Revisited childhood moments

Jared great idea!

I apreciate the kind ( whoa, thats a sweet little engine, shiny and new...(moment)......) It`s contagous btw Kim lol

I just thought it would be neet to be sharing stories, funny, touching, just a average nice day flying, whatever kind of story that you care to share,childhood or otherwise, and could help us all get to know eachother a bit if we could relate and associate the commonality of our stories (psyche class kicked in lol)


So, I always liked the look of the Clancy Aviation planes, but when they came out I was minimal into modelling; 2 sons, lousy job, no money, very little time,etc,etc

I eventually got the plans for the ladybug ( .020 size version of lazybee)and "the little plane that could" (.010 size)

I built 2 versions of the little plane that could since they were tiny ,fast builds I built them first, and then aimed my attention to the ladybug. Now the ladybug looked huge by comparison, that just won`t due, off to the photocopier I went to shrink it about 50% or so;I honestly can`t recall lol

I cut out the templates and went to work with some sheet balsa..........don`t say it if you can see this coming, the little plane that could had sheet fuse sides, sooooooo I built this plane with sheet fuse too lol

I built up an extended spare wing with some (way too much) polyhedral just for stability and maybe giggles too. Why not just a little dihedral, I dont know lol
But wait, I now have 2 wings, an undercarriage bracket makes it a biplane just for giggles and maybe even someday fly it like that ( I have always liked bipes too)


I install the radio gear, cox peewee020 and now ready for the maiden.
Annnnnnnnnnd a nosedive, and another and 40 feet forward from launch and another......

Well she does feel a little heavy maybe, bigger engine, G-mark 03r/c time.......................,aaaaaaand another nosedive, repeat, repeatedly, and some more nosedives......but I got her to go 60 feet now........ must need more power!! lol

Black widow on the nose, now here we go!! the 3 blade prop is as tall as the fuse, thats got to be enough power, right?????

yup, its enough power..........to nosedive at about 70 feet this time, but with a left bank thrown in there, but she did gain a little elevation first.

ten more tries, similar results. 1 last try, here we go........massive heave and quick on the sticks this time.......eureka, it sotrs flies......but wait, she is banking left (a little) on her own.... correct that a little.......did I mention I`m flying in my front yard?.....ooooooooooh thats ok, she wants to fly past the rear of my truck 3 feet above the ground...ok this will look cool .......oh wait, make that hit the bumper and taillight dead center and bend the prop screw too.......( sorry tail light, I liked you, the plane didn`t I guess) lol

Now its time to figure out what is seriously wrong with this plane .....and go back to flying the old frankenstein-ed from 20+ years of crashes littlest stick.......lol
Sitting on the buildingboard, the plane looks a little bit odd.
Oh gee, could it be that the elevator and stab are not level...........and it must be way too heavy too.......

Maybe if I could build a plane that would actually fly..........yup, ordering little "stick" kits, again , done ,lol



p.s. that plane sits on a shelf waiting on me to fix the elevator problem lol

Cool story bro.
Yared you should build one of these

nitroairplane wrote:Cool story bro.
Yared you should build one of these

Neat story Jaspur and well typed.


Cool link NA!, saved to favorites. I just found a victim or two for the TeeDee 051's with KK pressure backplates and Tarno carbs .

PV Pilot wrote:

nitroairplane wrote:Cool story bro.
Yared you should build one of these

Neat story Jaspur and well typed.


Cool link NA!, saved to favorites. I just found a victim or two for the TeeDee 051's with KK pressure backplates and Tarno carbs .

Keith their kits are top quality I built one for electric.
The owner of the company is on here under FMK models.

Cool link Nitro, Actually, I have a Radical R/C micro stick sitting on my workbench, awaiting radio/servos(shipped and eventually getting here lol) and tail surface attatchment. I will probably put a cox 020peewee(throttled) on it so my 010`s are free for other projects ; 1 never makes it off the workbench lol
I also have 2 lazer cut " stick" kits on their way.
Also, a micro pibe, mini bipe, 3 delta wings one of which is the radical r/c wicked wing , (tiny little bugger;just like I like them lol)
A ladybug lazercut short kit, and thats the short list lol

Eventually I will "task" working the bugs out of the farcebug, and "fix" the elevator stab problem on the "farcebug" lol


Now its someone else`s turn to share a story before I remember another god one........oh yes, I have many more lol

For a stretch of a little more than three years, from the late 1960's into the early 70's, my life literally revolved around Sunday afternoons. This was the one day of the week when my Uncle Wayne, a farmer, could count on a half-day off. If the weather was even remotely flyable, he and my cousin Bobby could be counted on to show up with Wayne's Rambler Station Wagon chocked full of control-line models and their support gear. This was High Adventure for teenager living in a village of 450.

