|
 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 ...
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...
 "Engineers at the University of Maryland,
College Park (UMD) have found a way to make wood more than 10 times times stronger
and tougher than before, creating a natural substance that is stronger than many
titanium alloys. 'This new way to treat wood makes it 12 times stronger than natural
wood and 10 times tougher,' said Liangbing Hu of UMD's A. James Clark School of
Engineering and the leader of the team that did the research. 'This could be a competitor
to steel or even titanium alloys, it is so ..."
 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 ...
 Like many little girls who were born in the
1960s, Melanie had a small collection of
Suzy Homemaker toy appliances. Old photographs from birthdays
and Christmases past document the times they were received. Melanie had the Suzy
Homemaker Oven / Stove and the Suzy Homemaker Clothes Iron. Since hers was long
gone my the time we got married in 1983, we decided to look for them on eBay. As
with just about everything ever made, we easily found them in nice condition. Neither
the oven nor the iron came with their original boxes because those are very expensive.
This page of Suzy Homemaker products appeared ...
 "With photographers poised to capture the
moment and spectators watching in person and from all over the world online, the
C–47 "That's All, Brother" took off from Wittman Regional Airport on a clear, blustery
afternoon, circling the airport and concluding the brief flight with an overhead
pass, accompanied by a Beechcraft Bonanza chase plane. The flight crew included
pilot-in-command Doug Rozendaal, second-in-command Tom Travis, and engineer Ray
Claussen. According to the Commemorative Air Force, which acquired and restored
the airplane. The Oshkosh flight, the first ..."
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 ...
 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 ...
 "RocketLab has successfully launched their
Electron Rocket. It took three small satellites into orbit. The company is preparing
for a possible Moon mission later this year. U.S.-based spaceflight startup company,
Rocket Lab completed their second successful test flight this weekend reaching orbit
for the first time. The company's Electron rocket launched from New Zealand at 2:43
PM local time on Sunday, and successfully deployed three commercial satellites about
eight and a half minutes later. This was Electron's first full ..."
 "NASA has successfully used a heat-activated
shape memory alloy to morph an aircraft's wings in flight tests, an advance with
potential benefits for subsonic and future supersonic aircraft. The flights which
took place at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, was part of
the SAW (Spanwise Adaptive Wing) project that aims to validate the use of a lightweight
material to fold the outer portions of aircraft wings and their control surfaces
to optimal angles in flight. SAW ..."
 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 ...
 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 ...
 Another important
discovery by an amateur scientist has occurred. Mr. Víctor Buso was testing a new
CCD camera on a 16" personal telescope from his home in
 Argentina
when he noticed a star suddenly appeared in an exposure. It then grew in brightness
over successive exposures. He had captured the very first sighting of a supernova
in its initial stage of exploding. Realizing the gravity of his discovery, he alerted
the astronomy community. Astronomical research institutions worldwide immediately
trained their telescopes on the event to make detailed scientific measurements.
Interestingly, this all occurred in September of 2016, but is just now making headlines
everywhere ...
 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 ...
 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 ...
 Ronald Valentine engines is one of the very
few manufacturers remaining of miniature model aircraft engines - both glow fuel
and diesel, single- and multi-cylinder. Prices are amazingly reasonable, too. "We
are the manufacturers of the world's smallest model engines. We have been manufacturing
miniature model engines for over 30 years. We specialized in 2-stroke diesel engines
for model airplanes, boat and cars. Next to this we manufacture multi-cylinder
engines 2-stroke and 4-stroke as glow or diesel engines. Our challenge is to develop
and present the world's finest ..."
 "For years, Lockheed Martin Corp. has been
developing a successor to one of the fastest aircraft the world has seen, the SR-71
Blackbird, the Cold War reconnaissance craft that the U.S. Air Force retired almost
three decades ago. Lockheed officials have said the hypersonic SR-72 - dubbed the
'Son of Blackbird' by one trade journal - could fly by 2030. But a rather curious
talk last week at an aerospace conference by a Lockheed Skunk Works executive implied
that the SR-72 might already exist ..."
 Aircraft historians might find the information
from this 1942 edition of Flying Aces magazine useful. As has long been
the case on many Russian airplanes and helicopters, the basic outlines - and often
even the details - are recognizable from the original versions designed by the United
States, England, and Germany. The Russkies have been short on design and test capabilities
and long on materials, manpower, and espionage agents. It wouldn't be so bad if
the copying was not so obvious. Even their attempt at a space shuttle was a carbon
copy of ours. If not for their leaders' commitment to Communism and Socialism, Russia
could be ...
