Sterling Beginner's Ringmaster

Most modelers back in the day were taken under wing from more experienced modelers. There were more control line pilots and builders and essentially those in the 1960's- into the 70's were really fortunate to have literally hundreds of products available to them. For most beginners, they had support be it parents, modelers or the hobby shop itself. Sterling kits by far are nothing to brag about. They're horrible kits in terms of what you received in the box. The instructions are not full size and lacking, the wood was horribly die crushed and the pieces didn't always fit or where even in the box. If you mention the word control line to those that have even been slightly educated in the hobby they will more than likely mention the word Sterling.

They literally sold thousands of kits.The beginner's series kits were mainly popular due to the fact that you could now use the engines from your Cox or Testor's RTF plastic planes that splattered and shed parts all over the ground. The engine was now given new life once again and even Carl Goldberg made mounts to utilize the Cox postage stamp backplates to be used on these models and others. I live in the Philadelphia area and truly miss the Sterling company. Unfortunately, due to a fire in the 80's they were no more. In the earlier years you could visit the plant and even fly on the rooftop.  They dominated the market in variety and in cost and these two factors alone is why for most of us Sterlingaholics are infatuated with them. You literally purchased 2 kits for the price of the competitors.  I used to see guys show up at the field with their kids and they would have a entire airforce of Beginner's series Sterling kits. Some of them actually would fly fairly well and could stunt while others lacked wing area and balance issues. From an appearance standpoint they appear correct, but many of them had too small of an elevator or like the Ringmaster, too large of an elevator which typically stalls the plane.

The trick with these planes is to lose the landing gear as I noticed you've done.  Most slab winged 1/2A's and most 1/2A's in general don't require it due to the cartwheel landings. It only makes for a heavier nose and drag. Removing any wood or mount weight from the nose of these is not going to result in enough tail weight to suggest a serious enough cg change. The planes were designed for beginner's and they were intentionally made nose heavy. Lengthening the fuse and shifting the wing forward or stab backwards would provide far greater results then adding tail weight and just making the model heavier.

In retrospect, there are far superior models in 1/2A then the beginner's series kits and the Top Flite Baby Flite Streak dominated the crowd back then and even today in terms of a 1/2A stunter. But if you enjoy these models like I do and just like the fact that your building them, have fun as your model does look terrific and you certainly did finish the model professionally. Ken