|
 A couple years ago I posted an article about
the Victor Stanzel ElectroMic "Copter" Tethered Helicopter that I had bought on
eBay. It was just like the one I had as a pre-teen in the 1960's. If memory serves
me correctly, I also had one of the ElectroMic Flash Tethered Airplanes as well.
Someday I'll probably buy one of those on eBay. The webpage hyperlinked above has
a video embedded that tells the story of the
Stanzel Brothers' Model Airplane Museum. You will be amazed at
all the types of models they produced - powered airplanes, gliders, helicopters,
flying saucers. They were a couple of the earliest pioneers in manufacturing ready...
 While perusing the local Goodwill store, Melanie
and I happened upon this old
gooseneck
lamp. Unlike most of the newer models found in places like Walmart, this one
is made of heavy stamped steel, and the gooseneck part is very sturdy with no plastic.
When you bend this lamp into position, it stays exactly where you put it without
reflexing back a little. It was just what Melanie needed for use on her sewing table,
so we bought it as a fixer-upper. As can be seen in the photos, the original condition
was useable, but not...
 Our one-car garage does not have a lot of
extra space in it, especially considering it also holds a riding lawn mower, a snow
blower, a backup power generator, and various and sundry yard and car tools. That
doesn't leave much room for the assortment of shoes and boots needed by Melanie
and me. We had been using a stack of cinder blocks to stuff shoes in, but they looked
rather crude and the holes were not really big enough to allow the shoes to be fully
enclosed. After completing building a set of stairs into the basement, there were
end pieces of the stair treads left over that were just the right width to fit into
the space where the cinder blocks used to be stacked. 2x3 framing lumber...
 During World War II, many companies
who manufactured products for the military bought advertising space in popular household
magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal,
Popular Mechanics, Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping,
and, as shown here Life. In this instance,
Lockheed Aircraft Corporation
(before merging with Martin Aircraft in 1995) ran a two-pager in 1942, near the
beginning of official U.S. involvement following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor,
featuring its line of both commercial and military aircraft. The U.S. government
commandeered many companies' manufacturing facilities to mandate conversion to wartime
products. It happened across a wide swath of industries including aircraft, automotive...
 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...
 "Anduril Industries recently unveiled its
collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, when CEO and co-founder Brian Schimpf took
a journalist into the hangar to show off the company's new
Fury, an unmanned autonomous CCA. It was the first time any media outlet was
permitted to view the aircraft up close. As a CCA, the Fury is designed to work
in coordination with manned aircraft. Anduril developed the Fury to sense and understand
everything that is happening in the airspace, and as it flies out ahead of a manned
aircraft, its job is to react to protect the pilot flying in trail. Schimpf said,
'The first thing you notice about this plane is that there's no cockpit. There is
no seat. There's no controls..."
 After just 33 years, this crewel picture
that Melanie stitched is complete and has a
custom frame. If
memory serves correctly, we bought the crewel kit at a Ben Franklin store in Severna
Park, Maryland, in 1985 while living in Arnold, Maryland. She started it shortly
after getting it, and then it was put away until last year, 2017, when she decided
to complete the project. Most, if not all, of the needlework pictures Melanie has
done over the years have been placed in custom frames made by me. I've used pine,
oak, teak, hickory, mahogany, and now maple for this frame. The maple wood...
 Per this 1962 Popular Science magazine
article, while awaiting Mariner 2's historic sweep past the cloud-shrouded planet
of Venus, experts of imagined Earth's nearest neighbor alternately as a lush prehistoric
swamp-world, a dust-choked desert, an endless steamy ocean, or a tar-lake Hades
reeking with oily smog. What they knew for sure: Venus, a near-twin to Earth in
size and gravity, shows only a bright, lemon-yellow veil when viewed through telescopes.
Spectrograms pushed earlier revealed thick carbon-dioxide and a wisp of water vapor,
but no firm answers about rotation speed or surface material. Then came shocking
new microwave temperature data -600 °F surface heat, day and night. It would be
1975 until the USSR's Venera 9 spacecraft landed on the surface and radioed
back the first images...
This particular
Hobby People advertisement is from page 53 of the March 1970 issue
of American Aircraft Modeler magazine. Hobby People was probably the first
company that I ever did mail order from to get airplane supplies. Hobby People is
no longer in operation. All copyrights (if any) are hereby acknowledged. Use the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator to see what items cost in
today's dollars. For instance, that $3.99 "Cox .049 Babe Bee" engine would be $26.16
in 2018 money. The "regular" price of $6.00 would be $39.34 in 2018. Cox International.
Use the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator to see what items
cost in today's dollars. For instance, that $3.99 "Cox .049 Babe Bee" engine would
be $34.05 in 2025 money...
 One of the first woodworking projects I
remember doing after Melanie and I were married and in our own house was making
a paper towel
holder out of some scrap pieces of oak flooring. The wood was in the basement
of the house, probably from when it was originally installed sometime in the 1950s.
