 At first I was skipping over these over
these "All Questions Answered" columns that appeared monthly in Flying Aces
magazine, because I thought it was dumb to print responses to questions without
also printing the questions that elicited them. After finally reading this one from
the March 1937 issue, I realized that the questions can be inferred from the responses,
and the information contained in the responses was stuff that required someone with
an encyclopedic knowledge of the aeronautical field and/or someone with access to
scarce volumes of data. Although not explicitly attributed to him, I believe after
reading much of Joe Archibald's work (including the misadventures of Lt. Phineas
Pinkham and his "Happy Landings" column) that most, or maybe even all, of it was
provided by him. Mr. Archibald was himself a World War I flying ace with
a vast knowledge of airplane models, aeronautics, and aviation history...
  The Peanuts© comic strip, drawn by Charles
Schulz, has been my lifetime favorite. That it is also the world's favorite strip
is no wonder. Now that I have crossed the half-century threshold, I tend to look
back at the innocence and complexity of the themes with a perspective other than
simply entertainment - although I still thoroughly enjoy reading them just to get
a few good laughs. Along the way, I have managed to collect a few bits of memorabilia.
Melanie was a Peanuts fan as a child and actually still had some of her girlhood
collection. Part of her dowry when we married was a couple dozen Peanuts paperback
comic books, Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Snoopy Skediddlers, the Snoopy Christmas tree
ornament, a couple Peanuts banners, and a few other odds and ends. The rest of the
stuff like the Snoopy astronaut and the magazines with early Charles Schulz artwork
was purchased off of eBay. Schroeder, Lucy, and Snoopy Bobbleheads (aka Nodders)
were added in November 2012 as well as the Schroeder & Piano...
 "JPL's
Ingenuity helicopter
is preparing for the 50th flight of its 5-flight mission to Mars. Flight 49, which
took place last weekend, was its fastest and highest yet - the little helicopter
flew 282 meters at an altitude of 16 meters, reaching a top speed of 6.50 meters
per second. Not a bad performance for a tech demo that was supposed to be terminated
two years ago. From here, things are only going to get more difficult for Ingenuity.
As the Perseverance rover continues its climb up Jezero crater's ancient river delta,
Ingenuity is trying its best to scout ahead. But, the winding hills and valleys
make it difficult for the helicopter to communicate with the rover, and through
the rover, to its team back on Earth. And there isn't a lot of time or room to spare,
because Ingenuity isn't allowed to fly too close to Perseverance..."
 "Days of the Americans" is one chapter out
of a book entitled "The Big Distance." Per this article which appeared in the December
1945 issue of Flying Age magazine, "The Big Distance, the official story prepared
by the AAF, is to the struggle in the Pacific what Germany was to the European phase
of the war." Unlike the European Theater of World War II, much of the populations
of South Pacific islands were inhabited by people who were barely out of the Stone
Age in terms of cultural and scientific evolution. The arrival of Northern hemisphere
Western and European Anglo Saxons brought a culture of sophistication never dreamed
of by the backwards civilizations indigenous to the islands. That was a common theme
of the villages visited by the McHale's Navy crew in the 1960s TV series. While
reading the story, I was a bit taken aback by the narrative of Americans having
come to the island paradises and bringing their gigantic machines and inexplicable
habits, but then the author states, "There always will be a faction among the elders
who will attempt to establish the basic facts of the legend of the Americans through
use of pure logic, simply pointing out that if the Americans had not been there,
the Japs still would be. If the Americans weren't actually present, the question
will be posed...
 Even
though the U.S. Army Air Force and other research agencies around the world were
at the forefront of experimenting with remote control airplanes, helicopters, tanks,
trucks, cars, boats, and rockets, hobbyists were forging their own paths in the
electronic art. I did not know until reading this article that drones were flown
through the radiation field at the Bikini Atoll atom bomb test site for data collection.
In fact amateur radio operators have long had the privilege of broadcasting for
the purpose of remotely controlling a vehicle - the only scenario of Earth-based
transmission whereby the "control operator" is not required to identify his/her
call sign at an interval prescribed by the FCC (currently at least once every 10
minutes and at the end of the broadcast). Vintage modeling magazines have articles
on early
radio controlled (R/C) airplane experimentation. Target drones subject to remote
control were not just small models, but also full-size aircraft that were deemed
not airworthy enough to carry a human crew...
 Website visitor Richard P. wrote to ask
for me to scan articles from the June 1971 edition of American Aircraft Modeler
magazine. The two articles, subtitled "A Study in Design Ideas," feature two control
line stunters, the F-4 Phantom
and the B8 Crusader, presented together as complimentary models but with varied
construction techniques. Designed and built by two separate modelers, Bill Suarez
and Vic Macaluso, respectively, they are similar in that both represented at the
time "the Navy's best current jet fighters," both have tricycle landing gear, have
wingspans in the 55-60" range, and use inverted mounting for a .35-size engine.
