|
 As with so many other aspects of technical
application, the state of the art of
rubber motors has advanced significantly
since the writing of this article - not that the information contained herein is
anywhere near obsolete (except trying to find Pirelli rubber). Rubber motor braiding
techniques, lubricants, the rubber length, width, thickness, modulus, composition,
has all been studied and characterized to the nth degree so most of the guesswork
is gone as far as the actual motor performance is concerned. Still all the other
variables in the airframe and propeller system (prop, bearing, gearing)...
 "Unknown
drone activity forced one of the U.S.'s most critical military installations to
shut down for several hours late Friday evening and Saturday morning, officials
confirmed. The incident prompted heightened security measures and temporarily
halted operations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Home to the 88th
Air Base Wing, Wright-Patterson is one of the largest and most strategically important
bases in the U.S., tasked with advanced research, intelligence, and operations.
Unauthorized drone activity in military airspace poses significant risks, from espionage
to safety hazards. In audio recordings by the Air Force Base air traffic control,
which were shared online, an operator can be heard saying they are diverting 'over
base' air traffic..."
 Lifeguard duty is the latest application
for radio-control systems and the combination of modern high-powered electric motors
and Li-Ion batteries. An Arizona-based company called Hydronalix has created a robotic
flotation device to deploy to reach swimmers in distress when a lifeguard can't
get there soon enough. The robot is called EMILY, which is an acronym for
Emergency Integrated Life-saving
Lanyard. EMILY weighs 25 pounds, can go up to 25 miles per hour and can be used
as a flotation device for up to six people. Its batteries will run the device for
about 15-20 minutes...
 The 1939 Thompson Trophy Air Races, held
in Cleveland, Ohio, was the final show for that series until after World War II.
Roscoe Turner was there in his Meteor LTR-14 racer. He had won top spot the
year before with a speed of 283 mph, and in 1939 at 282 mph. In a unique
turn in aviation career tacks, Turner conjured up a scheme where, based on equally
unique circumstances largely of his own design, adopted a lion as a mascot to sell
his services as a corporate products promoter. His first big success was with Gilmore
Oil, after which the lion was named. "Gilmore" flew around the country with Mr. Turner...
 The AirplanesAndRockets.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.
 The
Cessna 336 and
337 Skymaster hold a unique place in aviation history as distinctive twin-engine
aircraft with a push-pull configuration. Their design addressed the challenges of
asymmetric thrust inherent in traditional twin-engine aircraft, with both engines
mounted along the centerline - one in the nose as a tractor and the other in the
tail as a pusher. Development began in the late 1950s, led by Cessna engineers under
the leadership of company president Dwane Wallace. By February 1961, the first prototype
of the Cessna 336 took to the skies, featuring a fixed landing gear design. Production
of the 336 began in 1963, but it faced limitations in market success due to its
performance constraints and non-retractable gear...
 Don Berliner wrote a historical article about
the Bellanca 28-70 Irish
Swoop racer for the August 1972 edition of American Aircraft Modeler
magazine. Bjorn Karlstrom provided one of his masterpiece 4-view illustrations.
I scanned, OCRed, and posted the contents for your convenience. The Academy of Model
Aeronautics still provides full-size drawings and plans for most of the airplanes
featured over the years. "The Bellanca 28-70 was a long-range air racer designed
for James Fitzmaurice Irish pioneer aviator, who christened it Irish Swoop. Although
it was built in time for the 1934 MacRobertson Race from England to Australia, it
was never destined to be a competitive long-distance racer but it was ultimately
reborn..."
 "On the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland,
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne is home to many roboticists. It's also
home to many birds, which spend the majority of their time doing bird things. Flying
is a lot of work, and many birds have figured out that they can instead just walk
around on the ground, where all the food tends to be, and not tire themselves out
by having to get airborne over and over again. 'Whenever I encountered crows on
the EPFL campus, I would observe how they walked, hopped over or jumped on obstacles,
and jumped for take-offs,' says Won Dong Shin, a doctoral student. 'What I consistently
observed was that they always jumped to initiate flight, even in situations where
they could have used only their wings.' Shin is author on a paper published today
in Nature that explores both why
birds jump to take off, and how that can be beneficially applied..."
