TexasAirBoss

My Feedback: (22)

I'm not offended when I see a swastika on a scale model airplane. I might freeze in my tracks if I walked into someone's office and saw a large red flag with a swastika on the wall behind their desk. It would certainly mean something else then. But I'm an airplane NUT. We are all airplane NUTS. We see right past the swastika on a 109 and we see that little tail and that tiny cockpit. We see that narrow landing gear and we appreciate the design and engineering involved and we appreciate how advanced it must have been for the 30's. But if we weren't airplane nuts, if we were just some soul that wondered to the field one day, it might be like walking into that office. Because they aren't airplane NUTS like us, they might fixate on the symbol and not the airplanes design.

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

Here is a question for any German posters.

How are scale competitions handled in Germany?

Isn't it illegal to display these symbols in Germany, so a scale plane would be either inaccurate or illegal?

Al Stein

Interesting question/response wording: Do I find such things offensive... Yes, i do OR No, markings should be accurate. In studying communications, that's what we call a false dichotomy -- a closed set of choices that excludes one or more rational alternatives. (Something like asking whether somebody's having a bad day or whether they think drugs should be legalized... )

Personally, I'd go for one of the excluded option on the markings question... Yes, some of the symbols offend me, and No, I do not want them removed or forgotten, I want them them accurately portrayed.

It's been 10 years since I lived in Germany, so things there have changed since then (including the history of WWII). Back when I lived there, graphical symbols made of intersecting straight line segments or bars imposed on a squre grid were used in place of the swastika and provided a somewhat similar appearance.

Charlie P.

The idea of modeling the markings of an alternate country has some merit, I guess, but generally the planes used were because the non-original country was an ally of the producer. Guilt by association ("guilt", in this case, being determined by the victors). I did a scale non-flying Fokker Eindecker many years ago in Turkish national WWI markings, only because the Black squares were easier to paint than the crosses. (Just lazy - no affiliation with Turkey).

Oh well, my wife continues to call my plane "ugly." I guess I'll just tell her I'll bulid and fly any similar model she purchases to replace it.

tiggerinmk

In line with most others here, I agree that scale aircraft should be depicted as accurately as possible, and don't agree with the censorship of certain symbols that some might now find offensive...

HOWEVER, I really don't see the fascination with 90% of stick type aircraft being offered in red/white with crosses. These are obviously not even close to scale aircraft, so why all the manufacturers use this scheme is lost on me.

If I want a stick I'll probably get an Ultra stick, good color scheme and easy to see...

Now a DR1 , that's another matter...

Charlie P.

The red/white w/black crosses for a Stik has become traditional in it's own right. These are the original colors as designed by Phil Kraft (The same Kraft as of Kraft Radios) back in the 60's, and that is when I first wanted one. Call it recapturing a lost childhood memory if you like. I had an Estes (I think) Der Red Max at the time, a model rocket with campy German markings and humorous labels ("Nicht Finger Poken", etc.). Hogan's Heroes demonstrated the Germans were actually funny, bumbling guys in jack boots [I'll edit myself here - I DO NOT believe Germans were funny or bumbling in reality - that's why it's funny to portray them as such - humor - remember?]. When you said "The Red Baron" anyone would visualize a black handle-bar mustached villain, like Terry Thomas but with a monacle, and not a young, business-like, quiet blond kid who died in battle at 22 or 23 years of age. It was a more innocent time. So, for me, stik planes have crosses because the original stik planes had crosses.

In hindsight - one thing I wish I had edited out was the word "grumpy" when describing my wife. I presented a print out of the first bunch of comments, and she keyed on: "You told all these people I was grumpy!" You'd think after 23 years of marriage I would avoid some of these self-inflicted wounds.

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

Thats funny! I guess even "grumpy" can be offensive.

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

Too bad noone dived on that grenade for you. Doesn't sound like you can win that one.

Tall Paul

"I did a scale non-flying Fokker Eindecker many years ago in Turkish national WWI markings, only because the Black squares were easier to paint than the crosses"
.
I had a Doug Spreng Stormer type plane in the early '60s. Pink, white and blue.
Flying one day a guy crawled all over me for the 'Nazi signs" on my plane.
????
The top span-wise white and blue strips on the leading edge.. not the problem.
The problem... On the bottom, I had chordwise/width dark blue squares, outlined in while. Squares. Not crosses... He saw crosses.
Sensitiized me to the sensibilities of those whose experiences were much worse than mine.