The big difference between the two is that the Phantom ahs a built-up wing while
the Crusader has a foam core wing...
 The
AirplanesAnd
Rockets.com website exists entirely on the support of its visitors
by way of a small percentage earned with your
Amazon.com purchases, which typically works out to less than
$10 per month. That barley covers the domain registration and secure server fees
for AirplanesAndRockets.com. If you plan to buy items via
Amazon.com, please click on this link to begin your shopping
session from here so that I get credit for it. Doing so does not cost you anything
extra. Thank you for your support.
 Some guy in the Netherlands has a collection
more than
230 classic autos, many in showroom condition, that have just gone up for auction.
I would love to be able to afford just one nice pickup truck from the 1960s or 1970s.
My 1st choice would be a 1952
Ford F−1 stepside like the one on the Sanford
and Son TV show (I have the DVD set). "An elderly car enthusiast’s astonishing
collection of 230 rare classic cars has been discovered by a Dutch auction house,
and the lot, including European and American cars collectively worth millions, is
soon to be sold at auction. One particular, 'undeniably stylish and sophisticated'
sports car from the 1950s is expected to fetch in excess of 675,000 euros ($729,432).
Former professional car dealer Ad Palmen of the Netherlands, 82, had been collecting
cars for decades. He stored them in a church and two 'dry but dusty' warehouses
in Dordrecht until his ailing health forced him to sell them all ... Mr. Palmen
started collecting cars approximately 40 years ago, with a yellow Lancia B20 being
the first car..."
 "The Federal
Communications Commission will officially launch its
Space Bureau tomorrow, reflecting the agency's reorganization to deal with increased
interest in satellite-based communications. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel proposed
the reorganization late last year and the Commission unanimously approved it in
January. The change splits the International Bureau into two 'separate, cooperative
units' within the FCC: The Space Bureau, which will focus on 'policy and licensing
matters related to satellite and space-based communications and activities,' and
Office of International Affairs (OIA), which will coordinate FCC work with foreign
and international regulatory authorities. The FCC has already received applications
for 64,000 new satellites, indicating just how much the sector is booming - particularly
in the area of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. In the coming years, tighter integration
between 5G terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks is expected to emerge. Early
use cases for smartphone-based satellite connectivity are already in play, such
as T-Mobile US' deal with Starlink to share spectrum..."
 It really is amazing how quickly aeronautics
evolved in the mere four decades between when the Wright brothers first flew their
Flyer until when this 1945 issue of Flying Age magazine printed a
history of development of propellers. The technology went from fixed pitch,
hand-carved wooden models to variable pitch, machine formed and finished high strength
metal alloy variants. Those c1945 props needed to withstand the incredible forces
of not just 1000-plus horsepower engines, but the centrifugal force and bending
moments imposed on them by high speed rotation and rapid changes in axial orientation
as the airplanes they were attached to performed high−G maneuvers. Research and
development from American, European, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese engineers and
scientists are to be primarily credited...
 "The
Aerokopter AK1-3 is a Ukrainian-designed and built helicopter distributed by
Warsaw, Poland’s Manufaktura Lotnicza as the Argon AK1-3 Sanka. The aircraft is
supplied as both a kit and a complete, ready-to-fly helicopter. In several Slavic
languages, Sanka is the term for sled. Designed to comply with Ukrainian AP-27 rules
- which approximate the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) CS-27 standards
- the AK1-3 is a conventional helicopter featuring an enclosed, two-occupant cabin;
a single main rotor; and a boom-mounted anti-torque rotor. The aircraft is powered
by a four-cylinder, air-cooled, four-stroke, 156−horsepower Subaru EJ25 engine designed
to run on automotive gasoline..."
 Here is the method I came up with to straighten
what were initially very
bowed (lengthwise)
and cupped (depthwise) laminate countertops. An Internet search on recommended
ways to correct it turned up nothing. Many suggested that with as severely curved
as mine were, the best thing to do is to discard them and buy new countertops. That
was not an option for two reasons. First, after the COVID scamdemic the cost was
double what it had been just two years prior. Second, the scamdemic, in early 2022,
was still causing a major shortage of building materials, so finding a suitable
selection was nearly impossible. Having been a woodworker for many decades, there
have been a few times I needed to remove warps, twists, or bows from wood surfaces.
Cutting a crosshatch pattern on the underside for stress relief and then flattening
and bracing the surface always did the trick. Attempting to flatten the countertop
by weighing down the edges and screwing the top to the base cabinets would not work
because the tension in the curve would likely have caused the laminate on the top
to split. Cutting slots in the bottom surface made the less-thick wood easily bend
back into a flat surface. The slots were cut about a third of the way through from
the bottom, and were spaced 2 inches apart...