 "Cornell University engineers have been experimenting
with a new type of programming that mimics the mind of an insect. The developed
sensors and algorithms may soon support autonomous, small-scale robots like Harvard
University's
RoboBee, an 80-milligram flier that could perform a variety of
roles in agriculture and disaster relief. Even the most lifelike bug-bot could be
thrown off by a gust of wind or a mid-air obstacle. Cornell's sensing system aims
to steer a RoboBee around trouble, adjusting its flight to avoid ..."
 "NASA's $8.8B
James Webb Space Telescope has completed critical end-to-end testing
in a giant vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center, proving the telescope will
work properly in the deep cold of space, bring starlight to a sharp focus and precisely
track its astronomical targets when launched in 2019, engineers said Wednesday.
'The successful completion of this test represents a very significant milestone
for JWST,' said Bill Ochs, the telescope's project manager at the Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'It verified the alignment of the telescope ..."
 I am in the process of building a control
line C-47 Skytrain model using plans drawn by Walter Musciano. I knew making the
scale landing
gear was going to be a challenge because it requires bending two pieces of 1/8"
music wire with six 90° bends apiece. It seems easy enough in theory, but in practice
getting the opposing axel end to line up in opposition is not trivial. Making the
first one took two tries, as did the second one. the problem was that the two did
not match each other very well. I tried fudging it by bending some weird angles
to get the spacing right, but the lengths of the legs were different enough ...
 December 1967 was the last edition of the
Academy of Model Aeronautics' American Modeler magazine, and this January
1968 edition of
American Aircraft Modeler was the first with the new name.
Interestingly, editor Bill Winter does not mention the name change in his monthly
"Straight and Level" column. For that matter, I checked up through the May issue
and still no mention. Printing and distribution lagged publication for many months
back in the day, but usually comments of previous editions began appearing within
three or four months. Nothing. Anyway, here are some ...
 William Shatner (aka "Captain Kirk" of the
original "Star Trek" television series) hosted this 1977 video produced by Estes
Industries. Titled,
Model Rocketry - "The Last Frontier", it shows not only snapshots
of various Estes model rockets, but also video of actual launches from cameras mounted
on the rockets and cameras mounted at the base of the launch pad - pretty cool for
the day! ...
 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 ...
 There is an old adage about aircraft that
says with enough power just about anything can be made to fly. The F-4 Phantom and
F-104 Starfighter jets are prime examples. In 1957, kids and adults were still obsessed
with flying machines and created all sorts of crazy craft. Flying dog houses, witches
on brooms, flying doors, flying lawnmowers, and flying outhouses were popular novelty
projects. Ken Willard even created a Flying Bandana. This
Cox .049-powered box kite doesn't fall into the same category as an F-4 Phantom,
but it does apply as far as making anything fly if you hang an engine on it. Although
author McLarty claims you can adapt a toy store box kite ...
 Your knowledge of model aircraft kits, engines,
and equipment will need to stretch back a couple decades to score 10 out of 10 on
this model
aircraft themed quiz. Winners get a free 1-year subscription to the Airplanes
and Rockets website. Good luck ...
 "Autonomy options for the Marine Corps have
taken a major step forward, as the Office of Naval Research completed a helicopter
flight demonstration with autonomous capability that will enable the Marine Corps
to rapidly resupply forces on the front lines. The system consists of a sensor and
software package that can be integrated into any manned or
unmanned rotary-wing aircraft to detect and avoid obstacles in
unfavorable weather conditions ..."
 Mr. Jose Lozano wrote recently to let
me know about his RC drone resources website called
RC Hobbies on Air. As
with many people these days, Jose appears to have really become a drone (multirotor)
enthusiast - enough so to create an entire website dedicated to helping others decide
what is the best way to get started with RC drones. He gives a rundown on features
and characteristics of various modern drone models. If you have been considering
getting into RC drones, then you might want to give his site a
looking over ...
 Radio-controlled battleship combat is a major
sport these days with serious "players" investing thousands of dollars into their
craft. The all-electric model boats are scale replicas of actual battleships and
sport multiple screws (propellers), bilge pumps, gyro stabilizers, fully motorized
and steerable gun turrets complete with CO2-powered BB-shooting guns. The models
take hundreds of hours to build, rig, and test. The objective is, after all, to
literally sink your opponent's ship! The California model in this American Modeler
magazine article actually carried "twelve 38-cals and ten 22s" - something you won't
find today ...
