gow589

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That is awesome! Do you remember the mini tanks at Byron's Expo in Ida grove?

combatpigg

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No...this is the first time I've seen a home built tank.
I thought Byron's was a Model Ducted Fan event from long ago
Imagine having the kid driving that tank show up at your door asking if your son can come out and "play war"...?...

gow589

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You will have to google Byron expo striking back. They used to put on a mock battle including aircraft, tanks, boats. Flew a 30' B-29, had RC-demonstration teams and full scale air show. The tanks were small and guys would drive around and shoot at the planes with blank shot gun shells. Plenty of old footage.

gow589

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This is the show they put on. Keep in mind this was 1987! The battle starts about 1:03. The tanks you can see just after 1:10. I think they were shooting flack with shot gun shells:

gow589

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On Feb. 23, 1945, during the Battle of Iwo Jima six Marines planted the U.S. flag at the summit of Mount Suribachi. This is depicted toward the end of the video. It was my understanding that of of them who participated in doing so at this airshow was one of the 6.

combatpigg

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Well this is the first time I have seen the Byron Show instead of just reading about it in Model aviation.
thanks for posting it.
What a mindblowing display of everything..!
Of all the planes on display..I gotta say my favorite has to be those high wing...box fuselage...40 to .60 size..."Ugly Stick" type sport planes with the high speed 3D capabilities.
For years all I flew was a Midweast 20 kit built plane with a Webra .50 ..which resembles the stunt plane I saw in the Byron video as far as performance goes.....but not as spectacular as what I saw in that video....those were the quickest snap rolls ever.
Maybe if I "revisit" that old combo of mine after poking around and seeing what improvements it would take....hmmm.
This is what the hobby is about...and keeps it "fresh"...
Some curiosity / new challenge...some thirst for knowledge, some the need to be creative some competitiveness... and just a dash of envy and WANNABEE SPIRIT thrown in.....!!

gow589

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Good looking stick. I would have to agree. It really motivated as a young flier that's for sure. When people say encouraging people to build chases away the people who only are interested in the arf toys, I would say the apposite is true. The aircraft people build, create and have pride in encourage people into the next step vs a field of foamies where the builders are the one's who leave! I know the list of store bought toys are a big reason many of us dropped out for a while.

gow589

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Years ago, at a major scale contest, a guy won top prize. His top prize was a ready to fly ARF. He was so insulted, for all the work he crafted into his airplane that right after the award ceremony, they did a quick assembly. They launched the airplane off into the Forrest and threw the transmitter in the trash. Everyone cheered! LOL!

combatpigg

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The "sticks" that we saw in the video doing high speed stunts and some 3D MIGHT have been the ROGER PURCELL "SCREAM MACHINES" / DON MUDDIMAN "FLYING MACHINES"....I've heard about but never got around to building..?
Here is a teaser link that has had the wonderful photos purged.......Roger Purcell's Scream Machine!! - RCU Forums (rcuniverse.com)
One guy calls them a cross between a Q500 and a Stick...4 pounds 4 ounces is the target weight..very doable.
Built lightly enough and with a OS 55 AX...I think "Best Bang For The Buck" might be a good way to describe one of these "Old School 3D" planes...?
Part of what caused my loss of interest in the Local Club was all of the 40arfcookiecutterinsidelooponly Flyers that dominated the landscape any more at the field.
The days of never knowing what sort of home built creation was going to show up for it's trial runs were essentially over.

FLYING MACHINE WITH PIPED OS .46 and 9.5 x 6 prop

combatpigg

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TOO FUNNY...!!! HAHAHAHAHA...!!! DID HE HAVE TO LOG IN TO RCU FIRST AND GET ADVICE AS TO HOW TO GLUE WING PANEL "A" TO WING PANEL "B"...?

FlyerInOKC

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ARF? ARF?! I thought that was just something Little Orphan Annie's dog said?

gow589

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When you talked about spinning fast I thought that might be the plane you were talking about. They would rollit in a dive and pull out at last second. Ocasionally they did not make it. Their F-15's were impressive; not specifically the airplanes but that they had 2 dual ducted fan airplanes running reliably with a formation routine. They put on a good show.

