GRANDPA
AND SUZY
Photos provided by Karl Cranford |
karl@jkcomputerservices.com
KARL CRANFORD (San Diego, California) emailed these pictures to us of his grandfather, Paul Crowell, from approximately 1950, flying Suzy at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, California. He wrote, “Maybe you would like to publish one or both in Model Aviation, which I have enjoyed forever. I know my 96-year-old mom would get a kick out of it.” We asked him to provide more information about Paul and Suzy. Karl wrote:
“[My grandfather] and my father, Bill Cranford, spent a lot of time flying Suzy here [at the Santa Anita Racetrack] and in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena [in the late 1940s and early 1950s]. I believe Suzy had a rubber band escapement system. I only know that my grandfather built all of the radio gear used in that airplane.
“I love the picture of him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth while messing with a gas airplane. I don’t have much in the way of back stories, but I remember Suzy hanging from the rafters of the garage through much of my early childhood in Pasadena.
“It is a hobby that I picked up as well, still regularly flying Slope [Soaring] at Torrey Pines and drones/quads here in San Diego. I am currently 67 years old and have been flying RC since I was about 14, mostly Slope and Thermal [Soaring].
“I love getting Model Aviation every month. Thank you again. My mom will be thrilled to see her dad in the magazine.”
Photos by David Boudreau | djbonnorth@yahoo.com
DAVID BOUDREAU (Kankakee, Illinois) doesn’t know how many people have ever had this happen to them in their lifetime. “This was quite a surprise to me,” he wrote.
“I used to build RC planes and sometimes I would never fly them and just take them to the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Illinois and sell them. [I] loved to build back then. Now it’s kind of a thing of the past.
“[I flew] the Piper Cherokee I built for two years before selling it in 1986, never thinking that it would show up in my lifetime again. I built a Great Planes RC model (top, left) powered by a K&B .40 [engine] in 1984 to look like the real 1969 Piper Cherokee N98218 plane that I owned between 1979 and 1985 (top, right).
“I went to the first Swap N Sell at the Joliet RC Club in Joliet, Illinois, on August 29, 2020, to take pictures and do a video for the club. The RC model Piper Cherokee I built 36 years ago in 1984 was for sale (right). What are the odds of this? I could hardly believe it after 36 years. It still looked as it did when I finished it.
“All of my friends said I should have bought it, and I guess I should have, but it brings back too many memories of the wonderful years I had flying the real Piper Cherokee plane with my wife and daughters. I’m so happy that other RC fliers got to enjoy it for so long. It makes me feel good knowing that the workmanship I put into it lasted 36 years.
“I have been flying for many years and have flown in all kinds of weather, even in the rain and at night. I started flying when I was very young and have enjoyed the RC hobby so much that I became a full-scale pilot. Now I’m retired from flying the full-scale airplanes.
“The AMA has been a part of my life it seems forever. I attend many fly-ins throughout the year and enjoy all the pilots and the planes. I belong to the Kankakee Valley Model Flyers club in Kankakee, Illinois, the Dumb Thumbs RC club in Donovan, Illinois, and my favorite club, the N.E. Kansas Blue Sky Squadron in Berryton, Kansas.”
Photos provided by Nick Ziegler | a100dork3@yahoo.com
TALE OF TWO
FRIENDS
NICK ZIEGLER’S FRIEND asked him for help in finding a Lazy Ace biplane. The friend wanted one, but his airplanes were in his home country of Australia. “Being an old plane, I figured it would be hard to find,” Nick wrote, “but I located one in the Dakotas. I put a shoutout on social media, and one friend was close, so he picked it up. Another friend, who happened to be traveling from that way to Iowa, was coming through in a week, so he picked it up and took it to Iowa.” Nick and his dad drove to pick up the airplane from the second transport. They met in the Sig Manufacturing parking lot in Montezuma, Iowa, and brought it home. A week later, his friend drove from Champaign, Illinois, to pick it up.
Nick’s friend’s father passed away in Australia. While his friend was in Australia with family, Nick secretly took up a collection of funds. “He couldn’t bring everything back [to the states], so he gave his stuff away,” Nick wrote. “As he was on a plane back, his buddy in Australia had found a huge crate and got all of the planes that were given away, packed them in the crate, and sent them to a ship for transport—including the original Lazy Ace.” Nick showed his friend pictures of the packed crate that was making its way back to the states. The friend gave Nick the Lazy Ace that had been chased down a few years earlier. “I finally get a Lazy Ace bipe that someone built 20 years ago, and my friend started a rebuild on but never finished,” Nick wrote. “We finished it, installed a new Saito 1.25 engine, Spektrum AR9350 AS3X receiver, new servos, tank, lines, and propeller, and it’s finally ready to fly after all of these years and friends chasing it throughout the country.
“Because fellow modelers went out of their way to help make this happen, and to all of the other friends who helped chip in to ship all his stuff back from Australia, thank you. This story just happens to show how friends help friends in this hobby and what goes around, comes around.”
SHARE YOUR STORY
Do you have a high-quality/high-resolution airplane, helicopter, or multirotor photo that you are proud of, or a model aviation-related photo with a great story behind it? Email your “Viewfinder” photo and a description about it to jennifer@modelaircraft.org.