 "If you were there in person, you already
know: AirVenture 2017 was a big success. If you missed this year's excitement
in Oshkosh, let the numbers tell you everything you need to know. More than half
a million people attended, making this the biggest AirVenture ever, and those guests
were treated to more than 10,000 aircraft and so many thrilling air shows. We'd
say EAA has its work cut out to make the 2018 show better than this one, but we
won't be shocked when it happens. So much happened at this year's AirVenture that
it was almost impossible to cover it all, but here's a look back at some of our
favorite ..."
 "Today it's impossible to think of the golden
age of air racing without an R-1 or R-2 Gee Bee roaring across the mind's eye. To
the aviation public, the
Gee Bees air racing - and vice versa. And that's only right. When
Granville engineer, Pete Miller, drafted the first lines for the 'R' series of Super
Sportsters, there was no way he could have known that he was designing a legend.
And an airplane that would have people shaking their heads for the next 70 years.
In fact, since the last Gee Bee roared around a pylon in 1933/34 there have been
no ..."
 Kansas City Radio Control Association (KCRC)
has been around for many decades. Its AMA club number of #390 was assigned in 1954. That
was 66 years ago as of this writing, but it was only 8 years old when this feature
article appeared in American Modeler magazine. Since at least 1962, the KCRC flying
field (now named "Charles W. Reed III Flying Field") has been located
just west of Lake Jocomo, in Kanas City. This article discusses not just the KCRC
flying site, but many of the others in the surrounding area. I count 11 on the included
map, including parks, schools, and parking lots. It is interesting to compare the
maps ...
 "On 13 November 1907, French engineer and
bicycle maker Paul Cornu made history by becoming the first man to fly in a
rotary wing aircraft. The primitive helicopter - a twin-rotor
craft powered by a 24-horsepower engine - only lifted Cornu about 1.5m off the ground,
holding him there for 20 seconds at Coquainvilliers, near Lisieux in France. But
that was enough for Cornu to take his place in the history books as the first man
to successfully fly a rotary wing aircraft. Paul Cornu was born in 1881 in the French
town of Lisieux, where the local high school is named after him to this day. Once
he reached working age, he joined his father ..."
 "The only aircraft engine to be designated
an historic landmark. Advances in propulsion are what drive aviation development.
Innovative airplanes almost always start with innovative engines, and the airframes
follow. In 2016, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers celebrated just such
an engine. The society designated the
Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp a technology landmark, the organization’s
highest award, because the Wasp singlehandedly brought about a leap forward in aircraft
performance and economics. The tale of its development is still ...
  Another great American company is circling the
drain! I've been a contented Tower Hobbies customer since the 1970s. "Hobbico filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, which could
result in 332 layoffs at its Champaign facility. In a statement, Hobbico said that
it plans to sell the company and will continue operating throughout the bankruptcy
process. Hobbico also said that as it has grown, it has added too much debt and
hasn’t been able to successfully restructure, especially facing 'an increasingly
competitive industry, market headwinds and a series of one-off events with key suppliers."
Hobbico was formed in 1986 when Clint Atkins combined two companies he bought: Don
Anderson's Great Planes Model Distributors and Bruce Holecek's Tower Hobbies, which
was founded in 1971 ...
 If you are looking for a little bit different
type of control line model, then
Short Snorter might fit the bill. It was designed by George Hinz
and appeared in the October 1958 issue of American Modeler magazine. Short
Snorter is .20 to .35-size stunt or combat model that is essentially a flying wing,
and features a built-up fuselage and wing. The wingspan is around 40", but of course
since you will be printing the plans, you can make the model larger or smaller.
standard construction materials and methods are used throughout. Mr. Hinz cautions
about making certain that the center of gravity is properly located since a tail ...
 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 ...
 On December 12, 2017, President Trump signed
legislation that has the effect of reversing the earlier court ruling in the John
Taylor case and restore the FAA's
sUAS registration requirement, including for AMA members. "AMA believes that
registration makes sense at some level, but has pushed for a more reasonable threshold.
While we address these issues, members will be legally required to comply with the
FAA registration requirement." It does not make sense to me because as
usual, law-abiding people suffer the inconvenience and cost of legislation, while
the majority do as they please. Fortunately, I kept my registration card from January
of 2016 when this outrageous scheme began ...
 Here is a list of many
classic modeling magazines
that are now or have been in print within the last decade or so. Unfortunately,
most of these magazines are now out of print. Some have disappeared altogether while
others have online-only editions. Fortunately, though, a few benevolent souls have
taken it upon themselves to scan hundreds of past issues and made them available
in PDF format at no charge to everyone. The Archive.org website's Wayback Machine™
has captured many years worth of the magazines' webpages, so all ...
