Rearwin
THE REARWIN JUNIOR is a rather interesting design in that it was marketed in five different forms by four separate manufacturers. Originally designed by Noel Hockaday as a last-ditch effort to keep Ed Porterfield's American Eagle Co. afloat, only 90 of the Eaglet units were sold before the company was liquidated in 1931. At that same moment in history, Rearwin Aircraft was manufacturing the Ken-Royce biplane across the river in Kansas City, KS. R.A. Rearwin had been a successful building supply dealer in Salina, KS. In 1928 he had gone into production of the biplane named after his two sons. He moved his facilities to Kansas City in 1929, sharing half of a newly constructed building at Fairfax Airport with the makers of the Inland Sport Monoplane.
Radio Control: Old-Timers
CAVALIER TWIN. In our May column, we traced the evolution of the Cavalier series from Ben Shereshaw's original design of 1936, as kitted by Berkeley, through the "fatted" version introduced in 1938. As we pointed out in that short history, the only Cav designed by the legendary Ben Shereshaw was the original. All subsequent development was by Bill Effinger and his group. Effinger began Berkeley Models as a small living room operation in Brooklyn. By carefully reinvesting his profits, and by kitting the designs of the leaders in the hobby, he saw his business grow into one of the world's largest by the 1950s.
Radio Control: Old-Timers
OLD-TIMER of the month. While the Mercury IV is not an Old-Timer by SAM definition, it certainly exemplifies the "looks like a real airplane" school of Free Flight design. Bob Wischer describes the photo model as "the most beautiful plane at Old Warden in 1978." The English chapter of SAM (SAME, get it?) has a broader era-base to encourage its members to build and fly these beautiful examples of the model designer's art. Our own magazines of the post-1942 era are replete with equally appealing models, one of which we plan to feature in our next column. Since Old Warden is a social event as opposed to a contest, lovely works such as the Mercury IV can be flown in a low-key setting-to the very considerable delight of those present. Our flight photo illustrates this phenomenon rather well. Old Warden is more oriented to "OHHs and AHHs" than to "Gotcha!"
Radio Control: Old-Timers
I LOVE A MYSTERY. Our July '81 column featured a three-view and photos of Harold Carlson's Berkeley Cavalier. Bill Effinger had mentioned in a letter that Carlson had "won" Texaco at the 1938 Nationals, only to end up second to a last-minute "mystery" flight. To quote Effinger's letter of June 4, 1980: ". . . at the last minute after everyone had left the field, a mystery plane beat him out. No witnesses, no idea of what the plane looked like, but Carlson had to be satisfied with second place." Those comments set us off on a search to try to determine who that winner was, and what he had flown. We wrote many of the still-living participants in that Nationals of 43 years ago, checked through our magazine collection, inquired if anything was in the AMA Archives (what archives?), and pursured several promising leads, all to no avail. All efforts to solve the mystery were fruitless.
Quick and Easy Radial Cowls
SCRATCH-BUILDERS often reject a potential Scale subject solely because the engine cowling seems beyond their building skills. This is particularly true of those prototypes with exposed radial engines. We, like you, have a long list of Scale subjects we would love to scratch-build, since no kits are available for them. Invariably in the past, the complexity of carving a cowling from a balsa block-coupled with the frequently substandard appearance of dummy cylinders-discouraged us from any real efforts in constructing those dream ships.
