SMALLnet post462

Bill Baker < > has found us a source of kits for Vic Smeed's famous Tomboy design:

They will e-mail a product list if you e-mail a request for it. The list is two pages long, has many plans for which they do NOT produce kits for, and covers mostly small models, scale and old- timer, for 1/2A engines. B&W will also sell plans only for their kitted models, at $8 per sheet plus $1 postage.

B&W's small model designs could be easily converted for Speed 400 or similar electric power. They also carry a few plans and partial kits for larger OT models. The partial kits I have seen are of good quality: ribs and formers are laser cut (but no other wood is included), nice wheels and pre-bent landing gear wire are provided, together with excellent plans.

OFB Bill White of OKC and I are flying Tomboys R/C with Speed 400's. His is stock; mine has its wing extended by a rib bay on each side. Not a big performance difference noted however. We like them so much we talk of building larger ones.

So good to hook up with SMALLnet. The size and complexity of the models that I see out at the field scare me, and the financial implications even more.

I moved away from model airplanes about 1965 when I discovered motorcycles and girls. It's taken me 40 years to get over that. But I'm learning to fly radio with an electric plastic which is really lots of fun even if not a "real" model. Have several PAW diesels bought while passing through Macclesfield (went to visit Paul Eifflander at the PAW works) and a wonderful MPJet 0.6.

I'm going to try Dave Boddington's "Tomboy RC Duration" when I can find a good Mills .75 (some of the Indian ones are dreadful) and would dearly love to build some of the Clutton oddities, particularly the quadruplane called "Quod".

I was glad to see the discussion of the Tomboy in Posting 461. I built a Tomboy in the mid fifties, free flight with an Elfin 1.49. I have recently completed another, this time for R/C, with an AXi 2204/54 outrunner motor.

It weighs 223 grams, (or just under eight ounces in SMALL terms), all-up. It flies beautifully, but not in windy conditions. Its large dihedral angle gives it the classic rocking to and fro free flight type motion in the air.

I would like to join. I have been out of the R/C modeling "loop" for at least 5 years, but now my sons have peaked my interest once again. I fly only 1/2A size aircraft, so this forum is naturally my first choice.

Years ago I had a kit of the "Littlest Stick" for a T.D..010. Unfortunately, it got burned up in a storage building fire, and now I am looking for another kit or the plans for this plane -- but have had no luck. I have looked in all the plans books that I can find, searched on the Internet too, and came up with nothing. Any help you can give me to find either a kit or plans will be greatly appreciated.

A while back -- in Posting # 436 -- Karl Bohl was looking for the plans for the Andreasson BA7 from the Air Trails 1960 Annual. Well, thanks to fellow SMALLster Doug Zorie, I can send him a copy of the article. Trouble is, the e-mail I have for Karl now "bounces" from AOL. Karl, are you still out there?

Great to get SMALLnet again. Re the deBolt Kitten: I am flying my third one; this from blue foam with white packing foam formers and a Feigao brushless. It gets 20-minute flights, is going on three years old (with two fixes of the blue foam using white glue) and flies so gently it is hardly a skill to fly it.

At Blockbuster I recently rented a copy of "Porco Rosso". It's really something, and quite entertaining -- and I think you will enjoy the 20s-30s airplanes. Here's what Disney says about Porco Rosso:

Take flight with "Porco Rosso", a valiant World War I flying ace ! From tropical Adriatic settings to dazzling aerial maneuvers, this action-adventure movie from world-renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki is full of humor, courage, and chivalry.

When "Porco" -- whose face has been transformed into that of a pig by a mysterious spell -- infuriates a band of sky pirates with his aerial heroics, the pirates hire Curtis, a rival pilot, to "get rid" of him. On the ground, the two pilots compete for the affections of the beautiful Gina. But it is in the air where the true battles are waged. Will our hero be victorious?

Featuring extraordinary voice talents, this 2-disc set is a thrilling ride you'll never forget! (End of Disney blurb)

Can anyone tell me where I can get plans for Carl Wheeley's free flight "Senator" design ? Also, is there a site where I can see P20 plans ? I was given one reference for that, but it did not work. I don't know what plan I want, so ideally I would like a web site with pictures of the models.