 Mr. John Hawthorne contacted me recently
about an article he published on the IQS Directory website titled "Are Flying Cars Coming to the Skies?" It reviews two most notable
examples of research and development by companies - AeroMobil, Terrafugia (Latin
for "escape the earth") - and mentions Uber's ambition of providing rooftop taxi
service in high traffic urban areas. We are still a long way off from the goal of
flying cars being a common sight, or ever a rare one for most of us. There are still
many technical, safety, and regulatory obstacles to overcome before you or I will
be transitioning our person ride from an automobile to an airplane or helicopter
anytime soon.
 The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) just
announced in the January 2018 issue of
Model
Aviation that they are now offering
commercial drone insurance. Liability insurance with protection
of $½ million, $1 million, $2 million or more is available,
plus you can also get hull insurance on the drone platform itself. AMA Membership
is required for purchase, but you do not need to be a member to get a quote
using the online form. ...
 "BAE Systems has unveiled a new aircraft
design that could be a major advance in stealth technology. The new
MAGMA drone does away with aircraft control surfaces, resulting
in an aircraft whose shape remains constant throughout its entire flight. The small
demonstration aircraft, which has completed a successful first flight, uses blown
air to change direction instead of complex mechanical controls. Most airplanes look
unmoving in flight, like a wing hanging off a giant tube plowing through the sky.
Look more closely however and you'll see smaller ..."
 Radio controlled aircraft were really still
in their infancy in 1953. Many R/C transmitters, receivers - all vacuum tube circuits
- were beginning to appear in hobby magazines, but other than operating in FCC-designated
frequency bands, there was not much in the way of standardization
in modulation schemes. Therefore, intercompatibility between brands - or even between
model types within a brand - was not guaranteed. The names you see mentioned here
- Hal deBolt, Walt Good, Howard McEntee, Claude McCullough - were for a long time
the most prominent figures ...
 "You've heard, 'One small step for man. One
giant leap for mankind,' but how about a lesser-known quotation from the Apollo
lunar mission like: 'Ok, we still got radar landing guidance.' The University of
Texas at Dallas launched a project to make all of the moon-mission audio accessible,
from the memorable to the mundane. Dr. John H.L. Hansen, Chengzhu Yu, Dr. Abhijeet
Sangwan, and Lakshmish Kaushik pose with a model of an astronaut at the NASA Johnson
Space Center in Houston. The four oversaw the project to ..."
 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 ...
|
 John Collins is the undisputed
Paper Airplane Guy. He set a new world record flight distance
of 26 feet, 10 inches, in 2012. He wrote a book titled,
The World Record Paper Airplane and International Award Winning Designs.
This article is from an appearance on the Conan O'Brien show, and includes a video
of Mr. Collins demonstrating how to fold and launch paper airplanes ...
 "The San Diego Air & Space Museum's Library &
Archives recently launched a new online exhibit commemorating the
100th Anniversary of U.S. Airmail. On a fog-shrouded May 15th,
in 1918, the first airplane to provide regularly scheduled airmail service in the
United States took off from the Potomac Park polo grounds in Washington, D.C., headed
to New York City, a 218-mile route. Sponsored by the U.S. Post Office, and personally
sent off by President Woodrow Wilson, this has proven to be a most important day
in our nation's history ..."
 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 ...
 Every couple years
a Crosley 03CB console radio shows up on
eBay. I keep a
Saved Search to get an e-mail when one becomes available, mainly to get an idea
of how many are still around. My research based on Newspaper.com issues of old newspaper
advertisements indicates the Crosley 03CB models were primarily sold in the PA,
NJ, NY, DE, CT, OH, and MD areas. Per the eBay listing: "Working condition, lights
up and plays some stations. Need some refinishing on the cabinet." If you are looking
for a restoration project, this would be a good subject for only $50. As can be
seen from
my restored Crosley 03CB radio, the cabinet and electronics are
very robust and attractive. It's worth a look ...
 "It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and nobody
was flying. My open-cockpit biplane, a
Great Lakes 2T-1A-1, was just the answer for a relaxing start
to the day. It's a great airplane for sightseeing. It flies low and slow, and turns
on a dime. I departed Montgomery Airport (KMYF) in San Diego and put down at nearby
Gillespie Field (KSEE) for a delicious cheese omelet. When I departed, it was still
a ghost town; the Gillespie controller even offered an intersection departure on
the perpendicular runway, just for fun. I departed into the clear, gorgeous empty
sky. What could possibly go wrong? I let my instincts ..."
 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 ...
