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 Arch Whitehouse's air adventure stories
with wily ballistics expert and ace pilot Kerry Keen (alter ego,
The Griffon) are one of my favorite reads in the vintage Flying Aces
magazines. While testing their amphibious Black Bullet over Long Island, aviator
Kerry Keen (the Griffon) and mechanic Barney O'Dare spot a stolen experimental aircraft
- a winged fortress capable of carrying tanks. When Barney vanishes mysteriously,
Keen discovers his partner has been entangled in a plot to steal "Avalin," a revolutionary
armor formula. The trail leads to kidnapped movie star Doreen Yardley, who unknowingly
received the formula- all while protecting Keen's masked identity...
 This article entitled "The Boom in
R/C Boats" appeared in the June 1955 edition of Popular Electronics
magazine which, during the early years of its existence devoted quite a bit of print
space to radio control airplanes, boats and cars. As with all things electronics,
a huge surge in consumer interest was occurring with over-the-air communications.
Bill (William) Winter served as the editor of the Academy of Model Aeronautics'
(AMA's) American Modeler and American Aircraft Modeler magazines
from 1966 through 1974, but his efforts to promote all form of modeling - airplanes,
helicopters, cars, boats, trains, and rockets - covered many decades. His first
recorded article, "Building the Famous Udet Flamingo," (co-authored by Walter McBride),
was published in the March 1935 issue of Universal Model Airplane News
magazine...
 It would be interesting to do a side-by-side
comparison on what was considered engineered
control line
stunt model airplane design in 1957, when this article was written, to what
is today considered to be optimal design criteria. I am trying to get back into
control line stunt flying and have one model built currently, the Enterprise-E.
It has been flown a few times and is (was) extremely sensitive on the controls when
set up per the plans. A little bit of control handle movements resulted in a huge
amount of both elevator and flap deflection. Fortunately, access to the flap control
horn is available through the removable top fuselage hatch, so I was able to relocate
the pushrod from the bellcrank to the flap horn, and then from the flap horn...
 When Melanie and I got married in 1983,
part of her dowry included some of the toys she had as a little girl. A
Hasbro Lite-Brite
was one of them. Our kids played with it when they were young, but somewhere along
the line during our many household moves, it disappeared. We probably donated it
to the Salvation Army at some point - a lot of our stuff has ended up there. About
a month ago we started watching for a good one on eBay that didn't cost too much.
Finally, there was a 1967-vintage Lite-Brite in like-new condition up for auction
that we got for around $45. It has a nice box...
 Per "Wild Bill" Netzenband's report in this
1961 issue of American Modeler magazine covered the Vancouver Bi-Liners,
MAC highlights, Alan Nichols' success in Thompson Trophy Racer events, encouraging
clubs to adopt the affordable, and slow-flying contests. He addresses backlogged
club crest submissions, noting the impracticality of featuring all due to volume.
Alan Nichols debunks the myth that models wear out quickly, citing his year-old
Nobler and a five-year-old Fierce Arrow with original engine. Memories resurface
of McDonnell Aircraft's picnic air shows, where Phil Hamm's reliable metal jet stood
out. Southern California's new Control-Line Association, led by John Gudvangan and
others, seeks enthusiasts. Detroit's Metropolitan Speed Association unveils an $8,000
Rouge Park speed circle, aiming for a competitive...
 This article entitled "Why Pilots Will Matter
in the Age of
Autonomous Planes" appeared in the June 2025 issue of IEEE's Spectrum
magazine. "Long after planes start flying themselves, humans will still be in the
loop. In August 2001, an anonymous guest posted on the forum at Airliners.net, a
popular aviation website. 'How Long Will Pilots Be Needed?' they wondered, observing
that '20 years or so down the road' technology could be so advanced that planes
would fly themselves. 'So would it really be useful for a person to go to college
now and be an airline pilot if a few years down the road they will be phased out
by technology?' Twenty-four years later, the basic technology required to make aircraft
fly themselves exists, as evidenced by the fact that most commercial flights are
flown largely on autopilot..."
 This is the February 8, 1942, "Flyin' Jenny" comic strip. The Baltimore Sun newspaper, published
not far from where I grew up near Annapolis, Maryland, carried "Flyin' Jenny" from
the late 1930s until the strip ended in the mid 1940s, so I saved a couple dozen
from there. The first one I downloaded has a publication date of December 7, 1941
- that date "which will live in infamy," per President Roosevelt. Many Americans
were receiving word over the radio of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor while
reading this comic at the breakfast table. I expect that soon there will be World
War II themes. "Flyin' Jenny," whose real name was Virginia Dare (what's in
a name?), was a test pilot for Starcraft Aviation Factory who divided her time between
wringing out new airplane designs and chasing bad guys. She was the creation of
artist and storyteller Russell Keaton...