CCRC1

My Feedback: (13)

Charlie P. , the iron crosses on your stick are emblems from the first world war, not from when the nazi party was in power. Germany was a much different country in the early 1900's than it was during the second world war. With all of the posts here I am surprised nobody picked up on it.
If you are looking for a nice alternative for your stick, look at my Ultra stik .60 . I bought it from my LHS with damaged wing ribs at a discount price and because I like my aircraft to look different then the rest of the ARF's in my club I recovered it. I can see this color scheme better then any other plane in my hanger, no matter what the current conditions. The "stik" also looks really good in Army Air Corps yellow and blue.

Bruno Stachel

My Feedback: (4)

In February 1917 Leutnant Wilhelm Frankl took command of Jasta 4 of the Richthofen's Flying Circus. Until his death in April 1917, Leutnant Frankl had scored 20 victories and was awarded the Orden Pour le Merite. Leuntnant Frankl was Jewish.

CCRC1

My Feedback: (13)

My point exactly!

Crash_N_Burn

Well, I thought I was a free-thinker. A student of history...

...But I'm not.

I originally posted that history demands accuracy hence we don't forget, but I've since reconsidered.

A friend brought over a scratch Me109 this weekend for me to finish.....

....And I couldn't put on the swastikas. I just couldn't.

They represented (to me) too many native and allied sons lost. Too much agony. Too much suffering. Too much hate.

I guess they just represented (to me).....evil.

I think I would feel the same about the Rising Sun, but haven't had to face that yet......

Sorry, but that's the truth. I really didn't know I felt this way until I read and re-read this thread.

To you scale guys...I'll just compliment you on your accuracy......

Bruno Stachel

My Feedback: (4)

What's ironic about this is, a "good" German designed the plane pictured in this post. Edgar Schmued took a job with General Motors, moved to Brazil, and by 1935, a U.S. citizen, he joined North American Aviation in Los Angeles; where he went on to design the P51 Mustang.

www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/schmued.htm

Cdallas2

To you guys that don't like the swastika how do you feel about the U.S. space program. The Saturn V was designed by Wernher Von Braun. The same guy that designed the V2 which happened to kill thousands of "innocent" British citizens.

Dave:

What about all the Germans that died at the hands of US bombs. Their were a lot of women and children down their that perished as well.

LuvBipes

My Feedback: (4)

Crash_n_Burn, I feel exactly the same you do. Though I have NO problem with a scale (or even semi-scale) model of a German WWII plane displaying the swastika, I wouldn't do it myself.

The horror which was committed under that banner simply strikes too close to home for me.

Your comment about the rising star got me to thinking, because I too don't react as vicseraly to it as I do to the swastika. My theory is that dispite the horrors committed my Imperial Japan's occupying forces in SE Asia being on par w/ what Hitler and his thugs did, it was done by a people far removed from us geographically and culturally.

"Old Europe" is my ancestral home and that of most Americans. I think that what disturbs me the most is that peoples from whom we recently descend could commit such atrcities.

Belive it or not the wife and I just got finished seeing a WWII movie that graphically depicted entire families being deported from Vichy France to the death camps. Although I knew I was watching a Hollywood re-enactment, it just got me. The sight of defenseless little childre being mercilessly hauled into cattle carts was simply too much to bear.

Can't go to sleep, so I'm going to have a cold one to see if my nerves calm down before turning in for the night.

God bless America. I thank the Lord every day that my children had the opportunity to be born and make their lives in this free country of ours.

Good night.

Ptarmigan

The Holocaust was horrible, so was Imperial Japan did during World War II. I cringe when I see the Rising Sun, especially if its from World War II. The current Japanese flag does not make me cringe. Coming from a person who is of Korean ancestory, Korea was occupied by Japan during World War II and Japan has invaded Korea many times before. I also cringe when I see a picture of Mao Zedong. Some people I have seen glorify him, like wearing a t-shirt with a picture of him. That makes me deeply offended, like seeing a Nazis flag and sickle and hammer . Mao Zedong is another tyrant who killed 30 million of his own people in China during the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong is like a Hitler and Stalin for China. North Korea is also very evil, with their rancid propaganda of how utopian they are, when in fact its Orweillian and like Stalinist Soviet Union. Now, I don't have a problem if its on a scale model though, because it is a historical representation and history is ugly.

Al Stein

How do I feel? In short, not necessarily good, but there's a BIG however involved. The question feels a lot like, "How do you feel about the Wright Brothers?" They hoped for their invention to end war... they felt that it would make it so hard for anyone on the ground to do anything unobserved that you couldn't effectively attack anymore. Instead, their invention became a key part of the way wars are waged in our age... and one of the biggest differences in effect is a very high proportion of civilian casualties.