We were pretty much on our own in those days. A 50 mile trip to Paducah or Cape Girardeau, the two closest "Big Cities", was serious, expensive business, so most of our advancement with our flying came by way of Wayne's model airplane magazines, and our own experimentation.

I'd been flying for about a year, and from the beginning, had read about an event called "Combat", where two planes in the same circle, went at each other with the intent of cutting towed streamers. I had built a sheet-wing combat plane called "Lil Bomb", but had limited it's aerial conflicts to just surviving my early attempts at aerobatics.

Eventually seeing myself as a reasonably accomplished veteran of the air, I challenged Bobby to a friendly duel: My "Lil Bomb" against a plane Wayne had designed and built...a green flying wing with a huge, pointed rudder. I had dubbed it "The Pterodactyl".

We flew several "practice sessions", with Bobby obviously in charge of each flight. He had more than a year's flying experience on me, and it didn't take much to make me duck away from any aggressive passes. Also, if I smacked my plane, it'd be my deal in fixing it, and as cheap as they may seem now, even the simplest kits represented several mowed yards' worth of glue and dope, not counting the cost of the kit. So, I was pretty easy to cow in our "Combat Matches".

I wasn't just taking the situation lying down though. Conning a friend into helping me conduct secret, after-school training sessions, I'd taught myself to fly the Lil Bomb inverted. Bobby, with all his flying time, was still not comfortable flying upside-down...limiting such excursions to flattening out the top of a loop for a second or two, before pulling it on through. I figured my new skill would drastically turn the tide in our little air war.

When the next Sunday rolled around, I was barely able hide a fiendish grin at the prospect of unleashing my new Air Superiority upon my un-suspecting cousin. Comeuppance Time!

Like he'd done several times before, Wayne started and launched our planes as we stood together in the circle. Bobby went up high, while I hugged the ground...my standard, safest place. At some point, he came over the top, diving at me, and the fight was on. After a couple of circles, I couldn't stand it any more...as the Pterodactyl blew past me, I hauled the Bomb up and over on it's back, and almost instantly crossed lines with the green monster coming from the opposite direction. Getting untangled from my enemy was not on my list of practiced maneuvers, and for a long instant, I just froze. Bobby yelled something...maybe more of a grunt...as both planes climbed upward...lines still crossed.

There seemed to be no way to save the situation other than sacrificing my pride-and-joy, so I tossed my handle across Bobby's lines, freeing his controls. At that same instant, he chucked HIS handle into the air !!! I couldn't believe it, and was furious with my cousin for crapping on my noble gesture! The show wasn't over though. The planes, now free of their teenage anchors, tore across the field, straight toward Uncle Wayne, who'd let down his guard while working on a plane. He claims to this day that one of our planes tagged him as he rose to his feet and staggered sideways to avoid the onslaught. I don't recall an actual impact, perhaps a case of blocked memory on my part, but do remember the icy stare of an adult who seemed to be calculating the amount of legal whupping that could be administered to a nephew. Fortunately, he swerved away from corporal punishment, with a deeply sighed, "You boys...". This phrase would resurface many times as Bobby and I grew up.

Wayne eventually forgave us, and we flew against each other many times after that. We even learned to uncross a few crossed-line situations...under the watchful eye of Uncle Wayne, who'd learned to never again turn his back on two squirrely teenagers.

for being a god sport about the debacle you were in, and sharing a great laugh bringer;that would have made an awesome video if only....

This is an excerpt from my introduction thread when I joined the forums:

I've been flying off and on since I was somewhere around 12(that would have been 1968). One day I was in Western Auto with my Mom and saw a really cool Cox, green and, I think, camo P51 Mustang. I had heard about what I wrongly called 'gas model airplanes', but never seen one, and it was love at first site. Maybe that will help one of you date the beginning for me. I love anything with an engine, big or small. Well, I bought it and took it home, and it Would Not Start. When my Dad got home, he was thrilled. To my surprise, he had done this before... way before. Well he hooked up the battery and we primed it and flipped and flipped and primed and flipped and tweaked and flipped and primed and flipped and flipped. Nut'n. I'm sure I could start it today.

