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om Moore has two reports to make this month. First, he comments on the Easy


Built Blue Flash Racer from the Jimmy Allen series.


“First of all, I’ve been building models for 56 years and, in my opinion, this kit should not be considered a rank beginner’s pro- ject, especially for a young kid. It builds more like a scale model with the fuselage being the most difficult. That said, the finished model appears to be somewhat overbuilt as an endurance model. (Mine weighed in at 49 grams without rubber—DR). “I also braced the .030 landing gear wire with a short rein- forcement to help with hard landings. Surprisingly, with a hand carved 8-inch balsa prop and John Regalbutto’s adjustable thrust button, the Blue Flash ended up a bit nose heavy. To achieve the plan specified c.g., I switched back to an 8-inch Peck Polymers prop. This brought the c.g. in line with the plan. However, glide tests indicated a slight tail heaviness which may have been due to the one degree wing incidence that I added to get a small de- gree of decalage so I might go back to the balsa prop after all.” Easy Built Models, P.O. Box 681744, Prattville, AL 36068, 334- 358-5184, www.easybuiltmodels.com. “In addition, I am very happy with John Regalbutto’s ad- justable thrust button. It even includes a little Allen wrench with a dowel handle. Once the two adjustment screws are locked down, it seems to hold tight no matter how extreme the angle.


plastic canopy, super decal sheet, stripwood, rolled tissue and hardware package. Lou says it’s one of the best kits he has ever seen. Only 50 left at $28.00 plus postage. Contact robberoo1031@hotmail.com or e-Bay. Sounds like a great project for you guys heading for Geneseo this summer. I have been corresponding for a while


with Ed McGugan from Canada. Ed does a lot of work with kids and his story is inter- esting from two angles. Here’s what Ed had to say: “The profile P-51s we made last summer worked out pretty well. The foam was better to work with than we expected and we had to replace quite a few models as they kept


Tom Moore has a lot to say about his experience building the Easy Built Blue Flashand the John Regalbutto thrust buttons.


I couldn’t be more pleased.” John Regalbutto, Regal Solutions,11 East Street, Georgetown, MA 01833, 978-352-4834, regal33@verizon.net.


flying away or flying into trees, etc. (Kudos to Art Collard for the design.—DR) “We made up 40 kits and started selling


them to raise money for a charity (Free Wheelchair Mission). We didn’t sell so many ARF kits but we had a lot of boys chasing the models around the arena (Where were the girls?—DR). We did end up converting the ARFs to RTFs and they sold much better. (I guess the days of kids “liking” to build some- thing are gone forever—DR). The foam plate bug did kind of bite me so attached is a pho- to of a 13-inch SE-5A. It came in at 17 grams so wing loading is 0.26 grams per square inch. Glides well and should fly well in mild weather.”


PHOTO: LOU BUFFARDI


My call for more pictures and info for this column brought some interesting new con- tributions. I got a detailed report from the Heart of America F/F Association (HAFFA) President, Mike Basta, including several good pictures and comments. I’m showing, first, Jim O’Reilly launching one of his high flying rubber Mulvihill models because so many of you know Jim from his plans ser- vice. Jim’s plane went OOS on his second flight but, fortunately a farmer found and returned it in time for Jim to make his third flight and win the contest. I greatly admire clubs like HAFFA because of the effort they make to acquire flying sites, promote con- tests and generally support modeling.


PHOTO: MIKE BASTA


PHOTO: ED MCGUGAN


Ed McGugan has been bitten by the foam bug and is building lots of models with sheet foam. His P-51 from Art Collard plans was a big hit with his kid’s group. Here is his SE-5a (above). Lou Buffardi has discovered a really swell Arado float plane kit on sale on e-Bay in limited quantity (above right). There may even be some left by the time you read this. Here’s Jim O’Reilly launching his Mulvihill for an OOS flight. The model was returned in time for Jim to complete and win the event (at right).


FLYING MODELS 29


PHOTO: TOM MOORE


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