A few pieces were glued together along their tongue and groove edges, and then scraped
and sanded to a smooth, flat surface. The bottom curved relief shape was retained
for character. At some point during our many household moves, the paper towel holder
disappeared - we probably donated it as with...
 "From a [maple] seed-inspired design to a
26-minute flight time on a single rotor, a new
monocopter developed by SUTD researchers marks a 10-year journey towards redefining
how efficient small flying robots can be. When Singapore celebrated its 50th year
of independence in 2015, a team of student researchers led by Associate Professor
Foong Shaohui from Singapore University Technology and Design (SUTD) embarked on
an ambitious challenge: to design and build a drone capable of 50 minutes of sustained
flight. At the time, most hobbyist quadcopters could barely manage half of that.
The SG50 Multi-Rotor Drone..."
 At launch in 1962 when this article appeared
in Popular Science magazine,
Mariner 2's planners imagined Venus cloaked by benign oceans or lush swamps
- temperatures perhaps only "hot-house Earth" elevated. Microwave echoes from Earth
hinted at a 600 °F surface, yet editors clung to hope that dense clouds concealed
cooler seas and maybe biology. Infrared spectra were interpreted as carbon-dioxide
greenhouse gases in a thin, relatively clear layer; the idea of surface pressures
a hundred times Earth, sulfuric-acid rain, and global 860 °F basalt plains
lay outside anyone's paradigm. A magnetosphere like Earth's was expected; Venus
instead proved geologically inert and wind-scoured, with sluggish super-rotation.
Fifty years later, radar from Magellan and Earth-borne interferometry have overwritten
1962 optimism with images of barren basalt plains and scorching CO₂ night...
 The
1962 AMA Nationals competition was considered the first major
contest for scale radio controlled airplanes. To wit, this article from the 1963
Annual edition of American Modeler, says R/C scale "finally 'came of age.'"
Proportional radio sets were becoming common and the reliability of the airborne
electronics and batteries was going up while weight and size was coming down. Modelers
were much more willing to trust the radios to safely control models that often took
many hundreds of hours to build. Sharing frequencies at or near to the 27 MHz
band allocated by the FCC to R/C was still a huge risk, but the venues of major
contests provided protected areas that were far enough from most interference...
 "A space domain awareness (SDA) payload
has flown on a sub-orbital spaceplane at supersonic speeds, an advance that could
provide an alternative to conventional satellite-based SDA. Scout Space's 'Morning
Sparrow' sensor suite flew aboard Dawn Aerospace's Aurora platform, an uncrewed
reusable rocket-powered high-altitude aircraft. The flight tested the integration
of Scout's 'Morning Sparrow' sensor suite aboard the Aurora platform, taking off
from Tāwhaki National Aerospace Centre in New Zealand. The flight also marks Scout
as the first commercial operator to fly on Dawn Aerospace's Aurora under a strategic
partnership in which Scout will develop a first-of-its-kind tactically responsive
Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO)..."
 Northwest Orient Airlines, a prominent post-war
carrier, heavily promoted its transpacific and domestic routes in publications like
The Saturday Evening Post during the 1950s. Their advertisements, often
full-page and visually appealing, targeted a broad spectrum of potential travelers.
A common ad format featured a diverse group of Americans - hunters, fishermen, housewives,
and businessmen - representing the airline's wide appeal. This tableau of everyday
life was punctuated by a Northwest Orient Airlines aircraft, often a Boeing Stratocruiser
or Douglas DC-6, gracefully soaring across the page, connecting these disparate
figures and suggesting easy access to destinations both within the US and across
the Pacific. The ads emphasized comfort, speed, and the exotic allure of destinations
like Tokyo and Manila, solidifying Northwest Orient Airlines' image as a modern...
 Japan's SoftBank is developing
airship-based
4G and 5G cell masts. "With more than 8,000 Starlink satellites in the sky today,
low Earth orbit may seem like the place to be to connect the next generation of
Internet and cellphone customers. However, some players are placing their bets slightly
closer to the ground. Starting next year, Tokyo's SoftBank Corp. will be beaming
a prototype 4G and 5G phone and broadband service from the stratosphere to Japanese
end users. Floating 20 kilometers above the Earth, the company's airship-based mast
will be using energy regeneration..."
 Flying model helicopters of any sort were
fairly rare in 1952, when this edition of Air Trails magazine hit the news
stands. The sophisticated, miniaturized, smart stabilization systems of today's
models were not available at any price, and radio control was the realm of military
research vehicles. Methods for driving the rotors included glow and gas engines,
rubber bands, and even Jetex engines. Many free flight helicopters sported the
JETicopter's
arrangement of a pair of engines at the end of a moment arm which caused rotation.
Cox .010 and .020 engines were a popular choice, as were the Jetex engines. I always
wondered what happened when...
 This 1946 Popular Science magazine
ad trumpets the Link trainer as the first ground device that "feels" like real flight.