He took it with him the next day and came home with a Cox JU-87D Stuka. Probably the most difficult plastic Cox ever to fly. It cranked. So off to the schoolyard we went. Screw the instructions, he showed me how to hold the handle and work the elevator, and lit the fire! I gave him the thumbs up and he let go, and the Stuka rolled a few yards around the circle and Jumped off the ground, headed for the wild blue yonder more like a rocket than a plane. Oh yeah, pull down to level off, and the Stuka turned nose down and, again, more like a rogue missile, screamed straight towards the ground... hard-packed schoolyard sand... Full up. Full u...

Sand. Cowling. Canopy windows. Little red crew. Spinner. Fuel tank. Wings. Wasn't there an engine somewhere? We walked around discussing how I almost saved it, picking up bits and pieces and took it all home. My Dad was a master of epoxy glue. The next few days went by and lo and behold, it was a Stuka again. a really ugly Stuka. So we packed off to the schoolyard with it. Cranked it up, launched it, and guess what... He must have glued the wings back on that plane 5 times before giving up.

The next week he came home with a Cox PT-19. I think it had a Babe Bee instead of the tankless engines the later ones have. And it had a yellow fuse and blue wings. And lots of yellow rubber bands. So we launched and we crashed and we crashed and we launched... you get the picture. I was hopeless. But finally it flew and flew and flew, only to crash when the wind surprised me or I got excessively wild trying to scare too-near oglers.

Not to be bested, I bought another Stuka and got a lot of flights out of it before the wings were impossible to glue back on anymore. You can't land a Stuka hard without cracking the wings. After that it was a plastic P-40 Warhawk, which was my last plastic plane. It might have had a Babe Bee in it too. I don't recall an external tank. High school and college interrupted until the late '70s and I found a friend who built Goldgerg balsa kits. I had never before or after, had a friend that was interested in model planes. As a result, my skill set was retarded.

But I built models and flew off and on, introducing my 8 year old son to it. He's 26 now and we fly together when he comes home to visit. He's still in college, a Chemistry-Math senior. My wife launches them and we fly them. Surprisingly my balsa planes all have lasted for years. I decided it was stupid that I wasn't accomplished at stunting, so I have recently set out to get serious about it. I got a Li'l Jumpin' Bean for Christmas and built it this Spring, 2011. And I chopped my Stuntman23 into a shorty, which really woke it up. It goes anywhere you point it. I'm currently building from plans a new Li'l Devil, the only balsa plane I ever wore out.
Oh, remember the part about not reading the instructions? My Dad taught me to hold the handle wrong. I never knew until my sole flying friend pointed it out. "Hey, your handle is backwards." What?! And I never used my elbow, only wrist right for up, wrist left for down. It may have led to my early over-controlling, but I still fly that way today.

And there you have it.
Rusty

a ways back, when i was still a teenager, i bought a foam glider. i had bought many of them, and loved them as a kid. 4 foot wingspan, tough and could glide for ever. then i got a cox .049 and a prop. well, not really knowing anything about anything, i got some 30% nitro car fuel and a 2 channel radio, surface (before the days of 2.4 ghz)
i built the thing in an afternoon, the cox glued on a piece of wood on the nose. i had no push rods, so i went pull-pull on elevator and alieron. i had flown alot in microsoft flight sim 5.1 under dos, so i figured alieron and elevator was the way to go. i check every thing, it all worked well enough. off the a parking lot i went.
the engine was fueled with fuel containing not enough oil, and it started. i managed to take off, but had a roll to the left. i correct with right stick, but she just went further in the roll. 8 feet off the ground and 15 seconds was all i got in. never tried again till much, much later in life.
right now a 4 foot foam glider sits in my workroom, and i am ebaying for motors. i was thinking twin 020's but if memory serves, that flight was pretty slow and stable. i think its time for a trip down memory lane and buy a simple WOT cox .049 and have a go again, for old times sake. and to fix a 'what if....'
its one of the bigger regrets in my life. (i have very few regrets.)

Good luck, post back telling us how it goes. Get it on video if you can.

Good stories guys,

Rusty, I am holding you personally responsible for driving up collector prices on those old plastic models. If only you knew then what you know now.........

cribbs74 wrote:...If only you knew then what you know now.........

