. They were served wild boar. Oswald Boelke was very complimentary about the meal and his brother explained that they lived very well at the squadron because of all of the game shot by young Manfred von Richthofen who at the time had a reputation for not being able to land an aircraft without damaging the landing gear! As he was obviously a superb marksman Boelke decided ask von Richtofen to join his squadron as well and with that the fates of eighty men were sealed. Had they not sat down to a good dinner that night, Manfred von Richtofen might have spent the entire war as an unknown bomber/reconnaissance pilot.

The new squadron became operational in September 1916 flying the new Albatros D1 fighters. At the end of the following month Bohme and Boelke were attacking a British aeroplane when they lost sight of one another and Bohme's wheels hit the upper port wing of Boelke's aircraft which crashed to the ground and Boelke was killed. Bohme was very distressed, suicidal according to some reports but he carried on.

He was wounded in February 1917 and as part of his convalescence he was posted to a training squadron. In May 1917 he was invited to the celebration of his former employer's twenty- fifth wedding anniversary. He borrowed an aircraft and arrived by air with his brother Martin in the back seat. At the party he met his employer's eldest daughter Annamarie Bruning. There was an immediate attraction and they agreed to write to each other which they did frequently. In October 1917 he asked her to marry him and she accepted him despite her father's misgivings. He was 37 years old. She was at least thirteen years younger.

Bohme returned to the front and by 29th November 1917 he had been credited with 24 victories. In the morning he wrote Annamarie the briefest of notes and tucked it into his uniform intending to post it later. That afternoon with two of his comrades he attacked a 10 Squadron Armstrong Whitworth FK8 which was on a photo reconnaissance mission. The observer got off a burst from his Lewis gun and the pilot put the lumbering two-seater into a split S so that Bohme's Albatros overshot. He was able to get a two second burst into it from his front-mounted Vickers gun. Bohme's aircraft momentarily disappeared fom sight below the FK8's lower wing but when it was visible again it was "burning like a torch." It hit the ground in the British lines and once the fire had gone out, Bohme's body was buried with full military honours. But somebody stole his note to Annamarie. It was returned to her in 1921.

After the war, all of the combatant nations recovered their dead and most were moved into new, often very large cemeteries. The Germans were given comparatively little space in which to bury their dead so each German cemetery contains a mass grave containing thousands of corpses. I cannot recall seeing a mass grave in a British or French cemetery. Bohme's body was dug up and re-interred at Langemark Cemetery in a mass grave along with the corpses of 24,916 of his comrades. That must have been a nice job for someone! Werner Voss, who was the second most successful German fighter pilot when he was killed in September 1917 has also been laid to rest in that mass grave.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

As far as I know, Erwin Bohme was the oldest man to fly a fighter aircraft in the Great War. Two of his brothers, including Martin, were also killed in the war and all of the men who made up the pilots of that first fighter squadron were also killed in action.


Last edited by Telemaster Sales UK; 02-28-2023 at 03:19 AM.
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Old 02-28-2023, 05:28 AM
  #11214  
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Great story, great pilot!
Old 02-28-2023, 06:02 AM
  #11215  
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PS. He was awarded the "Pour Le Mérite" or Blue Max, the highest decoration possible in the German Army at the time, the equivalent of the Victoria Cross or the Congressional Medal of Honour. It had arrived in the post on the day that he died and was waiting for him in its box on his desk but he never returned from that last flight so he never even got to see it, let alone wear it.

Somebody altered a previously taken photograph to show him wearing his Blue Max.
Old 02-28-2023, 06:09 AM
  #11216  
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Very interesting information though a little gruesome in the end. the carnage is disturbing. War isn't glorious as many believe.
Old 02-28-2023, 06:20 AM
  #11217  
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You gave an interesting history lesson that I didn't know, David, thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Telemaster Sales UK
The new squadron became operational in September 1916 flying the new Albatros D1 fighters. At the end of the following month Bohme and Boelke were attacking a British aeroplane when they lost sight of one another and Bohme's wheels hit the upper port wing of Boelke's aircraft which crashed to the ground and Boelke was killed. Bohme was very distressed, suicidal according to some reports but he carried on.
I think we saw the same thing happen with the recent unfortunate crash of a WW2 P-63 King Cobra crash into a B-17 Flying Fortress in Texas with the loss of all aircrew men. The P-63 pilot did not see the B-17 when banking. With the pilot sitting at the trailing edge the wings, the Albatross similarly has a blind spot, with the fuselage and lower wing obscuring a portion of visibility below the pilot.