 "Drones are not, as is often assumed, a 21st-century
develop-ment. Far from it. Their history goes back more than 100 years, but the
rate at which they are changing our everyday life continues to accelerate. So we
thought it is worth looking back and seeing where the concept came from, how it
developed, and where it stands today. Given the current rate of change, it's obvious
we're only seeing the tip of what is going to turn out to be a very big technological
and cultural iceberg.
Drones constitute a fundamental transformation in both military
and civilian realms. In an unmanned air system (UAS), the miniaturization in technologies ..."
 1938 was still two decades away from when
America would launch its first Earth-orbiting satellite and three decades from when
man would first walk on the moon, yet work was well underway by enthusiastic aerospace
engineers, scientists, astronomers, project managers, and others to accomplish those
goals. While this
Boys' Life article boasts of rockets attaining speeds of
800 miles per hour, leaving Earth's gravitational pull for a trip to the moon would
require a escape velocity of 25,000 miles per hour. Telescopes powerful enough to
survey the moon's surface for determining a safe location for landing were being
readied with telescopes like constructed 200-inch Hale reflector ...
 "MIT engineers have designed a
robotic glider that can skim along the water’s surface, riding
the wind like an albatross while also surfing the waves like a sailboat. In regions
of high wind, the robot is designed to stay aloft, much like its avian counterpart.
Where there are calmer winds, the robot can dip a keel into the water to ride like
a highly efficient sailboat instead. The robotic system, which borrows from both
nautical and biological designs, can cover a given distance using one-third as much
wind as an albatross and traveling 10 times faster than a typical sailboat. The
glider is also relatively lightweight, weighing about 6 pounds. The researchers
hope ..."
 Less than a year before the U.S. was officially
drawn into World War II with surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, American fighter
pilot Lieutenant Thomas McBride provided this first-hand report on what he perceived
to be the current status of the
German air force (Luftwaffe). While in France he noted bizarre
behavior of young German pilots, often with no more than a few hours of flight instruction,
making deadly rookie flying mistakes and strafing ambulances and farm animals for
sport and blood lust. Older pilots with slower reflexes were put in higher performance
aircraft and could not compete with younger British pilots, while plebes in the
same airplanes could not, due to insufficient training, handle the power and maneuverability.
Blacking out under high G forces and not allowing sufficient altitude for vertical
bombing runs spelled the end to many Luftwaffe airmen ...
 Having been a typical kid in the 1960s and
70s, I had an
Erector Set. It was Set 3 per my memory, based on remembering
the box lid picture. You might recall a set or two of your own. Alfred Carlton Gilbert
founded the A.C. Gilbert company in 1909 in Westville, Connecticut, and produced
many varieties of Erector Sets, as well as other educational hobby items like chemistry
sets (I had one of those, too). The A.C. Gilbert Engineering Society website has a really nice history
on the company and lots of photos - including likely one of the Erector Set your
parents gave you ...
 "For robots of all sizes, power is a fundamental
problem. Any robot that moves is constrained in one way or another by power supply,
whether it's relying on carrying around heavy batteries, combustion engines, fuel
cells, or anything else. It's particularly tricky to manage power as your robot
gets smaller, since it's much more straightforward to scale these things up rather
than down - and for really
tiny robots (with masses in the hundreds of milligrams range),
especially those that demand a lot of power, there really isn't a good solution.
In practice, this means that on the scale of small insects ..."
 SIG Manufacturing, forever located in Montezuma,
Iowa, is among the ranks of a dwindling number of America's original model airplane
kit and accessories makers and distributors. Sig's catalog from the early 1970s
was the first hobby catalog I ever owned. You can bet I read it cover-to-cover many
times, wishing to own everything on its pages. In case you don't know, the name
SIG is a shortened version of Sigafoose, which is the last name of the company founders,
Glen and Hazel Sigafoose. According to a press release, "In February 2011 SIG Manufacturing
Co., Inc. was purchased by Herb Rizzo (President), David Martin (VP and General
Manager), and Ron Petterec (VP) ...
 This is the January 25, 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 ...
 "Promising results from recent ground testing
and a funding boost provided by a new NASA budget passed by Congress earlier this
year helped NASA leadership decide that the 4-pound Mars Helicopter could be ready
in time for launch with the space agency's next rover mission in July 2020. 'You
should see the big smile on my face right now,' said Mimi Aung, project manager
for the Mars Helicopter mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California. 'It's phenomenal because this has never been done before.' In an interview
with Spaceflight Now on Friday, Aung said nearly 5 years ..."