I'd know not to take the Stuka out to fly... but I could not resist. And that is why I am not a collector!

nemoskull wrote:a ways back, when i was still a teenager, i bought a foam glider. i had bought many of them, and loved them as a kid. 4 foot wingspan, tough and could glide for ever. then i got a cox .049 and a prop. well, not really knowing anything about anything, i got some 30% nitro car fuel and a 2 channel radio, surface (before the days of 2.4 ghz)
i built the thing in an afternoon, the cox glued on a piece of wood on the nose. i had no push rods, so i went pull-pull on elevator and alieron. i had flown alot in microsoft flight sim 5.1 under dos, so i figured alieron and elevator was the way to go. i check every thing, it all worked well enough. off the a parking lot i went.
the engine was fueled with fuel containing not enough oil, and it started. i managed to take off, but had a roll to the left. i correct with right stick, but she just went further in the roll. 8 feet off the ground and 15 seconds was all i got in. never tried again till much, much later in life.
right now a 4 foot foam glider sits in my workroom, and i am ebaying for motors. i was thinking twin 020's but if memory serves, that flight was pretty slow and stable. i think its time for a trip down memory lane and buy a simple WOT cox .049 and have a go again, for old times sake. and to fix a 'what if....'
its one of the bigger regrets in my life. (i have very few regrets.)

Nemoskull,
Back a few years ago there were lots of fellows putting Babe Bees on those Wally world foamies and having barrels of fun. The only .09 powered one that I know of was one cobbled up by son. He glued a Medallion .09 on the front. It was rudder/elevator. The control surfaces looked like they were cut with a machete. (He was an accomplished builder and pilot by this time and just did it as a lark/joke). The only critical thing that I can remember is that a length of strapping tape must be run span wise both top and bottom of the wing.
Well it did fly (sort of) but because it was way overpowered the wings flexed so much that it sometimes looked like a sea gull flapping its wings. Amazingly it took a real beating and survived. Pulling up out a dive would bend the wings into a ‘U’ shape.
I only took the sticks once, and it would not respond to any command so I told him that I think we’ve lost it. He took it back and with a grin said ‘No dad, that’s just how it flies’. It was lotsa fun and always brought howls from the spectators.
Have fun,
Al

Great stuff guys!

Nemo, Let me tell you what a teedee 049 will do with that glider:
I had this freeflight ,hand tossed 4' foam glider for years as a kid, Dad and I had a blast with it! It had so many flights that we had to use electrical tape to hold the wing halves in, it could be addjusted to do loops, corkscrews or just long glides,if you had the arm for it and the wings taped in well enough lol
Then I decided that if we could get the wings taped in good enough, and figure out how to "hook & release" we could launch it with my slingshot!
Well well well, the wings needed to be taped in there like nobody`s business, but look at that fuselage go dad!! and the fluttering wings made it past my head and beyond my feet too lol

Then a few years later the foamy glider got put away for the control line planes, which got replaced about a year later by r/c planes.

Now when the AA batteries in the cheapy transmitter went dead I still wanted to fly,but "we don`t travel all the way to town just for some batteries son, you`ll have to wait until we go to town"

After a few hours of taking my slingshot for a walk as I caled it "aka" hunting for what is small enough to take down with a slingshot, I had devised a plan: take that teedee049 thats on my powerpod, and that old foamy glider and some rubber bands.......

Dad came out of the house asking where I had gotten the batteries from, " no dad , I still need batteries, but not for this plane, look at her go dad"
I had set the rudder to make 75yard circles with just a bit of "up"elevator

OOOH thats right, up and up and up and just about the time we thought it was going to disappear into that low dark cloud the teedee049 got quiet.
Luckily for me there was zero wind that day because it took seemingly forever to come back down, dad with his grin and chagrin said"boy, you got so lucky, you woulda had to chase that thing for miles" followed by my "oh yeah, your right,but aint it cool"

The "up" elevator didn`t help it come down very slow, and the closer to terrafirma it got, the faster it went, in 75 yard circles lol
It had wandered just a little bit off the original flight plan, and built up a good bit of speed.......before it met the electric fence line......yup, the wings got clipped, but I had elmers glue!!lol

And then dad told me he would "bring home batteries monday after work if I would please not break anything else, or make anything else that flies chase the horses for 50 yards when it takes off"..........." oh, you saw that huh?"
" yes son, now go give the horses some apples and calm them down, you know that they know that you made it do that"
"I didn`t do it on purpose dad I swear" Thinking that after I got back from the horses I was in for a little "learnin experience"
But he understood that I was still new to modelling, and was just happy there was no dammage done from this learning experience, and onward my modelling went...........