Originally Posted by Telemaster
Sic transit gloria mundi.
So passes the glory of the world. It was the war to end all wars. Then came WW2, and multiple wars since. Now, it looks like we're at Word War III.
Old 02-28-2023, 06:59 AM
  #11218  
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Air collisions
post 11217
"I think we saw the same thing happen with the recent unfortunate crash of a WW2 P-63 King Cobra crash into a B-17 Flying Fortress in Texas with the loss of all aircrew men. The P-63 pilot did not see the B-17 when banking. With the pilot sitting at the trailing edge the wings, the Albatross similarly has a blind spot, with the fuselage and lower wing obscuring a portion of visibility below the pilot."

Many young men have passed due to air collisions, a constant problem when aircraft mass. I have seen planes collide during attacks and destroyed by friendly fire. my daughters boyfriend died when the wings of his plane separated while entering the landing pattern.

WW 111 when it happens, will truly be a world event ...... Scary!

Last edited by donnyman; 03-01-2023 at 06:33 AM.
Old 03-01-2023, 02:40 AM
  #11219  
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Originally Posted by donnyman
Very interesting information though a little gruesome in the end. the carnage is disturbing. War isn't glorious as many believe.
I was tempted to write that Werner Voss was "tossed into that mass grave," but thought better of it. The men who built that cemetery were all German nationals and the corpses would have been handled with dignity. It could not have been a very pleasant job mind you, disposing of nearly 25,000 bodies. The smell must have been awful.

Last edited by Telemaster Sales UK; 03-01-2023 at 11:30 AM.
Old 03-01-2023, 06:31 AM
  #11220  
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Originally Posted by Telemaster Sales UK
I was tempted to write that Werner Voss was "tossed into that mass grave," but thought better of it. The men who built that cemetery were all German nationals and the corpses would have been handled with dignity. It could not ha ve been a very pleasant job mind you, disposing of nearly 25,000 bodies. The smell must have been awful.
A women passed away in the building were I lived and was not detected for two weeks (Approximation) when the apartment door was opened two men passed out from the odor
I smelled it as her body was removed on a stretcher, I was about ten years old and still remember that odor, so strong I could taste it. I ran away.

To this day I shy away from anything associated with death, and yes I do what I can to avoid funerals though I do attend. No matter what one says or does can effect the dead the honors and dignity presented them is to appease the living. I do not wish to offend.
Old 03-01-2023, 08:39 AM
  #11221  
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A bit of wisdom I was once told is that funerals are for the living. They allow us the opportunity to say good-bye, comfort one another and move on. Coming from a large extended family in rural Oklahoma funerals were often like family reunions less one person. Except for that one uncle, he didn't even have any pall bearers. I don't begrudge Donnyman his feelings about funerals. That would have been a life altering experience for me as well. I'm just acknowledging that funerals are a helpful step to moving on. Even mass war graves serve the purpose of reminding us of the sacrifices required before embarking on the next war.
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Old 03-01-2023, 08:47 AM
  #11222  
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Originally Posted by mgnostic
A bit of wisdom I was once told is that funerals are for the living. They allow us the opportunity to say good-bye, comfort one another and move on. Coming from a large extended family in rural Oklahoma funerals were often like family reunions less one person. Except for that one uncle, he didn't even have any pall bearers. I don't begrudge Donnyman his feelings about funerals. That would have been a life altering experience for me as well. I'm just acknowledging that funerals are a helpful step to moving on. Even mass war graves serve the purpose of reminding us of the sacrifices required before embarking on the next war.

Yeah what he said!
Old 03-01-2023, 10:05 PM
  #11223  
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Originally Posted by mgnostic
... Even mass war graves serve the purpose of reminding us of the sacrifices required before embarking on the next war.
I visited the German War Cemetery at Langemark several years ago. As well as the mass grave there are several flat grave markers with the names of many German soldiers on each one. Alongside one was a small vase of flowers. Someone had remembered him...

If it were compulsory for all presidents, kings and prime ministers to visit these places, they may be more reluctant to send their young men out on futile military adventures.

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Old 03-02-2023, 08:51 AM
  #11224  
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Germany lost a good portion of their strong young men in the war (and so the other nations). At the end, Germany was financially destitute and to intern such a large quantity each individually, would have been an time consuming, arduous, gruesome task. Putting to rest the dead quickly was a way to avert sickness and deadly diseases with the living. If say, a catastrophe happened say, in one of our large cities with such a great number to bury, most likely a mass grave would be utilized.

Doing some recent research on WW2 carrier aircraft, I came across a somber photo of CV-11 USS Intrepid burying 69 seamen at sea on November 26, 1944, the day after the devastating kamikaze attacks on the carrier operating near the Philippines.

Dept. of US Navy: USS INTREPID (CV-11) Burial at sea


U.S. Navy archive photo.

It is sad but a fact of life.
Old 03-02-2023, 10:10 AM
  #11225  
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It is sad so many have passed, I wonder if all this death would have occurred if the "leaders" were placed at the front of the battle and there siblings had mandatory 4 year enlistments. Instead they sit in their comforters watching others taking the hits.
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