Inspiring, Informing, and Instructing
I’ve always been fascinated by members who choose to build models that are not seen every day on the flying field. In this issue, it’s a model suited for indoor flying that might inspire your next build project.
The Gustave Whitehead Model No.21 Condor is an airplane with a story worth telling. Gustave claimed to have flown the airplane about a half mile at a 50-foot altitude two years before the Wright brothers. The Smithsonian Institution has maintained that the Midwest duo was first. Discover how the model can be built starting on page 24.
Swap meets are an indelible part of model aviation heritage. How many of you have discovered at a swap meet that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure? Once you have “rescued” a model that has caught your eye, what’s next? David Taylor has some tips starting on page 16.
Does wiring a model, and then trying to figure out what plugs into it where, tend to be an endless source of frustration? Find out how to avoid that situation altogether on page 30.
Model Aviation’s mission has always been about inspiring, informing, and instructing. Hopefully you will find something in this issue that achieves at least one of those, if not all three.
I’ll be ending every column with an aviation-related quote that I think speaks to those aspirations in some meaningful way. I hope you enjoy this issue. Let me know what you think!
“Model building is such a wide and varied hobby that it seems to me that anyone who only does one small fraction of it is missing most of the fun.”
—Dave Platt, 1996 AMA Hall of Fame inductee,
prolific model aircraft designer, and builder
Model Aviation’s mission has always been about inspiring, informing and instructing.