A friend and I were flying his trainer in a vacant field, across the highway from the Veteran's Home in Cape Girardeau. After a few flights, we noticed a car heading toward us from the main drive of the Home. I figured that we were about to get chased away because someone complained, but it was just the opposite. Seems that some of the Veterans were sitting in their chairs out in front, straining to see the plane, so they'd sent a nurse over to see if we'd fly closer to them! How many times have you been told that you're flying your model TOO FAR AWAY and "please come closer to us"?!

Anyway, we flew my friend's plane for them for a while, and when done, arranged to do it again with reinforcements from the local modeler's club.

On a windy Sunday, we assembled on the back lawn of the Veteran's Home, with a very appreciative audience. There were the typical high-wing trainers, a couple of low-wing aerobatic jobs, and a couple of helicopters. I had brought my PeeWee-Powered, Cannon Guided, all red (what else?) Littlest Stik...which was immediately attacked as "being too little to fly in this wind".
Bwahaaa! My main-stream model friends were about to get an education in relative wind and high wing-loading!!!!

The .020 was healthy, and I had fresh fuel. When I cranked up the little red monster, the sky was full of trainers, drifting like kites in the 15 kt wind. You all know the good feeling of piloting an oft-flown plane...all it's quirks are familiar and accounted for, and it IS your friend in the air. So it was with me and my Littlest Stik! I'd gotten it balanced and trimmed to the point that it would fly hands-off, and had logged a LOT of time on it out in the boondocks. Just like now, I was about the only pilot in the area that messed with these little engines, and several of the club flyers watched to see if that tiny "toy" motor could persuade the plane to fly in the gale.

Turning from my field box with the .020 screaming, I chucked the tiny plane into the wind, blasting past the assembled veterans, and watched it accelerate as the prop grabbed clean air. Forward stick to keep it low and pointed at the bordering tree line for as long as I dared, then back-stick, up past vertical onto it's back, roll upright and off downwind to play tag with the trainers!

The red missile spent the next minute sewing vapor trails in and out the trainers, like a German 163 Komet harassing a formation of B-17s. The guy standing next to me murmured, "Well..." as I pulled Reno-Style bank-and-yanks around the flock of .40-powered high-wingers.

With endurance similar to the Komet, the .020 quickly exhausted it's fuel, and the REAL fun began. Several trainers had pranged themselves, trying to come in over the trees in the wind, and even past that obstacle, had been caught and flipped close to the ground. Even one of the aerobatic planes had caught a wing and performed a spectacular cart-wheel landing which was probably more entertaining for the Vets than the flying. Not my Littlest Stik, though. When the engine died, I put it's nose down, and racked it into a high-speed downwind turn inside the field's boundaries.

The great thing about planes with steep glides is that the angles are easy to judge, and I just pointed the Stik at the edge of the mowed grass, let it come down at what seemed like a leisurely pace thanks to the wind, rounded, and plopped onto the grass at about mid-field. It's tumbling arrival wasn't the most dignified way to return to earth, but sometimes, a guy just has to make concessions.

Proudly carrying my tiny plane back to my field box, I got a round of applause from the Vets, and flew it several more times just to prove the first flight wasn't a fluke...and to keep the trainers from getting too bored. Just shows how much fun you can have if you're willing to do a little careful experimenting out and away from the herd!

Great story!

I like that, but I`m not sure I will try high winds with my littlest stick just to see if I can top your story lol

Jaspur_x wrote:I like that, but I`m not sure I will try high winds with my littlest stick just to see if I can top your story lol

You might be surprised at how it handles in a good breeze, especially if you've flown it a lot and have it trimmed. You DO have to make sure you keep your airspeed on your downwind (Go like a "Bat-Outta-H**L" !), but your approach to land will be a lot slower than in still air.

Mine used it's original-size rudder, with a narrow little elevator cut from the stab, and while you DID have to stay on top of it, windy weather flying was very manageable.

The really great thing about past memories is that you can select them at will.

Or repress them at will.