 Up until the United States of America officially
entered what became known as World War II (on December 7, 1941, following the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), what we now call World War I was referred
to only as "The War." Recall that is was dubbed by H.G. Wells to be "The War to
End All Wars." It did not. This "Snapshots of the War" piece in the March 1937
issue of Flying Aces magazine features what air power looked like in the
early days of World War II. Interestingly, the "cocarde" (aka "cockade") referred
to in the wrecked De Havilland D.H.-4 was, according to most contemporary sources,
a term used to describe similar insignia worn on military head dresses and jackets.
Insignia painted on military equipment was called a "roundel." There is a very nice
photo of a Clerget rotary engine as it was mounted in the Sopwith Camel, along with
the twin Vickers machine guns mounted to fire through the propeller via synchronization
...
 The role of the
flight engineer
is one of the most significant yet increasingly historical professions in the history
of aviation. Introduced during an era when aircraft systems grew increasingly complex,
the position of flight engineer bridged the gap between pilots and the intricate
mechanical and electrical systems of larger, multi-engine aircraft. The history
of the flight engineer position is closely tied to the evolution of aviation technology,
airline operations, and the military's increasing reliance on heavy aircraft during
and after World War II. The position of flight engineer first emerged in the 1930s
with the advent of multi-engine commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 314 Clipper
and the Douglas DC-4. These aircraft required a dedicated crew member who was responsible
for monitoring and managing the various systems, including engines, fuel, hydraulics,
pressurization, and electrical systems...
 As a lifelong admirer of Charles Schulz's
Peanuts comic strip, I occasionally buy a collectible item like a Snoopy music box
that plays "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," a plastic Schroeder and piano figurine,
a Charlie Brown Skediddler, or a Snoopy astronaut from the Apollo era. This time
I bought the edition of TV Guide that announced the first showing of the "A Charlie
Brown Christmas" cartoon. Also in this edition is the announcement of plans
to preempt regular programming to televise the launch of the Gemini VII spacecraft,
which carried astronauts Frank Borman and James A. Lovell. It launched right on
time at 7:30 pm on December 4th, 1965. "As his millions of fans long since have
discovered, under that inept, ineffectual, bumbling exterior of Charlie Brown's
there beats a heart as soft and sweet as a marshmallow. In the sequence on these
pages, drawn exclusively for TV Guide by Charlie's creator, Charles Schulz, he becomes
concerned about the true meaning of Christmas...
 I've been using X-acto tools since my teenage
years the early 1970s. Before that, my razor knife blades were either the single-edge
hardware store type or double-edge blades copped from my father's safety razor (those
were truly dangerous, even with one edge taped). Half a century later, I now have
a selection of many flavors of X-actor blades and handles. As the chart above shows,
there seems to be an X-acto blade for every purpose. I often wondered what they
were all meant for, until I found this
X-acto Blade Usage Chart
from the company. Like most people, by far my most often used blade is the trusty
#11. I've been through hundreds of them. X-acto also makes a wide variety of specially
shaped carving blades, including vees, cups, circles (routers)...
 Most people these days are probably now
aware of an aeronautical profession that up until around the early 1980s was a vital
part of aviation - the
flight
engineer. This 1950s article in Air Trails magazine highlights what
was at the time a very prestigious and sought-after position for people wanting
professional level careers in both commercial and military aviation. Since the 1930s,
aircraft were rapidly growing larger and more complex. Most had two to four engines,
retracting landing gear, pressurized cabins, autopilots, electronic and celestial
navigation, long distance routes, and increasingly crowded airways. All that plus
en route and destination airport weather, and even ground traffic clutter at
airports...
 This is part two of a series from the March
1957 issue of American Modeler magazine that briefly introduces a dozen
winning free flight models and comments from their designers. Current day modelers
who like to fly the vintage (old timer) airplanes might pick up a useful tip from
the masters of the golden age of free flight. Materials have not changed a lot since
then, other than maybe the use of carbon fiber in the airframe, and no doubt engine
technology has gotten better, but the fundamentals of trimming for the powered and
glide portions of free flight pretty much remain the same...