Drawing parallel with the Atlantic-crossing dirigible R-34, it claims Link alone
lets novices master controls, banks, climbs, stalls, and instrument flying in darkness
or weather - before leaving the ground. Used by the Armed Forces and airlines, it
cuts training time and boosts safety, the ad says; if you want to own a private
plane, Link training is "your first step into the Flying Age." Engine instructor
Ed Link cobbled together the first "Pilot
Maker" in a Binghamton, New York, garage during 1929 and peddled it as a carnival
novelty until the Army Air Corps - embarrassed by a spate of fatal 1934 airmail
crashes...
 Du-Bro was the first American company to
produce a radio control helicopter kit - the Whirlybird 505. That was sometime
around 1972 It was modeled after the way free flight helicopters were built an the
engine and propeller sitting on top of the main rotor, using a free-wheeling rotor
that turned in response to the counter torque of the engine. Fixed pitch rotor blades
were controlled via a flybar assembly as was the case prior to the advent of flybarless
rotor heads. Du-Bro's next helicopter was a much-improved and very popular Hughes 300,
using a driven rotor with the engine mounted in the fuselage. It also used a flybar
for rotor control. Building off that success, they next introduced this
TriStar R/C helicopter. It was smaller than the Hughes 300
and modeled after the RotorWay Scorpion homebuilt helicopter that was all the rage
in the 1970s and 80s ...
 Way back in 1975, my friend, Jerry Flynn,
and I assisted Dick Weber in his successful flight on June 14, 1975, that set a
new FAI Closed Course Record of 225 miles in 5 hours and 38 minutes. We were both
flaggers to signal when the Tortoise has passed the distance markers. See the article
titled, "652 Miles Per Gallon," in the November 1975 issue of Model Aviation
magazine. We were not at all involved in all the painstaking effort that Dick had
put into preparing his model for the record flight. This account of
William Bertrand's trials and tribulations in finally setting
a new radio control world endurance record is valuable insight into what it can
take to achieve such a goal. test after test on engines, fuel, airframe, radio system,
fuel tanks ...
 Ohlsson & Rice Inc., a powerhouse of
1950s American model-engineering, cast legendary glow-plug motors loved by car,
boat, and plane builders. Born in 1941 Los Angeles from ex-Utica Tool founders J.
Ohlsson and R. Rice, the firm cranked out rugged, light cast-aluminum blocks - mainstay
.23 to .49 cu in "O&R 60" and 1.3 hp sparkies - plus ready-to-pounce accessible
throttles, cowlings, wheels, balsa kits, and tools. Garish orange boxes and comics-style
decals made Christmas bright for boys fueling dreams on tether tracks or free-flight,
control line, and R/C. Military sales and glittering awards ensured post-war boom...
 The more things change, the more they stay
the same, as the saying goes. In 1942, when this featured appeared in Flying
Aces magazine, the participation of
women and girls in model aviation was very limited. Being that
it was more than 75 years ago, it might have been attributable to a lack of encouragement
or even outright discouragement by men and boys. However, here it is 75 years later
and the participation rate by women and girls is not that much greater. About the
only time you see them in photos in modeling magazines is when they are young girls
who are part of a schoolroom group activity conducted by an AMA member. the same
goes for model rockets. For that matter, the same goes for model cars, boats, and
helicopters. A lot of money and time...
 1968 was the beginning of the 3-man crew
Apollo era with the first manned space flight of the series, Apollo 7, launching
in October of that year. Model rocketry was all the rage. Per this article from
a 1968 issue of American Aircraft Modeler magazine, the average age of
an American model rocketeer was about 13.6 years. I was 10 years old at the time
and had by that time been building and flying model rockets for a year or two. Being
a fan of both airplanes and rockets - hence this website's name - I liked the
rocket boost gliders. The Estes Falcon, Nighthawk, and Space Plane
models were available at the time. The Falcon was the simplest with a pylon-mounted
engine that ejected with the ejection charge. The Nighthawk was more akin to the
Polish boost-Glider in this article, where the power pod separates from the airplane
and comes down via streamer while the airplane glides back to earth...
 "Sketchbook" (aka "Sketch
Book") was a regular feature in American Modeler magazine. It consisted
of a handful of construction, operating adjustments, and finishing tips and suggestions
(aka "kinks") for model aircraft, rockets, cars, and boats, all submitted by readers.
A staff artist put those ideas to drawings. This October 1958 issue included a twin-engined
control line model that claimed to fly well even if one engine quit before the other
(which was almost always the case on fuel-powered models) - without an outboard
thrust offset - due to both engines being located as close as possible to the fuselage
centerline. Another tip suggested a method for marking and masking off complex,
curved areas for painting by cutting thin strips of Scotch Tape for the initial
outline. One reader showed how to significantly strengthen the wing-to-fuselage
joint...
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.
This is the January 4, 1942, Flyin' Jenny comic strip. I expect that soon there
will be World War II themes...
|
The Airplanes and Rockets Homepage Archive
is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this website since
2017 - and many from earlier years.
|
