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 "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 ..."
 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 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 ...
 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 ...
 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
...
  "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 ..."
 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 ...
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 "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 ..."
 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 ...
 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 ...
 "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 ..."
 "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 ..."
 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 ..."
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 - Archives -
Companies Team to Develop Avionics for Drones
FAA to Discontinue DUATS Program in May
Webb Telescope's Launch Delayed Until 2020
Aviation, Social Mobility, and the American Dream
Amazon, Google, Others Developing Private Air-Traffic Control for Drones
AOPA Announces 2018 Scholarship Programs
National Aviation Hall of Fame Reveals Class of 2018
Voyager 1 Fires up Thrusters After 37 Years
>$135,000 in Aviation Scholarships Now Available from EAA
 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 ...
 "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 ..."
 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 ...
 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 ...
 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 ...
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