Anyone who watched the
WKRP in Cincinnati TV sitcom back in the 1970s has to remember what was one
of the funniest episodes ever. Here is the 4 minutes that made Prime Time history.
In this Thanksgiving episode, station owner Arthur Carlson decided he would surprise
the community with good deed - that doubled as a promotional stunt for his radio
station - by dropping turkeys from a helicopter for lucky shoppers at the local
shopping mall. Watch the disaster unfold as Les Nessman reports live, and then see
Carlson's final comment that is still used or alluded to in many comic routines.
Posting this video is an RF Cafe tradition. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
 "A team of students at the University of
Southern California has officially set a
new record for the highest amateur space launch - and they've set the bar very,
very high for anyone who tries to beat it. The rocket, Aftershock II, reached a
height of about 470,000 feet (about 90 miles), passing the existing record for highest
amateur space flight by about 80,000 feet. The launch The team's successful launch
took place on October 20, though it took roughly a month for the student team to
verify the data via a report this month. That data showed that the amateur rocket
traveled roughly five-and-a-half times the speed of sound during the launch. To
perform the test, students from the USC Rocket Propulsion Lab traveled to the Black
Rock Desert, since the playas and dry lake beds there proved suitable..."
 This brief piece from the October 1950 issue
of Air Trails magazine was a springboard into articles on
control line models for beginners. The Peppy Trainer, for example, is 28" wingspan,
flat−bottom airfoil control line model with a solid balsa fuselage and tail surfaces.
It used a .09 engine - which would typically be easier to adjust and keep running
than a standard .049 engine. That article also recommends more than a dozen other
good trainer models to server both the rank control line beginner and someone just
getting into control line aerobatics. Many have built-up fuselages, which the experts
claim is best for high precision maneuvers since the rigidity of the 3-dimensional
structure minimizes twisting, keeping the alignment between the wing and horizontal
stabilizer consistent. There are low-wing, mid-wing, and high-wing configurations,
both scale-like and non-scale...
 Destination Lancaster pledged $100,000 toward
finishing construction of the new
Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The Museum is expected
to become a top destination and draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Aerospace
Valley area near Lancaster, California. Art Thompson, Chairman of the Flight Test
Historical Foundation (FTHF) said, 'This significant pledge from Destination Lancaster
demonstrates their vision for the economic growth and tourism potential of our region.
The new museum will serve as a cornerstone attraction, drawing aviation enthusiasts..."
 Airplanes and Rockets website visitor Michael
M. wrote to request that I post this article, along with the ones for the
Satellite 1000 free-flight champion,
and The Giants of Free Flight. His reason was that he wanted to get his flying team
back together again in Bill Hunter, who passed away recently. This 1972 American
Aircraft Modeler magazine article on covering with Mylar is very extensive
and is another example of such efforts that were common in hobby magazines of decades
ago - a large part of my motivation for making them available. It is rare...
 1943, in the midst of World War II,
was about the beginning of the time when all the
fantastic predictions of flying cars, video phones, domestic robots, two-day
work weeks, meals in pill form, self-driving lawn mowers, self-driving cars, moon
and planet habitats, and other creations were being pitched by technical magazines
like Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Science and Mechanics,
Mechanix Illustrated, and others. Even the "women's" mags were full of
promises of automated everything to make housework simpler. While many of the fundamental
inventions has since been created, only a few have evolved to full maturity as envisioned.
A flying machine in every garage is one which has not. Such a Jetsons...
 We will be moving back to Erie, PA, where
overcast skies dominate, and the city lights kill views, so I am going to try to
sell this before leaving. I'd keep it as a museum piece for display if I was going
to have room, but we might be going into an apartment. The entire system has been
stripped down and refinished, with original components retained for authenticity.
