|
 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...
|
 Melanie and I visited the Udvar-Hazy annex
of the Smithsonian Air & Space
Museum for the first time. We visited the main building in Washington, D.C.,
a time or two a couple decades ago. A major renovation of that facility is underway
now, but with the rewriting of history going on these days, their claim of "reimagining"
the displays is worrisome. It is amazing to me when looking at the airplanes represented
in this story from the November 1969 American Aircraft Modeler that most of them
have been restored by now and are on display in one location or the other. It appears
maybe the authors' pleas were heeded after all...
 My next venture into R/C helicopters after
the DuBro Tristar came about a decade later when I bought an
Ikarus ECO 8 electric
chopper from Hobby Lobby (circa 1998). It was pretty lame in performance (but then
so was I) with the stock motor and a very heavy NiCad battery pack. At least there
were no clutch problems to deal with as those which plagued the Tri-Star. This time
I had a heading hold gyro for the tail rotor and I was actually able to somewhat
fly the thing. The photo of me flying (kinda) my ECO 8 was taken in Colorado
Springs, Colorado, in August of 1998. After losing patience with the poor
performance of the brushed motor and NiCad battery pack, I sold it on an AOL
bulletin board to some guy in Florida. It had not suffered any damage beyond a
slight dent in the tail boom where ...
 Prior to the widespread use of mufflers on
radio controlled model aircraft engines,
exhaust dampers were installed that worked in unison with the
throttle. They were oblong or butterfly-shaped flat pieces of metal that pivoted
in the center and were connected via a short pushrod to the carburetor's throttle
arm. At full throttle, the damper was straight up and down to block the exhaust
port as little as possible. At idle, the damper usually totally blocked off the
exhaust port; of course some exhaust was still able to exit or the engine would
choke out and stop running. The first R/C engines I used in the 1970's came with
exhaust dampers ...
 Here is Melanie with my vintage, circa 1967
Sears "Discoverer" Model 4 6305A 60 mm Equatorial
Refractor Telescope (focal length 900 mm, f15 optics). Purchased
on eBay for a very reasonable price, it was in excellent condition optically and
physically. There are a few minor paint scratches that I plan to repair. After disassembling
all the mechanical parts, cleaning, greasing, and reassembling them, operation is
very smooth. The sun projection screen will come in handy for the April 2024 total
solar eclipse, and incredibly enough my house in Erie, Pennsylvania sits almost
dead center in the path of totality. The shipping / carrying case came with the
telescope. It is constructed with a mahogany plywood top and bottom surface and
with solid mahogany frame pieces. All the hardware was removed and either polished
or painted. The wood was sanded just enough to get it smooth and remove a couple
very minor scratches. I was careful to not erase any of the original already faded
ink stamping on the inside bottom; it has "JAS," with the rest being Japanese. Then,
three coats of semigloss polyurethane ...
 Here is yet another example of how hobbyists
laid the groundwork for technical innovations that were eventually adapted for use
and improved by professional organizations - the military, universities, corporations.
Radio control of model airplanes was first successfully achieved by a pair of brothers,
Dr. Bill Good and Dr. Walt Good (kind of like the Wrights), who experimented with
what were at the time rather crude engines and electronic and electromechanical
devices. The year was 1936, only eleven years before this article appeared in Radio−Craft
magazine reporting on the U.S. Army Air Force's and Navy's use of radio-controlled
drones, or as the title says, "Teleguided
Missiles." Some systems were designed from the ground up to be missiles while
others were systems installed in existing aircraft which had been decommissioned
for normal human-piloted use. They were sort of a Kamikaze craft without the expendable
airman inside...
 Du-Bro's Whirlybird 505 was the first successful
commercial helicopter kit (although successful is a relative term as applied here).
I was fortunate as a kid in Holly Hill Harbor, Mayo, Maryland, because there was
a man down the street from me who was an avid radio control modeler and seemed to
buy just about every new type of radio, engine, and kit available. I would anxiously
await the sound of an engine running, and instantly jump on my bicycle to ride down
and see what he was doing. The strange thing about it was that he had three step-sons
who were notoriously bad actors who counted it as sport to harass and occasionally
beat up guys like me, so I always approached the yard with a bit of trepidation.
The gentleman himself was very nice, and a few times even gave me...
 This
U.S.S. Arizona
battleship model was built and painted by my son, Philip, who was 10 years old
at the time. It is the stock 1/426th scale U.S.S. Arizona Revell kit. Spray cans
of Testors enamel paint were used for the hull and deck, and the small Testors bottles
of colors were used for the airplanes and detail work. His effort paid off with
a 1st Place ribbon at the 2005 Dixie Classic Fair in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Philip was at one time an ardent World War II history enthusiast, being especially
interested in the naval battles of the South Pacific ...