One could extend the argument to show that therefore, any four-channel model plane is a replica of the thing that gave us the same disgusting abilities as the german rockets, except that we employ them close up with actual people knowingly launching the weapons within sight of the innocents who are about to pay the big price.

Now I admit that I am a builder and purveyer of fine four-channel aircraft. Actually, I feel pretty good about that. And I feel the same about the space program. The prior uses of Von Braun's invention were unfortunate, to say the least, but that doesn't negate the value of his later work any more than the use of the airplane negated the value of the Wrights' contribution.

I also don't feel guilty when I eat m&m's candy either (a treat invented to allow clean shooting hands for the dough boys of WWI), or when I see a car accident victim survive because his composite laminated windshield didn't explode in his face and kept him in his vehicle (more war spin-off technology). It doesn't bother me that we can aid disaster victims using the food compaction and preservation techniques we learned to allow us to go into space and to survive the cold war. I'm even OK with the fact that the temperature and rain forecasts that Aunt Betty can't live without on a day to day basis are actually the chaff thrown away after the real forecasts are made to enhance the effectiveness of our defense forces.

Every scientist or engineer lives with the risk of creating the ultimate weapon for use by the forces of evil. Some of us have burried our own inventions to avoid that. But for the most part we publish our brainchild in the hope that the good people in the world will provide us all more benefit than the harm that's bound to be done by the others.

Sometimes life is just a bummer... you gotta remember the bad parts AND enjoy the good. Go have some m&m's... you'll feel better.


P.S. I'm really impressed that this discussion is happening here rather than on one of the other forum sites. Bravo!

Bruno Stachel

My Feedback: (4)

And that put's my feelings into one "candy coated" nutshell!


I thumbed throught an issue of RC Report at a LHS not long ago. I think it was Frank Tiano that wrote an interesting article on this subject. Anyone remember it? As I recall it, he wasn't too wild about banning any symbols.

Ruralflyer

I think the symbol issue just boils down to symbols, for some people they mean evil, and for others they mean history. Most of us agree that nobody is going to ban these symbols in America, even if some people are offended. If you were building any scale aircraft, I'd have no problem with you putting the correct symbols of the regiment, wing, so-forth.... even if that involved "evil" symbols in order to make it accurate. Most people will see the aircraft for what it is, a correct renactment of history, not the opinions of the flyers. Even most people who are not "plane-crazy" will see that for what it is. I find it odd that many people base their anger on a symbol instead of a man or a group, the axis symbol is a mere scratch on paper, a simple cross with trailers, it in itself has no evil, cannot do any harm whatsoever. Now someone who was in the war or closely tied to it may have strong reactions to the symbol because it invokes memories, but it still isn't the symbol at fault, it's just horrible memories that can be invoked with or without the aid of a symbol. If we had to hide or ban everything that invoked a bad memory, then there would be nothing left in the world to see. Basing your anger on symbols that revive history in your mind is unjustified, and when you remove them you haven't let the history or the reality of the history (Nazism for example) escape you. Those memories can come up anytime and do on a regular basis. I doubt anybody could support banning the history of the hollocaust being taught or remembered, why should you with a symbol that used to represent it. Overall, if you want to make a scale aircraft, make it scale. If memories (even if they are not yours) are too much for you and you don't want to make them more frequent by doing so, don't. America is a free country, and I thank God that I live in America and not in those times that were.....

buchtes

My Feedback: (7)

utterly bewildering.............., the way some folks will not forget,

now, what about the american indians??????, the one and only true american.

depfife

My Feedback: (14)

Folks, lets keep this topic on RC please.

Eric

Crash_N_Burn

Sorry, Eric...one last note to these wonderful guys....

You know that in some forums I would have been ripped-to-pieces for stating my view. I'm sorry, but that's just me. Too sensitive, I guess.

But here on RCU you all gave your views, not too pushy, either!

Well, I want to tell you I learned a lot from this thread.

I learned about myself, and I learned about the guys I always felt were the best. You know who you are.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're all different. Different ages, different backgrounds, different personalies, we're going to think differently, yes?

I respect all those who desire and covet scale. I respect those that that don't.

Thank you all for helping me learn about myself, and you, too.

God bless.

MikeL

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks, Dave. I think your post sums up one of the things I enjoy about this hobby: the diversity. We see all sorts of models, flown in all sorts of ways. There's room for everything here, as well as disagreement.

I didn't think this topic would last two pages without getting well out of hand. I appreciate everyone's restraint, maturity, and willingness to discuss rather than flame.

airbatic

How about Iron Crosses and Swastikas on one side and Star of Davids on the other. Would that irritate someone? I'm thinking that scheme for my Sopwith Pup.

Kraus