Included are telescope, mount, clock drive, finder scope, 9 mm and 18 mm
eyepieces, 2x Barlow, dust covers. This is truly a unique opportunity. Please contact
me via e-mail if you are interested in buying it. Local pick-up only, or I'll deliver
for $50 within 100 miles of Greensboro, NC, with payment in advance...
 Here is a very simple technique for creating
and applying custom
lettering - or even complex graphics - using Monokote covering. It makes cutting
out and positioning the individual pieces easy on flat surfaces or surfaces with
a simple curve or bend. Complex surfaces like cowls and wheel pants can be more
challenging, but at least the shapes can be created this way. Use any word processor
or graphics program to create the exact size and text and/or graphic shapes, including
spacing and alignment, italics, font face, etc., that you want on your printer.
Print it out on regular printer paper (20# works fine). Tape the paper onto the
Monokote and cut out each character with an x-Acto...
 This
Midwest Products Sharpie Schooner is one
of two static display models that I built for my dearest, Melanie (the other being
a Midwest Products Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack). She actually bought them to build
herself, but decided to let me build them instead. I used my woodworking, metalworking,
and painting skills for the structure and accessories, and she used her sewing skills
to make the sails. Applying all those tuft strings on the sails was quite time-consuming.
Deft Gloss clear was sprayed on the entire structure and sanded between coats for
a smooth surface. Then, Testors enamel paint was applied on the bottom of the hull.
The effort paid off with a 1st Place ribbon at the 2004 Dixie Classic Fair, in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina...
 The Russian MiG-15 and French Mystère jet
airplanes were prominent first in the Korean War and then into the Vietnam era.
They were two of the earliest jet fighters in air warfare. Many of the American
jet planes were being modeled around 1956, when this issue of Young Men magazine
came out, but at least in domestic magazines, plans for foreign jobs were fairly
rare. Here are plans for the two aforementioned Russian and French jets which use
the Jetex 50 engine for propulsion. Construction is all balsa, consisting of
a minimal framework covered with 1/32" balsa...
 Snow season arrived here in Erie, Pennsylvania,
already (13" on November 10th), and I didn't want to miss the chance to do some
flying off of snow skis. Last winter I mounted a pair of DuBro snow skis to my
Herr Engineering
J-3 Cub and flew a couple times with them, but they were the standard model
that are too big and heavy for this 1/2A-sized model. DuBro's Park Flyer Snow Skis
seemed like they might be a better choice for the J-3, so I ordered a pair. The
size is just about right, but the vacuum-formed plastic was a bit too thin for me
to confidently install them on the J-3. I decided that they would be perfectly useable
with a little sturdying up. As can be seen in the photos, there are two stiffening
slots...
|
 For some odd reason the venue for the
1954 F.A.I. World Model Air Olympics was not mentioned in this pictorial featured
in the November 1954 issue of Air Trails magazine. However, an article appeared
in the July 27, 1954 edition of The New York Times newspaper stating that the event
took place at Suffolk County Air Force Base in New York state. The 1955 event also
occurred there according to this 1955 Air Trails article entitled "International
Meets: Rubber Power Wakefield F.A.I. Free Flight 'Gas'." Do you recognize anyone
here?
 The Andrews Aircraft Model Company (AAMCo)
produced a radio control airplane, the
H−Ray, that was my first
successful RC model. An advertisement from a 1964 edition of RC Modeler includes
both the H-Ray (high wing) and the S−Ray (shoulder wing). I'm pretty sure that I
put an OS .20 R/C engine in it - probably the only one I had at the time. Advertisement
for the OS Digital 3-channel radio control system I bought second-hand from a man
down the street from where I lived as a teenager. I paid him $100 for it sometime
around 1974 or so. That is the equivalent of $532 in 2020 dollars according to the
BLS's Inflation Calculator. My second-hand OS Digital 3-channel radio control system
was installed in it, which is why I can still vividly remember running after it
with the transmitter held high above my head trying to regain control after it ran
out of range. My H-Ray spent a night in a corn field out at the original PGRC club
in along Route 301 in southern Maryland because of it. The range with that OS digital
system was about 600 feet under ideal conditions...
