Bill Warner

"What goes up must come down." That's a truism for everything except taxes. Certainly, the return to terra firma accounts for most modelers' grief. Assuming that your model is Free Flight and has no pilot to flare at the last moment, it generally flies right smack into the deck, with only minimal help from ground effect. Quite often, the only purpose of the landing gear (I like the word undercarriage better, as the gear serves for more than landings in the classical sense) is to make the plane look Scale, help it ROG (rise-off-ground-Ed.), and cushion the crash. Paul McIlrath (Cedar Rapids, IA) has some interesting thoughts on undercarriage construction that he'd like to pass on. Paul writes: "You should remember that much of the force on the wheel and gear is backward, not upward. That's true for both takeoffs and landings. Although the industry standard (single strut wire) is neat and effective, there is a simple variation that can noticeably improve its operation.

TALL BUT TRUE stories: Whenever modelers get together, stories of the strange and wonderful emerge. One such story is of Fred Griffith's legendary seven-hour flight, launched on an official flight at the Nationals and coming down in a back-yard barbecue at 7 p.m. with ice crystals in the wings. Another is of Walt Mooney's start as a Sleek Streek flew across his nose while flying a sailplane at 7,000 feet. One of the funniest I've heard was related to me at the San Diego Scale Staffel Annual. About four years ago, at one of the club's meets, they were flying at a field that was across the street from a baseball field. It seems that Don Munn's Bostonian rubber ship meandered across the road, glided onto the diamond, over the pitcher's head, and right across the plate at belt height. If you had been the batter, what would you have done? Yup, he did it . . . into a thousand pieces! Witnesses say that it was a memorable moment for Don.