Control Line: Scale
ONE ASPECT of scale building that knows no seasons is scale documentation research. While you are building on one project, you can be collecting drawings, photos, magazine articles, etc. for your next subject. It's common among the more prolific scale modelers to be researching several airplanes at a time. Research can involve a years-long effort to document a rare bird for Precision Scale, or can be as quick as locating a kit and the appropriate Profile Publication for a Sport Scale model. It's sometimes frustrating, but always interesting and enjoyable. I've received several letters wanting assistance in locating sources of information on a particular full-size airplane. The help that I've been able to provide comes primarily from two books that I'd like to recommend for your own, or your model club's, library.
Control Line: Scale
THE FOLLOWING is taken from a letter I just received from Mr. Bill Noonan, of San Diego, CA. "As you may have read or seen on TV, the San Diego Aerospace Museum became a victim of arson on the night of February 22, and sustained a complete loss of its entire collection, considered to be the finest in the U.S. after the Smithsonian's. The fire eliminated such remarkable aircraft examples and displays as a completely re-constructed (not replica) JN-4, Ryan ST, Ryan Fireball, Luscombe Phantom, Consolidated PT-1, Lockheed F-80, Ryan M-1, to name a few original aircraft. The flying replicas included Fokker AE-III, Sopwith Tripe, Spirit of St. Louis, Curtiss A-1, and a number of others.
Control Line: Scale
WHILE I don't recommend handing an overworked scale judge a multi-volume library on your subject aircraft, books can be a valuable source of high-quality and often rare photos and drawings for scale research and documentation. Parts of a book relating to your subject aircraft; and necessary to your presentation; either can be prominently marked and masked out in the book, or removed entirely for inclusion in your presentation folder. Most bookstores seem to stock very few, if any, of the type of aviation books that are most helpful to a scale builder. You could be surprised to learn, simply by sending for a few catalogs, how many hundreds of aviation related books and other publications are available to us. In fact, there are several mail-order book companies that deal exclusively with aviation subjects. The list of titles in their catalogs seems almost endless and ranges from short "profile" type booklets to large hardbound volumes. You can get books dealing with a specific airplane, families of airplanes, historic aviation events and eras, aircraft companies, and designers. In addition to these mail-order book dealers, there are several publishers of aviation books that you can buy from directly, and they also have informative catalogs.
Control Line: Scale
"CAUTIOUSLY, a small but proud Frenchman made his way through the crowd of a model airplane World Championships holding his masterpiece high overhead. He strutted out onto the runway, gently setting it down as a ray of early June sun bounced off a glimmering blue and white color scheme. Carefully wiping off a microscopic piece of dust that he thought he saw. All ready to show the captive audience that it flew as good as it looked. He went over to the judge and after what looked to be a short but heated argument, he stormed back to his beauty, wound up his foot, and gave it a good swift kick."
Control Line: Scale
THE RELATIVELY new CL Sport Scale event seems to be gaining popularity in many parts of the country. When this event was introduced at the Nationals in 1974, it seemed like a colossal dud as there were only two entries. But by the '76 Nationals in Dayton, Ohio, the entry had zoomed to a total of 36 among the three age classifications. Both experienced modelers and newcomers are discovering that Sport Scale can be just as exciting, while less demanding, and thus more to their liking, than Precision Scale. I'm sure we will have Precision Scale class competitors and models on a National and International level for quite some time, but it's obvious that very few modelers are willing or able to devote the amount of time and resources that are required for that class of scale model. In reality, I think you'll find that the Sport Scale models (CL & RC) that are winning the local contests and Nats, now are in about the same class as far as amount of detail, as the models that were winning the regular CL and RC scale events about 10 years ago. It's great to see that more and more modelers are discovering the satisfaction and enjoyment of scale building through the Sport Scale event.