 Per Merriam-Webster, the word "quiz" as a
noun means: 1) an eccentric person, 2: a practical joke, or 3: the act or action
of quizzing specifically - a short oral or written test. As a verb it means: 1)
to make fun of - mock, 2) to look at inquisitively, or 3) to question closely. Since
this "Quiz on Aeronautical Engineering Education" from a 1946 issue of Air Trails
magazine is directed toward the reader, its content does not seem to meet any of
the definitions. It can only really be called a "quiz" if it is directed toward
the
Northrop Aeronautical Institute, which it is. It is clearly a case of the reader
asking the questions, not the reader being quizzed on his aeronautical knowledge.
I point this out only because it seems like a deceptive technique for grabbing the
reader's attention by implying a test of technical prowess - in which the kind of
people who read this sort of magazine typically love to participate. Instead, it
is merely an advertisement...
 For some reason I was never big into building
model cars,
although my teenage years best friend, Jerry Flynn, was. Jerry and I flew lots of
model airplanes and rockets together, but he was the car modeler. Jerry had a bit
of an artist's touch with models and would build top fuel dragster models from scratch
using plastic sheet stock. He won a couple contests back in the 1970s at the big
hot rod show held in the Washington, D.C., Armory. As a body-fender repair shop
technician and eventually body shop owner, he could repair dents so perfectly that
you couldn't tell the repair from the original. The models shown in this 1963 American
Modeler magazine are not too far removed from the kinds of car models on the store
shelves when I was a kid. A lot of the models can probably be bought today on eBay...
 Microfilm-covered indoor models is one (of
many) aspects of model airplane building and flying that I've always wanted to try,
but never found the opportunity. You might be tempted to think this is the exclusive
realm of white-haired old men, and admittedly it nearly is, but when you look at
contest coverage in the modeling magazines, it is heartening to see a good showing
of youngsters. For that matter, the same holds true for just about all forms of
model aircraft these days except for radio controlled airplanes and helicopters.
As recently as a couple decades ago, radio equipment was too expensive for many
younger modelers to buy, so those who aspired to hobbies involving airborne craft
had to settle for free flight and control line. Now, the department store shelves
hold no control line or free flight models, but a nice selection of miniature R/C
helis and airplanes. But I digress. This 1954 Model Airplanes News magazine
article by John Zaic is a very comprehensive set of instructions on how to cover
airframes with microfilm, a pyroxylin...
 Back in the days when the cycle time between
writing articles, proofing, laying out pages, shipping hard copies to printers,
setting up presses, and preparing magazine for mailing was about a three or four
month process, coverage of a July-August event would finally appear in November-December
timeframe. Photos, of course, were all in black and white. Nowadays, with everything
done digitally and involving almost no physical, hands-on steps in the process,
we often see Nats event happenings as early as September. The November 1974 issue
of American Aircraft Modeler magazine included extensive coverage of that
year's Nats, which was held in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This is the
control line stunt portion. If you were around during the era...
 In my zeal to procure some of the items
I remember having or using as a kid in the 1960s and '70s, along with some of the
things Melanie and I had when we first got married back in 1983, I ran across this
Sears Electric Clipper Set
(#7934) on eBay. The seller was only asking about $10 for it, so here it is. As
you can see in the photos, it is in mint condition, and even the original box shows
only minor wear and tear from sitting in someone's closet for more than half a century.
I disassembled the clippers and did a thorough cleaning (not much there) and oiled
the moving parts with a bit of 3-in-1. Everything seems to be in great condition.
Even the power cord is supple and unscathed. One of the plastic blade attachments
was included, although the instruction sheet shows four types. Judging from other
similar clippers for sale on eBay, the set only came with one, and the other styles
must have been available for purchase separately. If you have any you can bear to
part with, please let me know...
