PHOTO: PETER SCOTT
Peter Scott holds his Super Cyke powered City Slicker (above left) at Middle Wallop in England. This is Dick Drake’s Tee Dee .010 powered Drobshoff
lent modeling book Flying North published by the British Model Flying Association (BMFA). The late Jack North was an Eng- lish modeler who combined some of the qual- ities of Frank Zaic, Sal Taibi, Chet Lanzo and Charles Hampson Grant. “Surely you jest,” I hear you say. Nope. He was a skilled contest flyer and made the English national FAI team in the 1950s in each of the power, rubber and glider events. He designed nu- merous models—there are many model de- signs in the book.
He was a meticulous note taker recording what he saw on the contest field. He was also a theorist writing papers on tube winding, thermal detection and such. In his “day job” he was a scientist working with wind tun- nels, and developed techniques that allowed photography of wing sections at supersonic
PHOTO: DICK DRAKE
Challenger (above right). Dick is something of a specialist in these .010 powered models.
speeds. When North died, his widow asked some of his modeling friends to help organize and sort out his modeling materials. They found notebooks going back to 1938, many previously unpublished designs, and photos. The book is a fascinating portrait of a very accomplished modeler active during the old timer era and later. The book can be pur- chased from the BMFA
www.bmfa.org or from the editor, Martin Dilly.
Polyspan is a wonderful covering materi- al for those of us fond of nitrate or butyrate dope. It’s light. It’s fairly tough. It’s way cheaper than silk. It’s major failing is that it comes in just one color—white. If you use colored dope to get a color scheme, the mod- el gets heavy—fast! But there are solu- tions—and “solution” is the key. Bud Romak was one of the first to mix
PHOTO: VIC NEWTON
Higgins India ink in a 10% ink, 10% dope, and 80% thinner solution and then spray it on the Polyspan after the Polyspan had first been applied and sealed with several coats of thinned dope. Lee Campbell sells special dye colors that you mix with dope and thin- ner before spraying on. Kevin Sherman out in California uses Kandy Kolor Koncentrate from auto paint stores as the “mix” for his solution.
All of these techniques require a clear coat of dope on top after putting the color on. Some folks have had trouble with that top coat sealer drying too quickly and leav- ing a rough surface. Hank Baer from Mary- land recommends using Brodak’s dope re- tarder at levels up to 20%. He says the retarder gives the dope time to level out be- fore drying.
PHOTO: JACK HINER
PHOTO: FERNANDO RAMOS
Fernando Ramos holds his Ed Lidgard Eugene(above). We tend to forget just how much dihedral these old rubber F/F birds used. Vic Newton took this photo (above right) of Steve Moskal’s Speed 400 Scale Cessna AW. A blue sky, a pretty model, and life doesn’t get much better than that. Jack Hiner’s new Airborn 900(at right) with a GB 5.4 cc diesel in the nose.
FLYING MODELS 31
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