 Website visitor Dan T. (see his photos
from a decades-ago use of this method) wrote to ask that I scan and post this article,
which appeared in the 1962 Annual edition of American Modeler magazine,
on
making fiberglass cowls. It is a variation on vacuum bagging that
exploits the even tension applied by the elasticity of a rubber balloon. Although
limited to relatively small forms, it has the advantage of low cost and complexity,
and it eliminates the potential nuisance of the mold release agent not being fully
coated and causing separation issues. This method will probably not work too well
with shapes that need localized indented areas more than 1/32" to maybe 1/16" deep
(like cooling fins). The article did not originally make ...
 "Recent research demonstrated that, although
most wing shapes used today create turbulent wake vortices, wing geometrics can
be designed to reduce or eliminate wingtip vortices almost entirely. In the study,
the vortex and wake characteristics were computed for three classic wing designs:
the elliptic wing, and wing designs developed in classic studies by the researchers.
It's common to see line-shaped clouds in the sky, known as contrails, trailing behind
the engines of a jet airplane. What's not always visible is a vortex coming off
of the tip of each wing - like two tiny horizontal tornadoes - leaving behind a
turbulent wake ..."
 "By today's
standards,
warbirds are clunky, noisy, dirty, inefficient and expensive to operate, not
to mention almost completely impractical. Despite those drawbacks, owning and operating
a warbird can be thrilling. Flying an ex-military airplane demands pilots update
their flying experience to ready themselves for the challenges of handling an airplane
that’s often configured with conventional landing gear and connected to power plants
that create sizable amounts of torque. Most warbird pilots told us they began their
warbird experience by logging time in either a T-6 or Stearman ..."
 Rosie the Riveter is perhaps most recognized
symbol of wartime aircraft production, having come about in World War II (although
women also built trucks, tanks, guns, sewed uniforms, made boots,...). She is also
symbolic of
women entering the workforce en masse. After WWII, many women
went back to being housewives and raising families with war-weary servicemen looking
to resume peaceful lives. The respite didn't last long, as the Korean conflict began
within a week of the time the first atom bomb was dropped on Japan in August of
1945. The U.S. entered the fray in fall of 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea.
Once again, America's women answered ...
 "The startup is building short-haul aircraft
for Boeing and JetBlue that combine gas turbines and batteries . In the century
that's elapsed since the dawn of commercial aviation, air transportation has become
pretty well refined. Yet paradoxically, it's easier to fly halfway around the world
than to travel to a nearby city. As a result, many people shun air travel when taking
short trips. ..."
 "Virgin Galactic successfully launched and
landed its Unity spacecraft by rocket power, completing its first powered flight
in almost four years. Richard Branson's space company shared a photo of the SpaceShipTwo
model spacecraft as it blasted into the air above the Mojave Air and Space Port
before going supersonic and landing safely. "VSS Unity completed her first supersonic, rocket-powered flight
this morning in Mojave, California. Another great test flight, another ..."
 After seeing an article titled, "High School
Aviation: California Style," from the June 1968 issue of American Aircraft Modeler
magazine, website visitor Janice H. sent me a copy of this 1972 document titled,
"A Status Report of Aviation and Aerospace Education in California,"
by Earl W. Sams, California State Department of Education, Sacramento. Janice
is working to get the Anderson Valley High School in Boonville, California, to create
a memorial to the program and its administrators and students ...
 "NASA has given Lockheed Martin a $247.5M
contract to build a
supersonic airplane that might help speed up air travel. The Concorde
was fast. Indeed, it was capable of speeds up to just over twice the speed of sound
(Mach 2.04 or 1,354 mph) and flying from New York to Paris took just over 3.5 hours.
But that speed came with issues, the biggest of which were the loud sonic booms
created by the Concorde when flying faster than the speed of sound. The FAA banned
overland supersonic commercial flights in 1973 because of the noise and complaints
created by sonic booms. This meant supersonic flight was only allowed over oceans ..."
 Competitive model boating was a popular sport
in the 1960's as radio control systems became more affordable and reliable. Of course
if you have a glitch in your radio with a boat, the consequences are usually much
less that with an airplane. This report in a 1962 edition of American Modeler
magazine tells of one California model boating club that lost its "field" (a park
lake) due to "excessive and unnecessary noise." Yep, it was happening way back then.
On the other hand, it also reports on a club in New Jersey where the parks department
constructed a pier for them to use. As usual, your fortunes depend on the preferences
and sentiments of government bureaucrats. Many people these days are using brushless
motor setups in their ...
 Today, the House of Representatives passed
the
FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (H.R.4), a long-term reauthorization
of the FAA. We are happy to share that Section 336, also known as the Special Rule
for Model Aircraft, is included in this bill with meaningful refinements that we
supported to help make it stronger. We especially want to thank the thousands of
members who participated in our Call to Action in the last few weeks to let Congress
know the importance of protecting our hobby. Your efforts during this critical time
have made a significant impact. While much of what we fought for was included in
this bill ...