 Some companies
have expressed an interest in being able to target Airplanes and Rockets via the
Google
AdSense program. Yes, it is possible to do that. As you might expect, finding
the exact information on the Google AdSense website is a bit difficult. This short
video does a good job summarizing exactly how to implement the "Ad Targeting" option,
then "Placements," and then add "Websites." Just enter airplanesandrockets.com
. There are other settings to optimize your advertising campaign with keywords (both
included and excluded), pricing, scheduling, statistical data collection and reporting,
etc. If you are currently using Google AdSense, then please consider this method,
and if you are not using AdSense, now would be a good time to look into it. I have
had reports from some companies that experience great results using AdSense (not
just on Airplanes and Rockets)...
 This is the February 8, 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 bad guys. She was the creation of artist and storyteller Russell
Keaton...
 114 River Road, Edgewater, MD 21037 (originally
Rt. 4 box 504) is where I grew up - or more appropriately, got older - and spent
as much time as possible building and flying every kind of airplane, rocket, and
helicopter I could get my hands on. It has been close to 20 years since going back
there, but thanks to the miracle of Google Earth, I was able to grab this satellite
image of the old stomping grounds. It looks pretty much the way I remember it. My
father and I built the addition on the southwest end, and the porch on the southeast
side. That section of sidewalk that goes nowhere now used to terminate at a 10'x10'
steel shed. Those two outbuildings in the back yard are new. In the zoomed out view
of the Google map (below) you can see the entire neighborhood of Holly Hill Harbor.
Explanations of the markings will be given later in the story. The yellow circle
is approximately where I flew and eventually crashed many control line airplanes.
After destroying the first couple Cox plastic models I received as presents at Christmas
and/or birthdays, I finally got wise and bought a Cox PT-19 Trainer. It was with
the PT-19 Trainer that I finally learned to fly a control line airplane...
 "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, and its present incarnation, Model Aviation...
 This is the Sunday, January 23, 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. All I have are the Sunday editions, but it was a daily strip as well. From
the time of the Wright Brothers' successful flights at Kill Devil Hill, Americans
have been in love with aviation. In the early days, access to flight was limited
to those with know-how and access...
 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 "International Miniature Racing" article from
the August 1962 issue of American Modeler magazine reports on worldwide
interest in slot car racing. I'm always amazed at how many men and boys wore sport
coats and ties while participating not just in formal events, but even during everyday
activities...
 One of the motivations for posting these
photos from a 1945 issue of
Flying Age magazine is the appearance of an F2G Corsair, of which I own
a Cox control line model from back in the 1960's. Having been published shortly
after the end of World War II, there are some things being shown that probably
would not have been declassified a year earlier, like the De Havilland Vampire jet
airplane. I have to admit to not knowing what the "pannier" was mounted to the belly
of the converted Halifax bomber. A pannier is a basket, as most cyclists probably
know. The word derives from the Old French "panier," meaning bread basket. Another
bit of news to me was the "Lily" portable sea-drome that simulated aircraft carrier
conditions to help train pilots for takeoffs and landings on the oceans. Another
very interesting item is the "tube" which housed three Jake reconnaissance planes
aboard a giant "Jap" submarine...
 I don't know what aircraft engineers do
during their lunch hour these days, but back in 1947 when this article appeared
in Popular Science magazine, some of them raced
CO2-powered model cars. They're a sort of Cub Scout
Pinewood Derby cars on steroids. Split into light and heavy classes (7/8 ounce to
4-1/4 ounces), these aerodynamically shaped crates were carved from balsa blocks
and rolled on metal or rubber wheels along a 240-foot string. It was the dawn of
the jet age, so building competitive jet-powered models was a natural extension
of the work many of them did as avocation / profession. I'm guessing there is more
than one Ph.D. in that crowd, but there's a good chance the guy with the fastest
car was a technician. BTW, although the venue at first glance appears to be a row
of cubicles with their occupants leaning over the walls, cubicles were not a "thing"
back in the day. Engineers and draftsmen at large firms typically sat in huge, open
rooms filled with drafting tables and test equipment...
 My
flight simulator software (MS Flight Sim 2002) and computer it runs on (HP i7 notebook)
are each more powerful than the software and computer that ran the
Douglas DC-8 pilot training simulator featured in this 1958 article in Popular
Electronics magazine. Two racks of 1000+ vacuum tubes did the figurative
electronic heavy lifting while massive DC motors did the literal physical cockpit
heavy lifting. The computer needed to handle as many as 40 variables at one time,
including 6 differential equations of motion. 100 servomotors, 540 amplifiers and
2,200 gears drove the instrument panel gauges, dials, and movie projector mechanisms.