 This is the complete set of
Peanuts Skediddlers,
sold by Mattel. Linus is extremely difficult to find, and when you do, he typically
sells for $200 or more. If you find a Linus Skediddler with the original box, expect
to pay $400. Over time, our (Melanie and me) Peanuts collection of memorabilia has
grow from the few items she had left over from her girlhood to complete sets. Everything
was gotten via eBay auctions. It took a lot of patience to be able to get good quality
items at an affordable price. Here is a bit of history I gathered on the Skediddlers.
Phenomenon: In the mid-to-late 1960s, Mattel capitalized on the explosive popularity
of Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip by releasing the Skediddler - a line
of friction-powered toys. Unlike wind-up mechanisms, these toys relied on a simple
push-and-go design: sliding them across a surface activated internal gears, causing
the characters' limbs and heads to jerk in a whimsical "skedaddling"...
 This 1949 Air Trails magazine article
warns that the
Soviet
Union has surpassed the U.S. in military aircraft production by a 15-to-1 margin,
with advanced jet fighters, bombers, and long-range piston-engine planes already
operational. Soviet scientists have also conducted atomic tests and are close to
producing compact A-bombs. Intelligence reveals a Red Air Force of 15,000 first-line
aircraft, including 2,400 jets, some surpassing American designs. The Soviets broke
the sound barrier before the U.S. and have developed powerful turbojet engines,
some with innovative features like variable-pitch stators. German scientists and
captured technology accelerated Soviet progress, particularly in rocketry and jet
propulsion. Their aircraft feature advanced construction techniques, such as metal-plywood
sandwich wings, and superior armament...
 A long time ago (circa
1977) I bought a used glider winch at an auction held by the Prince Georges Radio
Club, in Maryland. It cost me somewhere around $25, which was a lot for me in the
mid 1970s. The motor and control circuitry was contained in a plywood box, with
a jack for the foot switch and terminals to clamp jumper cable to from a car. In
looking at these plans for the
AAM Glider Winch shown
here from the April 1973 American Aircraft Modeler, it looks a lot like mine, only
mine was in a wooden box. It worked extremely well for my 99"
Windfree and 99"
Aquila sailplanes. Unfortunately,
I sold it shortly after getting married in 1983 (couldn't eat the winch). I would
love to have it back. Actually, what I would rather have at this point is a winch
that is powered by a cordless drill that would be lighter...
 We take for granted most of the technology
that surrounds us. Unless you were alive 60 years ago at the dawn of microelectronics
and space flight, it would be difficult to imagine a world without cellphones, desktop
computers, color TVs, the Internet, and even
satellite-base weather forecasting. Everyone likes to make jokes about weathermen
being no better at predicting the weather than your grandmother's roomatiz[sic],
but the fact is that, especially for short-term (2-3 days) predictions, we get pretty
good information. As a model airplane flyer, I check the wind level forecast nearly
every day to see whether my model plane can handle it. AccuWeather's free hourly
forecast is usually pretty darn accurate for today's and tomorrow's wind...
 In this 1937 "Smoke Scream" in a 1937 issue
of Flying Aces magazine, by Joe Archibald,
Lt. Phineas
Pinkham, the 9th Pursuit Squadron's resident troublemaker, stumbles into chaos
when he encounters an elephant named Hungha Tin and its Hindu mahout. After the
elephant drinks a bottle of arnica meant for a local's backache, it goes berserk,
wreaking havoc across the Allied camp. Meanwhile, Brigadier Scruggs confesses to
Pinkham that he sleepwalked and handed top-secret battle plans to an unknown spy.
Pinkham, framed by the mahout - who's actually a German agent - unknowingly smokes
a drugged cigarette and nearly flies a stolen Spad to the enemy. The vengeful elephant
interrupts his forced defection, allowing Pinkham to escape with Hauptmann von Spieler
as his prisoner. Back at base, Pinkham...
 The Academy of Model Aeronautics is granted
tax-exempt status because part of its charter is for activity as an educational
organization. I think as time goes on, it gets harder for the AMA for fulfill that
part of its mission because presenting anything even vaguely resembling mathematics
or science to kids (or to most adults for that matter), is the kiss of death for
gaining or retaining interest. This article, "Control-Line
Aerodynamics Made Painless," was printed in the December 1967 edition of
American Modeler magazine, when graphs, charts, and equations were not eschewed
by modelers. It is awesome. On rare occasions a similar type article will appear
nowadays in Model Aviation magazine for topics like basic aerodynamics and battery
/ motor parameters. Nowadays, it seems, the most rigorous classroom material that
the AMA can manage to slip into schools is a box of gliders and a PowerPoint presentation...
