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This short tongue-in-cheek
article about the use of salt mines in Communist countries like Romania for indoor
free flight contests was appeared in a 1963 issue of American Modeler
magazine, at a time when the Cold War was in full swing,
your neighbor might have built a nuclear shelter in his back yard, and kids practiced
getting under their desks in the event of a wave of incoming ICMBs tipped with MIRVs.
In fact, the FAI world championships have been held in Romanian salt mines a few
times, and they will return there in 2014. BTW, for those too young to remember,
it used to be a common joke to talk about sending someone to the Siberian salt mines
as a form of punishment.
Russian Modelers Seek Service in Salt Mines!
 Life-under-Communism, as any right-thinking
person knows, is supposed to bear somewhat the same invidious relationship to Life-under-Capitalism
that an old broken down GHQ (with no points) in some dark, forgotten corner of a
dirty basement does to the latest factory tuned O.S. Max singing sweetly in the
August sunshine. But we always figured that there must be some advantage to living
under Communism. We had almost despaired of finding what it was, but now we think
we have the answer. Salt mines!
"Hey, wait a minute," a little voice says. "Did you say salt mines?"
That's right, salt mines!
Hm-m-m. But what do salt mines have to do with model building?
Well, to illustrate, let's get back to the tag ends of my thumbnail sketch of
the short history of the difference between life under Communism and Capitalism.
A bad Capitalist, as every right-thinking person knows, is a sort of robber baron
who steals indiscriminately from the rich and poor alike, goes to church on Sunday,
is envied by anyone who has one drop of American laissez-faire free enterprise blood
in his veins, and dies rich. In contrast every bad Communist goes to Siberia or
to the salt mines. Or both. That's the difference between the two systems and it's
also the reason why it is much better to belong to the Capitalist system.
You make it sound (the little voice again) pretty grim. It's not too grim because
there are also good Capitalists.
They steal only from the rich, go to church on Sunday, found philanthropic foundations,
are not envied by nearly so many people, and die rich. No one ever wonders what
happens to a good Communist because, as every right-thinking person knows, there
are no good Communists.
Yes, but I still -don't see what this has to do with building and flying model
planes ...
Well, the point is this: When Ivan (that's our bad Communist) is bad he gets
his come-uppance in one of those salt mines.
So-?
So, for years everyone has been feeling very sorry for Ivan, because work in
the salt mine is very difficult. (Color it White, Ivan, not Red.) But Ivan the Bad
asked for it and he got it. Of course, there are a lot of people, including some
not so bad Communists, who would like to help Ivan, but the salt mine is part of
the system, like City Hall. And you can't fight City Hall.
I suppose not. But what's the connection between salt mines and model building?
I'm coming to that. All this work in the salt mines is, naturally, very hard
on Ivan. As you can well imagine, the Ivans get used up at a terrific rate. Fortunately,
there are plenty of bad Communists to replace the old worn-out Ivans. There's also
a silver lining to every cloud, but no one ever saw it.
Which was-?
Why, the salt situation, of course. Everyone had all the salt he wanted. No more
tasteless caviar, no more bland anchovies. The production quotas for steel might
be lagging, but not for salt.
But what about model airplanes?
Don't you see? When you take salt out of the ground it leaves an enormous hole.
Every time somebody in Minsk or Pinsk salts his cabbage soup the hole gets bigger.
And?
And people fly models in those salt mines. You're kidding!
Nope! They fly smack-dab in those ever lovin' salt mines.
It may be the nuttiest thing you ever heard of but it's true ... I swear on my
current AMA card and my tarnished Junior Birdman pin. Right inside those old salt
mines.
Inside? Right!
That is the nuttiest thing I ever heard of.
Let me tell you that it was some salt mine, too. This one is in Rumania (not
all salt mines are in Siberia) and from top to bottom it measures 230 feet. And
that makes it some flying site. All I can tell you beyond that is that 45 indoor
builders had a contest there recently and that one of them, Otto Hinks, did 20:05
with a small indoor model.
That's really something.
It sure is. It also has tremendous political ramifications.
As almost every right-thinking person knows, we are perhaps a couple of steps
behind the Communists in the race for Outer Space. Unless we start rigging salt
mines in a hurry, they're apt to beat us all hollow in the race for Inner Space
as well.
There's only one solution, men ... To the salt mines!
Posted September 3, 2021
(updated from original post on 5/26/2013)
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