For Openers
THE ARTIcle beginning on page 56, Adventures in Modeling, begins a unique series. It was supposed to be a product review thing. All magazines belong to a plug-the-product cult, and we sort of felt we were running around naked by not going with the mob. So eight months ago we began to talk to Bob Harrah about how to deal with products in a way that made reader enjoyment paramount and commercialism secondary. Since Bob lives in San Diego and F.O. on the East Coast, the discussions dragged on like the preliminaries of SALT II. We decided to take a "We Fly" approach after the manner of flying magazines which report on various aircraft. While, like us, Bob detests unvarnished plugs, he holds the profound view that an energetic industry that gives us so many wondrous things to play with, is what really makes our modeling world go round.
For Openers
An editor should not take sides in discussions between readers and columnists, but as a bystander since the first AMA rules were written in the long ago-we have come to appreciate the conflicting philosophies in the evolution of endless "beginner" events into competitive nightmares. Few of the hundreds of at-first-enthusiastic modelers turn out to have the skills and the fat wallets required to seriously fly that event when time and "progress" get done with it. Although the writer is not interested in CL racing events-beyond spectator fascination and curiosity about designs-he is caught up in Bill Lee's column on Racing. Bill's observations, as well as those of dissident readers, apply to practically everything-Manhattan and Pennyplane in Indoor, FF Power and Glider, Pylon, and so on.
For Openers
What is past is prologue. Those words from Shakespeare's Tempest are engraved upon a brooding statue in front of the National Archives building in your nation's capitol. Figuratively speaking, they are engraved upon this July issue of Model Aviation by Paul Plecan (Milestones in RC) who evokes for us much more than a glimpse of the past. He is not an RC man. Yet his commentary on 16 significant aircraft, starting with the Good Brothers' Big Guff and ending with Hanno Prettner's Curare, touches feelingly on planes and people, as if we were there. The past and present are fused in his text and drawings, and one supposes that the present-all that is happening in RC now-is prologue, too. We can see another 10 blank pages after his climactic drawing of the Curare-what will they be filled with in your lifetime? With the exception of the Curare, we have seen all of their planes fly, have known the designers (except Prettner), and have built many of these aircraft.
For Openers
It has been our good fortune to partake in all of the great revolutions, as well as border skirmishes, in what is joyfully known as progress-rubber to gas, free flight to control line and CL into radio-the sport of kings which Chet Lanzo described as the ability to pick out your point of crash. Ignition to glow, and Ray Arden's glow plug. Twin pushers to fuselage tractors. Paper to mike in indoor-too much for our "surgeon's" fingers. Cabin gas to the pylon. CO-2 was in, then out, is back again. So is ignition for old-timer purists and monster scale zealots. And electric power-and ready-to-fly and its half brother, almost-ready-to-fly. Prop drives and on-board starters. Props that can decapitate a chicken. Now, once again strange things are happening.
For Openers
A little innocent fun is always good for the soul. We've been poking fun at Mother (Aerodynamics) Nature and so far have not been deafened by thunder, or blinded by lightning. That's probably because, like a woodchuck, we've been careful to have hidden escape tunnels. The fine print always states that apparent contradictions, and seemingly unexplainable things, always come full circle and bow to the decrees of aerodynamic laws. In plain English we don't relish having our ears pinned to the wall by all those erudite engineers among our audience. So here we go again.