 Peter Bowers first became know to me because
of his Fly Baby homebuilt airplane. It won the
Experimental
Aircraft Association (EAA) design contest in 1962. Back in the middle and late
1970s, I was taking flying lessons and dreaming big about building my own aerobatic
biplane. Being an avid woodworker, the Fly Baby appealed to me because it was constructed
entirely of wood, except for a few critical metal fittings. My plan was to build
the biplane version of the Fly Baby. Like so many other things, the aeroplane never
got built. Peter Bowers was not only an aeronautical engineer and airplane designer
but also an aviation historian and model airplane enthusiast...
 "FlightGear" is an Open Source (aka
Free) flight simulator program which I first wrote about in 2012. It has come a
long way - and was pretty dran good, aven back then - and is now a viable competitor
for Microsoft's Flight Simulator (MSFS). The leatest release as of this writing
is 2024.1.1. The graphics are superb and easily on par with MSFS. FlightGear has
a joystick interface, but I don't own a joystick, so my experience with it using
keyboard inputs. VR headsets are also supported now. The basic download comes with
a couple dozen aircraft, and there are many additional models available as separate
downloads. FlightGear runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Thanks to all the folks
who have spent their valuable time developing FlightGear! FlightGear website: "FlightGear
is an open-source flight simulator. It supports a variety of popular platforms (Windows,
Mac, Linux, etc.) and is developed by skilled volunteers from around the world...
 The October 1950 Air Trails magazine
showcases
modelers' innovations, including H.G. Oliver's Plexiglas skids for speed models
and Don Nelson's booster battery setup. Ray Biernacki suggests keeping brushes soft
with thinner fumes, while Richard Larson offers a footswitch for bench testing.
Ted Jones improves dethermalizer safety, and Charles Francis simplifies its design.
Willard Hafler's flying wing excels in speed and sport flying, and Leon Shulman
repurposes a crankcase recess as a fuel tank. The magazine encourages readers to
submit their own ideas, paying $2 per accepted sketch. These practical, cost-saving
solutions highlight the creativity of mid-century model aviation enthusiasts, blending
engineering ingenuity with accessible materials - a snapshot of hobbyist innovation
in postwar America...
|
 The
No. D4
Menasco Trainer kit was manufactured by the Paul K. Guillow Company beginning
in the late 1930s. The date on the plans is 1939. It was given to me by Mr. Steven
Krick from part of his very large collection of vintage model airplane kits. It
might be one of the earliest surviving Guillow kits. The Menasco Trainer has a diminutive
wingspan of just 7-9/16 inches. No box accompanied the kit parts. The only balsa
provided was square strips die cut from 0.050" (3/64") sheet, and a block for the
nose. The hardwood thrust button arrived broken into four pieces, so I carefully
glued it back together. The remaining parts including wing ribs, curved tip pieces,
fuselage formers (0.032" material), and even the propeller blades (0.012" material)
are printed on stiff card stock ...
 Air Trails - Hobbies for Young Men
magazine covered a wide variety of subjects of both model and full-scale.
All things fast and/or exotic were of great interest to America's
youth in the day, and everything was fair game for modeling. Lockheed's now long-famous
C-130 Hercules was just making its maiden flight as a prototype YC-130 in 1954 when
this edition was published. Grumman's F9F-9 Tiger jet fighter became the F11F Tiger
while the F9F designation became the significantly different-looking F9F Cougar
- no confusion there. The Cessna 620, a 4-engine version of their successful
310 (get it? - 2 x 310 = 620), never made it past the prototype phase ...
 Finding an article in a modern model airplane
magazine like this "Carve
the Italian Beretta 9mm Pistol" from a 1954 issue of Air Trails is
highly unlikely. For that matters, seeing an advertisement like the Polk's Hobbies
Antique Gun Reproductions on the same page has equally low odds. It's not that boys
are no longer interested in guns, it's that publishers are afraid to promote them
in any manner - even for historical education purposes. Our politicians promote
policies that allow criminals to enter the country bringing drugs, weapons, and
other contraband; judges set criminals free or lightly sentence them; schools teach
kids that all guns by all people (including police and military) are bad, and then
want to remove all guns from law-abiding citizens. As the old saying goes, then
only the bad guys will have guns. The morons believe putting an orange cap at the
end of the barrel on toys guns will save the day, when all a criminal needs to do...
