VintageViews I
n my last column I wrote about R/C in 1950. I ended that column with the fol- lowing sentence “Can any of you relate to those early days of R/C when things
were not simple but were very challenging?” Well, I have received several interesting re- sponses to that question that I would like to share with you. The first is from Bill Mitch of Hebron, In-
diana. Bill writes: “Got myFMtoday and of course the first article I read was yours. Yes, I can relate to early days of R/C. I started out when I was 14 or 15 in 1951 or 1952. I built a DeBolt Live Wire with an OK Cub .09 on it and I was going to use the 465 equip- ment. I only had the receiver. But I was out at Tony Grish’s place watching them fly R/C one day and noticed that you had to point the transmitter at the plane to control it. Of course later on, when I became an amateur radio operator, I then understood the use of a dipole antenna. I did not like that and sent my receiver back and got one on 27Mc. “Then I got a Mac II ground base five-watt transmitter on 27.255 Mc. All the time I flew that plane I never had a flyaway. When I put an OK Cub .14 on it, it really performed. As long as I peaked the receiver at the begin- ning of the flying day to make up for the B battery gradually being worn down, I never had any trouble with the CS equipment. Oh, forgot. I used a C/S SN escapement in it. I may have told you this stuff before. I don’t remember. I also worked for Tony Grish af- ter I got out of high school for about a year when he was making the Plasticote props. I now have a Live Wire Kitten with an OK Cub .049 in rudder only. I am 75 years old and I know I could still fly with escapement and rudder only. I will fly it this spring.” Here’s another from Jim Keller: “The com-
ments that follow are a result of your April 2012FMarticle inviting those of us who can relate to the ‘old days’ of R/C. Here are some of my fond memories. “I graduated from a local L.A. university
PHOTOGRAPHY: BOB ABERLE
A smaller version of Norm Rosenstock’s 1950 design Electron.FLYING MODELS published Norm’s design in December 1950. The plane is by Bob Aberle.
in 1962 with an Electronics Engineering de- gree. Ours was the first time the curriculum included transistor theory. Our lectures and labs consisted of a mixed bag of learning, with both tubes and transistors being taught. “My first job was in 1963, working for the Guided Missile Development division of General Dynamics in Pomona, California. I had been a modeler since I was eight years old, but radio control was a far-off dream. It turned out that there were two locally prominent modelers at work there, whom I met with and gleaned information from. One of these, Ian Douglas, who was my Supervi- sor at the time, was mentoring a Cal Poly Pomona student on his Senior Project and had talked him into doing a design of an RC (resistor-capacitor) filter. These were the
rage back then, and forged a departure from the old passive component-only approach to an active filter approach. Mr. Douglas whet- ted my appetite by urging me to couple a wide-band super-regen receiver and my modification of his student’s RC filter to pro- vide a narrowband, solid state approach. “Well, I bit the bullet, hook, line and
sinker. A short while later, I had my own Galloping Ghost transmitter that I made 100% in my garage except for the gimbal and stick assembly that I purchased from a local Kraft repair service shop. I printed and etched the transmitter and modulator boards and stuffed them with surplus parts I scrounged from the labs at work. I bought a 3-channel Rand GG actuator, but for my first R/C plane, a Midwest Whiz Kid, it would be Rudder-only with a Cox .049 up front.
by bob noll You can reach Bob Nollvia e-mail at
bobrc@aol.com
Here’s a 100-square inch, 3.8-ounce Jr. Falcon(above left) and a 100-square inch, 5.3-ounce Bootstraps also by Bob Aberle. Winter flying is easy in the
34
Northeast if you have a small electric powered Rudderbug(above right). This plane is another one built by Bob Aberle.
JUNE 2012
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