Free Flight: Sport & Scale
REMEMBER the infamous April Fool's Thunderbolt plan we mentioned in the August '89 issue? A footnote to the story: Mik Mikkelson, who drew the ersatz Stahl P-47, forwarded to me a letter he received from the great man himself telling Mik that he had been contacted by the editor of a leading model magazine asking if he had any more lost plans! I checked Earl's signature on the letter, but coming from Mik, it's a little bit suspect. Please note the new address for FF Scale correspondence at the top of this column. Living in Los Angeles having lost much of its charm over the past few years, we decided to escape while we could. Fortunately, the USPS still delivers your great letters and pix out here in the boonies, so keep 'em coming! I look on retirement as a great opportunity to get caught up in my letter writing. I am up to 1985 already! Maybe I'll get back to you soon, so don't despair!
Flying Aces Nats
IT'S A TRIBAL GATHERING, a family reunion, and a time machine all rolled into an exciting, fun-filled, action-packed weekend. The Flying Aces Club Nationals, which takes place every other July, was hosted this year by the prestigious D.C. Maxecuters and held at the National Warplane Museum in Geneseo, NY, site of the FAC Nats two years ago. It was attended by a couple hundred of the most intrepid birdmen ever to twist a gumband, with a collective past dating from the Golden Age of model aviation to the present.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
EARL STAHL's lost Thunderbolt plan: What could be more exciting than finding another plan by the great Earl Stahl, completely unknown and unpublished? Wow! Anyone who has been around Free Flight Scale very long has made a Stahl Rearwin Speedster or Waco E. Gracing the pages of magazines back before many of today's modelers were even born, Earl's classic models were good! They demanded to be built, and they were turned out by the thousands. They were designed to fly, and they did.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
ONE of my favorite quotes of all time came from a Hang Gliding newsletter published in the early days of the sport. It advised: "Never fly higher than you are willing to fall." I have always felt that this sentiment was particularly applicable to FF Scale models. You just never should put more work into a model than you are willing to see wiped out in a crash. Many models that started out to be Flying Scale never made it to the "flying" part of the game, because their owners, citing such things as an overweight model, too much wind, lack of tall grass (or other reasons) declined to validate their model's claim to full membership in the class.
Free Flight: Sport & Scale
NOW that the baby's born, what shall we name it? The letters on the sides and wings of a Scale model can make it or break it. Purists would not dream of putting on a fictitious registration, but there are a lot of modelers who don't enter contests and want to have fun with their models in more ways than one. American registrations are pretty dull, as they consist of letters and numbers. Foreign registrations, however, offer a wide latitude for making statements, as they are all letters. In some states people pay to have personalized license plates on their cars. You can have a personalized model in the same way-and for no cost at all!