The instrument panel description conjures images of the inside of a modern office-grade
copying machine with its very dense conglomeration of gears and axels...
 The [George Ellery]
Hale 200−inch telescope saw first light (first official observation)
atop Palomar Mountain, in southern California, on January 26, 1949. That was a decade
after this early report on its planning appeared in a 1938 issue of Boy's Life
magazine (the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America, BSA). It held the
title of the world's largest telescope until Russia commissioned its 605 cm
(238 in.) BTA-6 in 1976. As of this writing, the telescope with the largest
light collecting capacity is the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mount Graham,
in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona. When using both 330 inch mirrors,
the LBT has the same light-gathering ability as a 464 inch single telescope and
the resolution of a 897 inch wide one...
 I took the occasion of having to cover the
wingtips of my AAR-X1 electric control line model to make a short video of how I
cover a compound
surface (one that curves in two or three dimensions) with MonoKote. The only
"trick" involved is being daring enough to apply the amount of heat needed to exploit
MonoKote's extreme ability to shrink, while pulling on it to stretch it. By daring
I mean that it can take quite a bit of heat, even to the point of being dangerously
close to the melting point. It can also put the phalanges is peril while attempting
to stretch the MonoKote while heating it. In the case of these wingtips, there is
an open framework, but the method works equally well on solid compound surface.
I have smoothly covered carved sailplane nose blocks and curved wingtips using this
method...
 These "Sketchbook"
pages appeared for many years in Air Trails Hobbies for Young Men magazine
and in its predecessor, Air Trails. "Sketchbook" was a monthly feature
where modelers wrote to the magazine with handy ideas for saving time and/or money,
and just for offering tips and suggestions on a different way of doing something.
Prior to having information on just about every topic readily available on the Internet,
modelers had to rely on books, magazines, friends, and personal ingenuity. Also,
in those days there was not the plethora of accessories available for building models,
so a lot of creativity was involved. Even items as commonplace as bellcranks for
control line models and dethermalizers for free flight were fabricated from salvaged
parts like metal soup cans and hairpins. I'm guessing no magazine today would dare
publish a scheme to attach bottle rockets to a model airplane as is shown here,
lest Homeland Security or the FBI show up at the editor's door in the early morning
hours with a fully outfitted SWAT team...
 These are not your father's bombs; in fact,
they're your great-grandfather's bombs. Note that per the title "Bombs of
the World War," there was no "I" or "1" appended to it. That is because as we
learned in grammar class in elementary school while being instructed on creating
outlines, one does not assign a number "1" or a letter "a" or "A" if there will
be no number "2" or letter "b" or B." Since what we now refer to as World War I
was "the war to end all wars," there was no expectation that there would someday
be a World War II. Hence, up until the end of 1941, people referred to the
28 July, 1914 through 11 November, 1918 conflict simply as the "the World War" or
"the Great War." But I digress. Many of the bombs shown here were tossed out of
the cockpit by either the pilot or back seat bomber/gunner. BTW, when I saw that
the Whitehead Aircraft Torpedo supposedly had an 8,000 yard (24,000 feet, or 4.5
miles) range running on compressed air...
 In the same manner that radio control model
aircraft are today under scrutiny by government regulating agencies (DHS, FBI, et
al), model rocketry suffered various forms of discrimination in its early days of
widespread popularity. Per this 1963 article from American Modeler magazine,
"The status of model rocketry under the law has often been a questionable one in
several sections of the country. Our hobby has been variously labeled as fireworks,
handling and discharging explosives, public nuisance (which covers a multitude of
sins), disturbance of the peace, a hazard to aircraft in flight, dangerous to persons
and property on the ground, and 'dangerous
killer.' As the record shows it is none of these." The more things change, the
more they stay the same; ignorance is NOT bliss... |
