WWI Models in Flying Models Magazine

Roundel · 22 February 2003, 07:53 AM

The March 2003 issue features a large (31" wingspan) rubber-powered free flight Pfalz D-III. The big size permits lots of detailing with low wingloading. The model depicted in the magazine is a beauty.

That issue also includes a 24" Sopwith Triplane, electric-powered with radio control, as well as a small rubber free flight biplane called the Blip (featured in the August 1999 issue) that has been modified into a Sopwith Camel for Snoopy. Actually, it looks like a Boeing F4B with Sopwith wings and tail surfaces.

A non-WWI plane in the same magazine is a semi-scale rubber free flight model of a Canadian lightplane called the Found Centennial. It was one of the few high wing lightplanes with an strutless cantilever wing. Ironically, that might have been its undoing: bush pilots find struts very handy when manhandling a plane on pontoons.

Lyle · 25 February 2003, 12:41 PM

I'm glad to see Flying Models still around, keeping pretty much the same format as when I picked up my first copy years ago. I'll have to get that issue, thanks for the heads up!

Roundel · 27 February 2003, 03:50 PM

You're welcome! Unlike a certain other magazine (whose initials suggest a gender), Flying Models hasn't forgotten that there's FF and CL as well as RC.

1 March 2003, 03:06 AM

MAN sure plays on its "historic" past while not paying any attention to modellers who still know how to build light airy balsa frameworks and cover with tissue. A real shame. I guess $$$ (r/c sales) talks.

Lyle · 1 March 2003, 03:34 AM

Quote:

MAN *sure plays on its "historic" past while not paying any attention to modellers who still know how to build light airy balsa frameworks and cover with tissue. A real shame. I guess $$$ (r/c sales) talks.

The sad thing about R/C is the direction it's going with nothing but Almost Ready to Fly--"ARFs". *The builders that still actually take a kit and build a plane from the wood and metal are a dying breed today...not to mention the ones who draw a set of plans and construct a model from them!

In MAN, it's nothing but ads, ads and more ads with an occasional building article for us wierdos out there who like to actually cut wood. *I'm glad the FF guys haven't forgotten what it's really all about.

I guess the problem with R/C is that it's gone from a hobby to a sport--hence, the higher financial bracket that's into it now. *When I started flying in 1979, there were always older cars and trucks with nice planes (built by the flyers,naturally)...nowadays, there's lots of SUVs and new trucks and nothing but ARFs on the field. *

* * * * * *

Roundel · 1 March 2003, 08:39 AM

"I guess the problem with R/C is that it's gone from a hobby to a sport--hence, the higher financial bracket that's into it now."

A shrewd observation. I haven't heard of many sportsmen who build their own golf clubs, water skis, or basketballs.

The trend away from kits and towards assembled items seems to be across the board. In model railroading, the simple "shake the box" kits are less common in the shops and at the shows. "Model car" now implies 1/43 die-cast, not a 1/24 or 1/32 plastic kit. In electronics, Heathkit recently went out of business.

Yet Home Depot and Lowe's are making a mint in the do-it-yourself home projects business. People will do the full-size themselves, but leave the miniature to the experts!