 Stepan Dokoupil and Patrik Svida founded
3DLabPrint in 2015 in Brno, Czech
Republic. Since that time, they have literally revolutionized flyable model airplanes.
The 3D-printed models like this Spitfire are utterly amazing. There are currently
14 scale designs including a P-38, P-51D, F4U, P-47, BF-109, MIG-15, and PT-17,
plus a trainer. The guys at FliteTest put together this video and one for the
P-38 Lightning.
You'll find many other on YouTube.
 "Engineers at German automation giant Festo
have unveiled a flying semi-autonomous robot based on one of nature's most unusual
mammals: the flying fox. The robot was developed by the group's Bionic Learning
Network, a cross-disciplinary group of scientists and engineers tasked with developing
a handful of concepts each year, in order to explore concepts that may help shape
manufacturing in the future. The firm typically unveils the fruits of these labours
ahead of each year's Hannover Messe. Previous creations have included robot ants,
penguins, kangaroos, seagulls ..."
 Typical of the era, this
Art Chester Racer control line model is very curvaceous and ruggedly
constructed. Modelers of the day enjoyed crafting models of full-size airplanes,
often requiring months of building an finishing. For many, it was their only means
of participating in the exciting realm of aerospace - at least until old enough
to earn the money required to engage in full-scale aviation. Hobbyists lived the
lives of their pilot heroes vicariously through models. In the time between then
(1950's) and now, private aviation has gone through a cycle of being relatively
expensive to own and/or fly airplanes, to a time ...
 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 ...
 "British businesses will soon be able to
compete in the commercial space race using UK spaceports following the passing of
the Space
Industry Bill. Receiving Royal Assent on 15 March 2018, the bill is hoped to
build on Britain’s existing expertise in the space sector by unlocking a new era
of space innovation, exploration and investment. It is envisaged that British businesses
and institutions will be able to launch small satellites and scientific experiments
from UK spaceports, which are also expected to facilitate future developments ..."
 "Pilot
Frances 'Fran' Bera, who accumulated more than 25,000 flight hours,
ferried surplus military aircraft after World War II, set a world altitude record,
and taught and examined pilots for more than seven decades, died February 10 in
San Diego, California, at age 94. According to recognition posted on the Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum’s Wall of Honor, Bera's aviation feats included a
tryout for the astronaut program, flying as a chief pilot for aircraft manufacturers
Beechcraft and Piper, numerous air races, and more than 3,000 check rides as an
FAA ..."
 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 ...
 This is the January 18, 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 ...
 This thankful commemoration
of the 20th anniversary of
U.S. Air Mail service from Burgess Battery Company, which appeared
in a 1941 issue of QST magazine, encompasses most of my major lifetime interests.
First and foremost, from my earliest memories, is a love of airplanes (and all things
that fly for that matter). A DC−3 (my favorite multi-engine propeller plane) is
shown in one of the photos as is a Ford Trimotor, which Melanie and I have flown
on. Next comes the electrical, electronics, and radio communications aspects, which
encompasses the aircraft wiring ...
 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. It took a lot of patience to be able to get good quality items at
an affordable price. The "Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz" book was very helpful
in identifying which Peanuts memorabilia items were made. The author mentioned that
the rarest Hungerford doll
piece was the piano that came with Schroeder, so a saved search was placed on eBay
and after about a year ...
 Ah, the simpler times when enjoyment, competition,
and industry could be found on a
slot car race track in a musty basement. Pre-fab models were rare
in the day, and those that could be bought couldn't hold a candle to those hand
crafted by young men like the ones in these photos. It was not a pastime only for
the younger set, though. Older guys with metal lathes and fine crafting tools created
museum quality masterpieces ...
 "The death of pilot Harry Brooks 90 years
ago ended dreams of an 'air Flivver.' Long before Elon Musk, there was Henry Ford. Never
satisfied to revolutionize just one industry, he typically worked on several at
once. Over the course of his career, beside mass-producing Model Ts, Ford dabbled
in shipbuilding, home construction, rubber planting in Brazil, radio broadcasting,
soybean farming, and, for a brief period in the 1920s and early 1930s, aviation.
In 1925, Ford introduced the all-metal Tri-Motor ..."
 This is a complete set of the
Peanuts Bobblehead (Nodder)
figures. They're not perfect, but in pretty good condition. Over time, our Peanuts
collection of memorabilia has grown 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. The "Peanuts:
The Art of Charles M. Schulz" book was very helpful in identifying which Peanuts
memorabilia items ...