 When this issue of Life magazine came out
in March of 1942, America was only a couple months past when the Imperial Japanese
Navy Air Service executed the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor shortly before Christmas
on a quiet Sunday morning. As with when a group of Muslim extremists attacked America
on September 11, 2001, the vast majority of the country pulled together and delivered
a significant response to the perpetrators. During Word War II, in order to
help train our troops recognize and differentiate between Allied aircraft and Axis
aircraft,
models were built at a scale which would fairly represent what the real thing
would look like in the sky at a distance that placed it within range of anti-aircraft
munitions. The Boy Scouts and other community organizations joined in on the effort,
as well as commercial companies that manufactured identification models (see Uncle
Sam's Plastic Air Force, September 1973 American Aircraft Modeler). Occasionally,
a group of the production models appear on eBay...
 Most aviation enthusiasts, including moi,
think of the Reliant series of airplanes when the name Stinson is mentioned. Edward
"Eddie" Stinson was born in 1893 and at the time of his death due to an airplane
crash, he was the highest time pilot in the world with about 16,000 hours of logged
flight time. The Stinson Aircraft Company merged with Vultee Aircraft in 1932 and
was eventually bought out by the Piper Aircraft Corporation. Here is some interesting
trivia I discovered while researching this 1949 Air Trails magazine article: In
1943, Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee merged, creating Consolidated Vultee Aircraft
Corporation, popularly known as Convair. Convair (ConVAir) manufactured the F-106
Delta Dart, the B-36 Peacemaker bomber with six pusher propeller engines (and later
four jet engines), and also made that familiar XF Pogo vertical-takeoff-and-landing
(VTOL) airplane that had counter-rotating propellers and sat on its tail...
 Just before Christmas 2015, Melanie and
I made a trip to Jamestown, New York, and visited
Lucile
M. Wright Air Museum (no relation to Wilbur and Orville). Is it located in downtown
Jamestown at 300 North Main Street. There are plenty of areas with unmetered parking,
so save yourself a couple quarters by driving a block or two to find it. Admission
is free. "Lucile Miller Wright was a pioneer aviatrix. She was born in Beatrice,
Nebraska and grew up in Billings, Montana. She discovered her love of flying as
a young woman. In 1922 she went on her first flight with General Billy Mitchell,
who was a personal friend of her father, Henry A. Miller. Mrs. Wright continually
battled discrimination in pursuit of her passion...Throughout her career, Mrs. Wright
logged 8,000 hours of flying time in the seven planes she owned and 5,000,000 miles
in commercial aircraft. During World War II, she was the only woman courier plot
in Western New York under the Civil Air Patrol Program..."
 This
cobbler's bench
has been in Melanie's family for a couple generations. We don't know whether it
belonged to a family member who used it for as a cobbling tradesman. It was in pretty
rough shape when it was given to us a couple decades ago. It is constructed of pine
wood, with the main surface being about 2 inches thick. I chose to sand the
finish off rather than use chemical stripper because it was fairly brittle and came
off easily, and also because the wood is somewhat soft, so I did not want to risk
gouging it with a scraper. One of the legs had been broken and needed repair, and
some drawer joints needed re−gluing. All of the square strips on the work surface
were removed for sanding to avoid dark residual finish in the corners...
 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 ...
 The
U.S. Navy's relationship with model aviation used to be very significant,
even to the extent that for many years the service sponsored the Academy of Model
Aeronautics' (AMA) annual National Model Airplane (the Nats) contest. Navy bases
served as the venue for the meets and a large number of Navy personnel provided
assistance with organization, facilities preparation and management, promotion,
event management, and awards ceremonies. The stated purpose was to foster the love
of aviation in young men along with a familiarity with the Navy's environment so
that when they came of age, enlistment - or commission - would be a natural progression...
 Congress
was breathing hard down the neck of NASA while Ranger 6 was being prepared
for its
surveillance mission to the lunar surface. In 1962, Ranger 3, the first
to carry a TV camera, went into orbit around the sun after missing the moon. Ranger 4
(dubbed "Brainless I") impacted the moon but did not send back any data. And Ranger 5
lost power after launch and missed the moon by about 450 miles. Time was running
out to collect data for use in fulfilling the challenge issues by President John
F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, to "...commit itself to achieving the goal, before
this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the
Earth." That challenge was successfully met by the Apollo 11 mission partially
on July 21st, 1969 by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, and then
fully on July 24th when they (Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins) returned safely
to Earth. Ranger 6 unfortunately ended in failure on February 2nd, 1964, when
its TV camera did not return any images...
 Website visitor Kenneth E. wrote to say
that he is working to build a complete collection of the "For the Tenderfoot" models that
were published in American Aircraft Modeler magazine. The "For the Tenderfoot"
series was an attempt to provide motivation to young newcomers to the hobby. They
were a mix of free flight rubber, gliders, and 1/4A & 1/2A control line designs
that built simply and cheaply. Kenneth requested reprints of the following three
models: Saucerer, Ray Malmström: C/L 1/2A, January 1970 Bonanza and Mustang, David
Thornburg: FF HLG, January 1971 Clodhopper, Paul Denson: FF Rubber February 1973... |
