 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!
 Here is a clever
control
line airplane carrier deck design that derives it lightness from sparse construction
and its compactness from making the modular components stowable within each other
sort of like the familiar Russian matryoshka nesting dolls. Appearing in the March
1962 issue of American Modeler magazine, it is designed to accommodate a 60' circle,
but slight modifications to the deck components can be easily made for other radii.
Not shown in the plans but likely possible without sacrificing strength and rigidity
would be to drill lightening holed in the 1"x6" and 1"x8" frame members...
 This
Hiller
Helicopters XROE-1 "Rotor-cycle" looks a lot like the Bensen Gyrocopters that
seemed to be in every magazine in the 1960s and 1970s (including this May 1957 American
Modeler edition), either as a feature story or in the advertisements in the back.
A couple James Bond movies even featured them as high-tech, futuristic flying machines.
The U.S. military experimented for a while with the personal gyrocopter concept
for surveillance and search and rescue operations, but it never really went anywhere.
Remote-controlled drones do a lot of that work these days. Significant improvements
have been made in airworthiness over the years and now there are many personal gyrocopters
in use around the world - both homebuilt and commercially built...
 "Aerospace innovators from government, commercial,
and university arenas are developing technologies that would make supersonic flight
over land possible, dramatically reducing travel time anywhere in the world. With
these advances, engineers also are working to make aircraft more environmentally
friendly, eliminating toxic emissions and reducing the amount of energy required
for flight. NASA, for decades, has led the effort to study sonic booms - the loudness
of which is considered the key barrier to enabling a future for overland, commercial
supersonic aircraft. That future will be closer to reality when the agency's
X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) airplane takes to the skies in 2022,
taking the first steps to demonstrating the ability to fly..."
 This is the Sunday, January 16, 1944, "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...
 My
Blade 230 S V2
R/C Helicopter and Spektrum DX6 G3 R/C System are For Sale as a package
deal at a bargain price. The video shows the heli and radio in use just prior to
packing everything into the original boxes. I promise you it is in excellent condition
and ready to fly. The helicopter has never had a crack-up and has always been flown
with the training gear, so the even the rotor blades are excellent. I have put about
75−100 flights on it using the two 800 mAh LiPos. Here is more info and a flight
video...
 "The
gigantic Stratolaunch aircraft flew Thursday for its second time, taking to
the skies over the Southern California desert The six-engine jet with the world's
longest wingspan took off from Mojave Air and Space Port two years after its maiden
flight, following a change in ownership and purpose. 'We are airborne,' the Stratolaunch
company tweeted at about 7:30 a.m. The behemoth safely touched down on its 28 wheels
about three hours later and Stratolaunch called the flight test a success. Named
Roc, the twin-fuselage aircraft has a wingspan of 385 feet (117 meters). It was
developed by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, who died just months before it
flew for the first time in April 2019..."
 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 July/August 1966 edition of
American Modeler, 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 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...
 "After proving powered, controlled flight
is possible on the Red Planet, NASA's
Mars
Ingenuity helicopter has new orders: scout ahead of the Perseverance rover to
assist in its search for past signs of microbial life. The next phase extends the
rotorcraft's mission beyond the original month-long technology demonstration. Now,
the goal is to assess how well flyers can help future exploration of Mars and other
worlds. 'We're going to gather information on the operational support capability
of the helicopter while Perseverance focuses on its science mission,' Lori Glaze,
director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, told reporters Friday. "
 If you are looking for a simple stick and
tissue model airplane to build, the Flying Aces
Super
R.O.G. fits the bill. The fuselage is a stick like the (former) dime store Comet
wind-up rubber band models, and the empennage components are built up from 1/16"
square balsa. Interestingly, the wing ribs are made from thin bamboo strips that
are bent to an airfoil shape, which results in a high lift undercambered cross-section.
You can probably substitute medium to hard 1/16" square balsa if bamboo is not available.
If you want to stick with the original construction, bamboo shish kebab or chop
sticks are pretty cheap at Walmart. Covering is Jap tissue. The R.O.G.'s wingspan
is about 16".
 "DARPA's mission to develop
AI fighter jets has moved a step closer to take-off. The agency recently tested
algorithms in two-on-one aerial combat simulations. The military research agency's
algorithms took down an Air Force pilot in a virtual dogfight last year. In February,
the Pentagon's 'mad science' unit tested how they'd perform as a team. The battle
pitted two friendly F-16s against a single enemy aircraft. Each fighter jet was
equipped with a gun for short-range engagements and a missile for more distant targets.
Colonel Dan 'Animal' Javorsek, program manager in DARPA's Strategic Technology Office,
said testing multiple weapons..."
 Website visitor Kurt S. let me know
about a PBS show entitled "The Great
Electric Airplane Race," which first aired on May 26th. It covers a wide range
of developments on electric aircraft - from early stages of development to models
in or near the commercial production stage. Ingenuity and commitment amongst participants
is amazing. The state of the art of electric motors and controllers has advanced
significantly in the last two decades to the point where is seems there is not room
for much more in that realm. Aircraft structures are necessarily incredibly lightweight
and strong. The Achilles Heel of the effort is battery weight, bulk, and safety.