 Airplanes and Rockets website visitor Ray
L. wrote to say he has a
Biceps control line
model that appeared in the April 1969 edition of American Aircraft Modeler
magazine, and that he would like to have the article posted. Per Roy, "I bought
this model from one of our club members who is a team race flier and built it on
a whim, he fitted it with electric and had it test flown by one of our aerobatic
pilots and after that he lost interest it and I was happy to give it a good home,
the quality of build and finish is to pro standards." Power in the original was
a Fox .59, wingspan is 48". AMA Plans Service still prints the Biceps plans.
 These are not your father's bombs; in fact,
they're your great-grandfather's bombs. Note that per the title "Bombs of
the World War," there was no "I" or "1" appended to it. That is because as we
learned in grammar class in elementary school while being instructed on creating
outlines, one does not assign a number "1" or a letter "a" or "A" if there will
be no number "2" or letter "b" or B." Since what we now refer to as World War I
was "the war to end all wars," there was no expectation that there would someday
be a World War II. Hence, up until the end of 1941, people referred to the
28 July, 1914 through 11 November, 1918 conflict simply as the "the World War" or
"the Great War." But I digress. Many of the bombs shown here were tossed out of
the cockpit by either the pilot or back seat bomber/gunner. BTW, when I saw that
the Whitehead Aircraft Torpedo supposedly had an 8,000 yard (24,000 feet, or 4.5
miles) range running on compressed air...
 Balsa wood was a special thing to me as a
kid. To me, it represented the essence of model airplanes and model rockets. At
the time - the 1960s and 70s - plastic and foam as model components were considered
a sign of cheapness, low quality, amateurishness. It was like having "Made in Japan"
stamped on it. Now, of course, it's a different world where Japan is renowned for
some of the highest quality electronics and cars and the plastic and foam ARFs represent
some of the highest-performing aircraft at the flying field. I have owned a few
of those foamies, but still, at least for my tastes, nothing beats the look, feel
and aroma of balsa. Somehow the tell-tale surface texture of foam, even with a nice
paint job, ruins the authenticity of an otherwise beautifully factory-finished scale
F4-U Corsair or P-38 Lightning. Sorry, that's just the way it is. Sig Manufacturing
was ...
 Microfilm-covered indoor models is one (of
many) aspects of model airplane building and flying that I've always wanted to try,
but never found the opportunity. You might be tempted to think this is the exclusive
realm of white-haired old men, and admittedly it nearly is, but when you look at
contest coverage in the modeling magazines, it is heartening to see a good showing
of youngsters. For that matter, the same holds true for just about all forms of
model aircraft these days except for radio controlled airplanes and helicopters.
As recently as a couple decades ago, radio equipment was too expensive for many
younger modelers to buy, so those who aspired to hobbies involving airborne craft
had to settle for free flight and control line. Now, the department store shelves
hold no control line or free flight models, but a nice selection of miniature R/C
helis and airplanes. But I digress. This 1954 Model Airplanes News magazine
article by John Zaic is a very comprehensive set of instructions on how to cover
airframes with microfilm, a pyroxylin...
 Being a lover of vintage electronics and
aircraft modeling equipment, I had the bright idea that I would buy a vintage Packard
Bell desktop computer like I had many moons ago and transplant the innards of my
ASUS G750JX Republic of Gamers (RoG) notebook computer into it. After carefully
measuring the notebook computer's outside dimensions and estimating the size of
the various models of PB computers, I settled on a
Packard Bell Legend 406CD and bought it from a guy on eBay. I
wanted the type that actually sits on the desktop, with the monitor sitting on top
of it. The computer arrived as advertised - dirty but in good mechanical condition,
and cleanable. Having never opened the ASUS G750JX ...
 In my continuing effort to help make certain
that the history of Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic series is preserved, this set
of View-Master slides has been scanned and/or photographed as required. If you want
to own this "Snoopy and the Red Baron" set, there are probably copies available
on eBay, which is where I bought this set. It is in like-new condition. Charles
Schulz drew all of the daily comic strips himself, but he did license other artists
to draw his characters for some commercial products, and these appear to be so. In
fact, of all the Peanuts comics I have seen - and I have probably seen most of them
- this accompanying booklet contains the only non-Peanuts type character I can remember
seeing. Picture 19 on the last page shows a nonschultzian [sic] French woman
bidding farewell to Snoopy the World War II Flying Ace ...