Here are 2 backyard airplanes I built of my own design. The one on the left I call simplicity (Because it's simple). Sold a few to friends. It was fast and spun like the Flying machine but with a thick chord slowed way down for casual flight. The one on the right I 3d printed ribs and former's. It flies like a pattern plane but is on the heavy side in my construction methods. I would like to get a 150w laser cutter at times and refine this among other planes. The electric on the right I prefer to fly in the back yard. The Simplicity is fast and cover's a lot or real estate.

gow589

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In the 90's I had a twin version of the simplicity. That was a fun airplane. I used to run a half tank of fuel in one side and would fly it single engine once it quit. It had 8 mini servos. That think was a blast:

combatpigg

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THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT...!!
Pure creativity and pure fun..!! Did you ever put the twin into any spins that it couldn't pull out of...?
Are those a pair of .OS CVA 15s...?

combatpigg

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These both look like a lot of fun..!
The one on the left looks like a couple inches of span are missing from the "usual" .....
A major breakthrough in scratch building or kit bashing back then was a company that sold lightweight / unbreakable CF landing gear.
A couple years ago I tried making my own LG with a few layers of epoxy drenched CF cloth draped over a wood form and they turned out real good.

gow589

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It was my understanding that Byron Expo was sold after a friend of Byron Godperson had a friend killed in an AT-6 in association with the show. It was sold and moved to Ankeny IA after that. When they put on the first show, the rains kept them from being fully ready. It was a huge muddy mess. The day we arrived, Walmart had the front full of kids American Flier type wagons. By the second evening, the R/C crown had cleaned them out. I remember seeing the mote without whatter. It was really cool because you could see there was a concrete road underneith the water and the PT109 boats actually drove around the water with wheels!

The 30' B29 took off and promptly left the nose gear on the runway. When he landed he steered it toward the mud doing a great job! Look how much mud the nose pushes:

http://www.rc-tech.net/hold/B29Land.mp4

gow589

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It spun great and it always came out. I abused it too. I *think* those were either 20 or 25 OS helo engines.

combatpigg

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Funny how it looks so slow before touchdown but seemed to pick up speed on the ground..or just my eyes playing tricks on me.
Great landing...!!

gow589

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Isn't it great how video has gotten so much better since then. They also had their AT-6 races with the Byron AT-6's. I bet I saw 20 of them snap roll and crash on take off LOL. Their GB Racer . . . Well, they always ended up flipping on their back during landing. The airshow was second to none. They had all the great names, The Christian Eagles, Delmar Benjamin in the replica GB, Jimmy Franklin in the Waco, the Bud Lite jet, but the best part was, the participants was in front of the flight line so we were seeing the airshow up close and it was not spread out like Oshkosh or Reno.

Jimmy Franklin did a rolling circle in his Waco sol close to the ground and so close to a line of trees that the trees folded over from the prop turbulence as he went by!

combatpigg

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I have only seen one air show with the GEE BEE and it was amazing to see how slow and steady it could do a SINGLE ROLL that took about 1000 feet to complete...less than 100 feet up.
Then it did a series of low knife edge passes..that looked physically impossible to me..!

gow589

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Delmar put on a fantastic show with the Gee Bee. The Granville bros didn't want anyone else to build a Gee Bee since they killed so many people but he finally convinced them to let him build one. Consider an engine failure and off airport landing is more than likely to be fatal!

mgnostic

Probably my peak airshow moment was in the late 80's or early 90's in Oklahoma City. The Gee Bee was touring and the airshow had the Gee Bee, a Mr. Mulligan, a Travel Air Mystery Ship and a DeHavilland DH88. They put on a mock air race and the Gee Bee was lapping the other airplanes. Then the Gee Bee put on its show. it was the first time I ever saw a full scale aircraft in a knife edge climb.

FlyerInOKC

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I miss the OKC airshow. The only one we have left is the one at Tinker Air Force Base. I remember one year the Antonov An-225 was on display and you could walk thru it. I went thru it with my father in-law, a 37 year A&P. He would point out what he thought was poor craftmanship on the builder's part. He shook his head over the tubing brazed into a Gerry can pressed into service as a hydraulic fluid reservoir. He didn't like the rivet job either. His career span from the DC-3 to the 777. He was a stickler for details. He had a station manager try to force him to change a brake lining measurement so the aircraft could fly to LA. The station manager could have signed off the airplane himself but didn't want his name on it. He erased it and then wrote the same measurement in ink effectively grounding the airplane. He lost his lead mechanic status over it, not for the first or the last time. He never wanted lead in the first place but they kept giving it to him. He eventually gave up working the line and moved to the tire shop where he retired.

gow589

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Here are some more photos from Byron back in the 80's







:

combatpigg

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I remember wondering how "BYRON MODELS" was able to get started and build such a huge operation based on very expensive models. They sure did invest in plenty of advertising.
I never belonged to any clubs where the ducted fan "jets" were flown and for that matter was never aware of any of the big ducted fan jets within our AMA District..
On a side note some of the purpose built Ducted Fan engines can be converted to standard duty with a 2 blade prop.
A OS .91 VRDF went for $150 NIB at the other web site not long ago.
Here's a nice simple home for a good sized DF engine.........