Pointed out in the show is how a long distance airliner would require more than
100x the weight of jet fuel in equivalent batteries, and then they wouldn't fit.
We (they, actually) will eventually get there, but some radically new type of energy
storage will be needed.
 When deciding which type of covering to
apply to a model airplane structure, it would be helpful to have a table of
covering material density for
comparison. Here is such a table which shows, for instance, that 21st Century Fabric
is the heaviest type of covering you can use. MicroLite covering is the lightest
weight. Not shown are most doped or painted coverings because finished weights are
so dependent on substrate type (silk, Silkspan, tissue, etc.), paint or dope type,
and number/thickness of coats. To calculate the covering weight, multiply the density
by the total surface area of your model...
 Is
this cool or what? Of course I'll never be able to afford one (maybe an R/C model
someday, though). "Electric boats of all shapes and sizes are beginning to make
a splash in the maritime sector. It's estimated that maritime greenhouse gas emissions
account for around 2.5% of the global total, marginally ahead of the 2% that aviation
contributes. If shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of
CO2 after China, the USA, India, Russia and Japan. International shipping - much
like long-haul flight - will not be electrified any time soon, as the energy density
of batteries simply cannot facilitate it. And for an industry that’s recently committed
to halve its emissions by 2050..."
 In 1960 when this article appeared in
American Modeler magazine, radio control (R/C) was still in its infancy and
was a rich man's sport (mostly). R/C also required an amateur radio operator's license
in order to use the transmitters. Control line and free flight constituted the purview
of the vast majority of aeromodelers.
Towline gliders
were very popular in areas where enough open area was available - and back then
there was a whole lot more open area than there is today. Take a look at the backgrounds
of photos and movies in the 60's and before and notice how relatively undeveloped
the land was, even around larger metro regions. Anyway, this article offers sage
advice to modelers considering getting into towline gliders. Many kits were available
in the day...
 "NASA's
Ingenuity helicopter safely landed after wobbling, suffering power spikes, and
enduring velocity fluctuations on its sixth flight at Mars, officials said Wednesday.
The helicopter took off May 22 on its sixth automated flight and completed the first
leg of a planned 705-foot excursion without a hitch. But Ingenuity started tilting
back and forth in an oscillating pattern, encountering roll and pitch excursions
of more than 20 degrees, registering large control inputs, and suffered spikes in
power consumption, according to Havard Grip, the helicopter's chief pilot at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Ingenuity overcame the glitch, which engineers
traced..."
 This "Spirit of 76" glider from Hobby
Shack was another of the models I always planned to buy someday, but never got around
to it. Hobby Shack is long gone now, and finding one of these vintage kits is nearly
impossible. Now, as then, my funds limit what I can justify buying (and a 920 sq.ft.
house limits storage), so I didn't bid on this "Spirit of 76" that showed up a few
months ago. This model is particularly memorable since it is named the same as the
theme for my Southern Senior High School graduating class yearbook for 1976. The
photos presented here were downloaded from an eBay sale. They typically sell in
the $75 to $150 price range when in good condition and all the parts are included...
 A
total lunar eclipse will happen on May 26th, but I won't be able to see it from
my [disad]vantage point in Erie, PA. It will coincide whit when the moon is near
its closest approach to Earth, so it will appear very large, aka a "supermoon."
While the supermoon is usually a good thing for those wishing to view the surface
features, it makes for a lousy eclipse because it is in the Earth's shadow (the
umbra) for a shorter period of time, making totality shorter - in this case a mere
15 minutes. Oh well, maybe you will get to see it. The longest
total lunar eclipse
of the 21st century has already occurred, on 7/27/2018 (1h42m57s), and the shortest
was 4/4/2015 (4m43s).
 I purchased a couple batches of vintage
Popular Electronics magazines off of eBay for use on my engineering website,
RF Cafe; however, upon scanning through the pages I was pleasantly surprised to
find that many articles on
radio controlled
airplanes were included. The 1950s and 1960s were relatively early in the R/C
sport, and such things were still considered a novelty. Of course, today the toy
shelves of even Walmart are full of R/C products. Kids today take them for granted...
as I suppose my generation took for granted Erector Sets and Lincoln Logs. Anyway,
I have begun scanning and OCRing (Optical Character Recognition) some of the articles
and posting them here on AirplanesAndRockets.com. This first Popular Electronics,
from the December 1954 edition, was written by none other than Bill Winter...
 Here is a fairly unique free flight rubber
model named the "Scotch
Monoped" partly due to its having a single wheel and partly due to its designer
being of Scottish heritage. It is of simple stick and tissue construction, and full-sized
planes were published in the December 1939 issue of Flying Aces magazine. "Scotty"
Mayors says he made it inherently stable under all conditions by providing lots
of side area in the fuselage and dual vertical fins. The airfoil is a rather thick
flat-bottomed section. A look at the open framework reveals that minimum weight
was a goal, since even the wing ribs have lightening holes cut in them. I forgot
to scan the wing plan sheet...
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