 "Dutch company PAL-V prepares to bring the
world's first
flying car to the market next year. The production version of
the flying car PAL-V Liberty has made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland.
The Dutch company said that it is working on the final certification process to
make the car legal. PAL-V also said that the certification process would begin after
the Geneva Motor Show. The PAL-V Liberty looks more like a race car than an aircraft,
according to automotive experts. The car has a narrow body and has two side-by-side
seats on the front. The car ..."
 "A bankruptcy court judge approved Horizon
Hobby's $18.8M purchase of Hobbico's remote-control business Monday, which means
 Hobbico employees must reapply for their
jobs at Horizon before the purchase is completed Friday. Hobbico's more than 300
employees were made aware of this possibility last week, after Horizon was the lone
bidder in a bankruptcy auction for Hobbico, which filed for Chapter 11 protection
in January with the goal of finding a new buyer. 'As mentioned in yesterday's Town
Hall Meetings, Hobbico employees who are interested in being considered to work
at Horizon Hobby are ..."
 These
model aviation themed comics appeared in the September and December
1962 issues of American Modeler magazine. I am scanning new model aviation
comics as they become available - and as time permits. If you have editions of any
of these old magazines and would either scan the comics and e-mails them to me,
or perhaps send me the magazine (I'll pay shipping), I'll be glad to post them ...
 "A Chinese research team has developed an
ultrafast plane which can also carry dozens of people and tonnes
of cargo. The team says the plane can travel at hypersonic speed and can fly between
New York and Beijing in two hours, which usually takes 14 hours on a passenger jet.
The two cities are approximately 11,000km apart. This means the plane will travel
at more than 6,000km/h (3,700mph), 5x faster than the speed of sound. The team is
also involved in China's top-secret hypersonic weapons ..."
 Every week
Model Airplane News sends out an e-mail that includes
a link to a page of tips and tricks for building models. There are usually about
10. This week's has a great tip about using your X-acto knife handle to get a fixed-depth
cut - pretty clever! There are also a trick for stopping your propeller from slipping
while tightening, a West Virginia airplane trailer, and ballast ...
 "A shark skin-inspired design can dramatically
improve the lift of an aerofoil, according to researchers in the US. The tiny tooth-like
scales on a shark's skin called denticles have previously been shown to reduce drag,
this latest research shows that they also boost the lift-to-drag ratio of an aerofoil.
As well as offering paths to improved aerodynamic design, the researchers say that
their work provides important insight into the role of shark morphology on swimming
efficiency. Like most fish, shark's ..."
 Model rocketry was a big deal in the 1960's
as America and Russia pursued the great Space Race. The U.S.S.R. had effectively
trumped us by launching the Sputnik a year before we put the Explorer 1 into
orbit. Yuri Gagarin made it into space before Alan Shepherd blasted of atop the
Mercury Redstone rocket in his Freedom 7 capsule for a couple orbits around
the earth. Boys (and a few girls) around the world proudly referred to themselves
as "rocketeers." Since the Academy of Model Aviation (AMA) usually allocated space
(no pun intended) for model rocket-relate news and evens, it is no surprise that
the sport was included in the "Model World on the International Scene" features. Single-channel
radio control ...
 "This donut-shaped drone, not technically
known as a dronut, offers a tasty combination of safety and ease of use. At last
year’s CES, Cleo Robotics was showing prototypes of a palm-sized drone with a design
unlike anything we’d ever seen. Shaped like a donut, the Cleo drone is essentially
a ducted fan, with a pair of completely enclosed propellers (one on top of the other)
and then a camera, battery, and electronics housed inside the shell. Its compact ..."
 "This video is
part of a series of video clips make while on my way to watch
Mad Mike Hughes
launch his steam-powered Flat Earth rocket on March 24th, 2018. I first met 'Mad
Mike' and his friend 'Pioneer Pat' back in 2017 during one of Mike's first launch
attempts. I decided to ride my motorcycle out to the desert to root him on for today's
planned launch. Go Mike!!! The launch was a perfect success!! 1872 feet! Mike's
hurt, but he will be alright. This was one of the most interesting and moving <video>"
 The first
model airplane
comic on this page appeared in the January / February 1963 combined issue of
American Modeler. The bottom on is from the June 1960 issue of the British
model aviation magazine Aero Modeller. I am scanning new model aviation
comics as they become available - and as time permits. If you have editions of any
of these old magazines and would either scan the comics and e-mails them to me,
or perhaps send me the magazine (I'll pay shipping), I'll be glad to post them ...
|
|