 This notice just appeared on the AMA's
National Model Aviation Museum website: "New Addition: Helicopter
Kite Kirt Blattenberger (AMA 92498) and Steven Krick recently donated two older
kits to the museum, including this
Parris-Dunn Little Bobby Helicopter Kite kit." The second kit,
not yet featured on the AMA website, is the
Guillow
No. D4 Menasco Trainer kit. Both were generously given to me by
Mr. Steven Krick, who is an accomplished modeler of highly detailed
plastic static scale model airplanes and a collector of vintage balsa free flight
models. In response to my providing some Silkspan covering information, he offered
to let me select from a list of kits, and seeing these two and the likely rarity
of them, I submitted them the the museum for consideration. They appreciatively
accepted them.
 The "Ephemeris" Class A and FAI
free flight model was somewhat of a sensation in the modeling world back in 1963
when it appeared in the March/April issue of American Modeler magazine because it
featured up thrust. Its designer, R. Jess Krieser, was "thinking outside the box"
before the term was even coined. Mr. Krieser took an engineering approach to redesigning
the Carl Goldberg "Sailplane" model and after examining tables and graphs on L/D
curves on airfoil drag coefficients, settled on the final form factor that became
the Ephemeris. Read about it here...
 This
propeller extension shaft featured in a 1941 issue of Flying Aces magazine
is an example of a concept that seemed like a good idea on paper, but probably proved
to be a disaster in practice. If you have ever had an R/C helicopter with an even
slightly bent main rotor shaft, then you know how the situation causes vibrations
whose severity varies with the amount of bending and the rotation rate of the shaft.
Helicopter main rotors turn at a fairly low rate compared to an aircraft propeller,
although the mass and diameter of the propeller is much less than a rotor. Even
so, I imagine the vibration caused by even a slightly bent propeller shaft extension
when the engine is running at peak RPM is very high - enough to cause the situation
to quickly get worse. It is a runaway situation where the bend increases, causing
worse vibration, which causes more bending, causing greater vibration, etc., etc.,
etc. An additional problem would be caused by the longer moment arm causing additional
wear on the crankshaft bearings and/or bushings, particularly during abrupt change
in the airplane's pitch angle. The proof that propeller extension shafts were not...
 1954 was just a decade after World War II,
during which time the Army Signal Corps introduced a method of printing - or etching
- metallic circuit conductors on an insulator substrate, and thus was born the printed
circuit board (PCB). The first boards used a phenolic-paper laminate, which is the
shiny brown substrate material that is still found in some industrial applications
like motors and control panels. Ferric chloride was used to etch away the copper
foil not masked off with photoresist chemicals. I made many crude PCBs using a resist
ink pen to draw circuit traces and component mounting pads, then etched away the
exposed copper with ferric chloride
purchased at Radio Shack. This line from the article is reminiscent of people
who remarked similarly about the first televisions and computers: "One of the first
questions that arises is: 'What good is it and what do I gain by using it?'" Printed
inductors were already being used, as the photo shows...
 During World War II, Russia was considered
an ally, being part of the Allied forces battling the Axis powers. The Allied countries
were primarily the USA, England, the Soviet Union, China, and France. The Axis of
evil was primarily Germany, Japan, and Italy. Interesting, isn't it, that after
saving Russia from the Germans and China from the Japanese, they almost immediately
became our arch enemies, seeking to destroy the "Capitalist Pigs." Reportedly, Stalin
was originally to join with Hitler, but the two could not agree on how to share
power in the event of victory. Negotiations went awry after both countries invaded
Poland in 1939, which in spite of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, effectively triggered
the beginning of World War II. For a deep dive into behind-the-scenes WWII
actions, be sure to watch the entire six season of Hogan's Heroes ;-)...
 Just as originally intended, a lot of people
have contacted me after seeing themselves, a friend, or a family member mentioned
in one of these articles published in vintage American Modeler and
American Aircraft Modeler magazines. Often, it came as the result of reporting
on a modeling event, like the "Mid-America
Stunt Championships" covered here in "Wild Bill Netzeband's Control Line Capers"
column in the January / February 1963 issue of American Modeler magazine. Do a site-wide
search of Airplanes and Rockets to see if your name appears somewhere. Also in the
article is a report of Veco's new 35C and also on a game-changing monoline control
handle for C/L racing. A comical "Things You Wouldn't Know" section is included
to provide the "real" meaning of words used by modelers. Did you know that Bob Violett
and Cliff Telford of R/C racing fame did C/L racing as well? |