 "Plane Views" was a monthly feature of
Flying Age magazine, with this installment being from the December 1945
issue. Flying Aces changed its name to Flying Age in the middle
of 1944, probably to focus on the rapidly advancing aeronautical technology prompted
by World War II. Whereas Flying Aces was full of fictional stories
of flying aces during World War I and the interim up though the middle of World
War II - along with plans for airplane models - Flying Age was essentially
an entirely new magazine with very little in the way of model aviation and none
of the adventure stories. Many Flying Aces readers were highly upset at
the extreme change, especially since it essentially abandoned the Flying Aces Club
as well. The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) had no involvement with either the
Flying Aces or the Flying Age magazines. In fact, I don't recall
the AMA ever being mentioned. The AMA had its own magazine that went by various
titles over the years, including American Modeler, American Aircraft
Modeler...
 "No, it's not hypermodern art. This image,
generated by NASA's high-performance computers, shows a Transonic Truss Braced Wing
(TTBW) aircraft concept being tested in a virtual wind tunnel, showing how its wings
interact with the air around them. In this case, the dark red area along the front
of the wing represents higher-speed airflow as the TTBW's wings, which are thinner
than those of today's commercial airliners, pierce the air. The tan-colored area
shows the relatively smooth wake generated by the aerodynamic wings. A TTBW aircraft
produces less drag due to its longer, thinner wings supported by aerodynamic trusses.
In flight, it could consume up to 10% less jet fuel than a standard airliner. The
Advanced Supercomputing Division of NASA's Ames Research Center in California
created this image as part of an effort by the Transformational Tools and Technologies
project to develop computational tools for TTBW research..."
 The "BS" part of this device's name must
refer to the FAA's outrageous requirement that R/C hobbyists carry identification
devices aboard every model - not just drones but even
gliders
and power planes. The $89 (+ tax and shipping) price tag is a far cry from the FAA's
promise of "inexpensive" devices. This is yet another unnecessary tax upon citizens.
"Dronetag has announced their 'Dronetag BS' system as a cost-effective method to
bring consumer UAVs into Remote ID compliance. Dronetag BS is, of course, short
for 'Dronetag Basic Solution,' though
the company is sure to draw in some eyes with their brash take on the normally staid
UAV market. The firm will offer Dronetag BS for an
introductory price of $49 upon its
May 22 drop date, offering the special for the first 24
hours of its release. For those that miss the intro rate, the standard retail price
will remain at $89. The firm obviously has its feet in the trenches with the average
drone pilot, admitting that many don’t quite think much positive regarding the new
Remote ID regulations.
The Dronetag BS allows operators to easily bring their small aircraft into compliance
with a compact..."
 Here I am in my back yard in Erie, Pennsylvania,
"playing" with my newly acquired (in June)
Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope.
City lights are fairly bright here to the east and west, but farm land is to the
south and Lake Erie begins two miles to the north, so that limits the light pollution
somewhat. Erie is not that large of a city, so that also helps. Still, compared
to the truly dark skies in areas I have lived in Vermont and Colorado, the seeing
is noticeably bad. I haven't had a chance to try any of the filters that came with
the eyepiece and filter kit that came with the scope. I also bought a Celestron
NexImage camera for use with the telescope. It is only good for really bright objects
like planets and the moon, mainly because the stock interface does not allow long
time exposures. However, there is a hack online that modifies it for longer settings.
The pixel resolution...
 When I first began perusing the large collection
of Flying Aces magazines that I bought on eBay, I enthusiastically read
all the fictional adventure stories of, well, flying aces, like Richard "Dick" Night,
Kerry Keen (aka "The Griffon"), "G−2" secret agent Cap. Philip Strange, Battling
Grogan and his Dragon Squadron, and others. For some reason I skipped over the adventures
of Lt. Phineas
Pinkham, of the 9th Pursuit Squadron. Maybe it was because of the way he was
drawn that I figured it was just a dumb story about a hayseed doofus and wouldn't
be very good. One day I decided to actually read through one of the stories, and
much to my surprise discovered that the series was as good as any of the other aforementioned
yarns - with a lot of humor to boot. Lt. Pinkham is sort of the Boonetown,
Iowa, World War II version of LA police detective Lt. Columbo (whose first
name we were never made privy to). As did I, people assume he is a bumbling fool
who couldn't figure out the simplest of schemes by nefarious evil-doers, but in
actuality he is an extremely clever strategist and prankster who, in the manner
of the famous Canadian Mountie Dudley Do−Right, "always get his man." See if you
agree...
|
Academy of Model Aeronautics
-