In the Nov 1991 Aeromodeller I have found sketches for a variable- pitch (rubber-power) prop designed by Cezar Banks. If anyone wants a scanned copy of that, contact me directly.

Roy Clough recently commented in SMALLnet that "It was fun to be reminded of early gas tube radios".

It IS fun and interesting to reflect on the gas tube R/C receiver, because it was basically an innovation of "SMALLsters", in 1938, and today is central in the continuing controversy on early R/C reliability that was mentioned in D. B. Mathews' FLYING FOR FUN column in Model Aviation.

The SINGLE gas tube receiver was the ultimate KISS receiver with only ten components. However, KISS made it very unstable: "slight variations of aerial load, power supply, etc. cause the quench frequency to change, upsetting the operating point."

This INHERENT circuit instability resulted in many flyaways and crashes for early R/C modelers. After experiencing this kind of mayhem, most early R/C modelers would probably agree that "EARLY R/Cers' KISS WAS LOUSY R/C FOR PLAY!" -- especially after they experienced what was to come !

The vast majority of R/C modelers from 1938 to 1953 used a SINGLE gas tube receiver. According to Howard McEntee", during this time period, a radio-control builder would not even consider trying a two-tube receiver, because of its supposed complexity...."

However, early R/Cers were dead wrong about the supposed complexity of the two-tube receiver ! Therefore, many of these early R/C modelers were probably very surprised to eventually learn that all it would have taken was ONE extra component, i.e. a gas tube or hard tube, for a completely reliable and stable gas tube receiver circuit that would have prevented many of the flyaways and crashes that happened for over a decade.

Again, this gas tube receiver development was another revolutionary receiver breakthrough made by a SMALLster !

In 1952, William Winter, who was editor of MODEL AIRPLANE NEWS, tested the Lorenz two-tube receiver (two gas tubes): "This receiver was tested by MAN over a period of nine months, making hundreds of flights. Its performance is outstanding."

By 1953, even the most vehement early KISS advocates of the SINGLE gas tube receiver, such as Ed Lorenz, would finally publicly renounce them and KISS, forever !

...Roger, you might be interested to know that the "inventor" of digital proportional R/C -- Doug Spreng -- got his start in modeling with a Dakota kit I gave him. He was 14 at the time, living with his grandmother in a trailer court a few blocks down the street from the Veco factory.

With nothing much to do with his time -- his grandma didn't have a TV set -- Doug took to hanging around Veco's parking lot. He was hoping that one of us "expert model engineers" might be heading out to the nearby park for some test flying that he could watch. . . .

That didn't happen often. But when it did, Doug usually managed to be there -- and eager to help in any way he could.

Doug was a kind of unattractive, nerdy kid (something like me) and just for the heck of it I gave him a Dakota kit and one of our many extra 1/2A engines. (Veco wheels too, I think.)

Doug built the model -- and used to fly it sometimes in the dagnab trailer court ! I'm sure he got plenty of tree-climbing practice from that...

Later on, Doug became a highly proficient electronics engineer. He devised several unusual R/C systems, which he flight tested himself at the old model flying paradise at Los Angeles's Sepulveda Dam Basin.

Doug was a fine pilot too, but rather more daring than most R/Cers of the time. I remember watching one experimental model of Doug's at Sepulveda. He had "wrung it out" and was making an inverted pass, when he lost control and the plane crashed.

Post-mortem examination showed the cause: a transistor had come loose from its "flea clip" -- anyone else remember those clever little solderless connector gadgets ?

...But long before Doug even got started in his modeling career, Dick "Schuey" Schumacher and Herb Owbridge had done extensive development of small, lightweight R/C equipment and model airplanes to use that.

Schuey had been a top-level rubber-power modeler before the War, specializing in scale models that flew like contest planes. Herb was the electronics guy. Together they developed some unusual and surprisingly effective concepts that never became commercialized. (One was their "Ruddervator".)

However, later on Schuey became part of the Babcock Radio team that came out with the first "Plug & Play" radio control systems for model planes. That was in the early 1950's.

(I had one of those; and aside from its heaviness -- it needed 4 sets of batteries ! -- it proved amazingly trouble-free.) [JW]

SMALLnet Posting post462