OldtimerTopics T
exaco: the very word brings a smile to my face. The Society of Antique Modelers deliberately does not keep permanent records of win- ning scores or times. We’re about recreat- ing the models of the first Golden Age of model aviation. Although SAM may not keep records, many of us have memories of the winning flight times.
Brad Levine of the SCIFs recorded the longest old time F/F Texaco flight time in my memory—slightly more than two hours while flying at Taft. Dave Harding has put up Champs winning Texaco flights of over an hour in both Electric Texaco and Igni- tion Texaco events. Barbara Mulholland, out of Florida, went to a contest in Indiana this spring and put up a 74-minute Texaco flight.
This fascination with long flights is not new. Dick Korda’s 1939 Wakefield rubber ship had an OOS flight of 43 minutes, 29 seconds. That particular Wakefield design was flown by everybody in Korda’s Cleve- land Balsa Butchers club. It was just one of many different good designs flying at the time. It was Korda’s long flight time that made the design achieve immortality. Airframe size, location, and engineering all matter in making long flights. Bigger air- planes are easier to see in the air for both the flyer and the timer. For the 1⁄2A R/C Tex- aco event—the eight ounce per square foot wing loading rule meant that most designs are scaled to around 288 square inches. By rule ½A R/C Texaco contestants are limited to using a Cox reed valve .049. Competition improves the breed and ultimately the event rules were changed to require a smaller tank—because the airplanes were “specking out”.
The ½A F/F Texaco rules didn’t have a
wing loading requirement, and contestants can and do use any ½A engine. Successful
PHOTOGRAPHY: MIKE MYERS
The Boehle Giantis shown in its native R/C Texaco habitat—Muncie. Here Dave Harding’s Giant is being retrieved by his friend, Chuck Kime.
designs for the F/F event were much larger —around 550 square inches. Size continues to matter in the “big” Texaco events. Big Lanzo Bombers with Ohlsson 60s or Brown Juniors do well in the R/C Texaco events. Jay Burkart and some of his friends are now flying 2300 square inch Lanzo Airborns in Electric Texaco, They’re big, but not quite as big as the 2,853 square inch Boehle Giant with its almost 15-foot wingspan. Location is also important. Freeflight Tex- aco airplanes drift with the wind and win- ning flight times in the events are frequent- ly in excess of 30 minutes. A chase bike and a big field are necessary to retrieve a model that may land two or three miles from the launch point. The F/F Texaco events are not
flown at Muncie because the field is too small, but they are flown at El Dorado Dry Lake. Lost Hills and Eloy are also suitable venues. The R/C Texaco events can be and are flown from many club fields, although it’s best to do so where there’s no controlled airspace or altitude restriction.
The engineering part is what makes the Texaco events so fascinating for someone who, like me, is a tinkerer at heart. How do you make an engine run a long time on a very small amount of fuel? How do you set up your airplane for a very slow climb so it will not climb out of sight before the tank is empty? There are three general approaches: 1. Use the smallest engine that will get your airplane off the ground; 2. Use a big prop to
by mike myers You can reach Mike Myersat 911 Kilmary Lane, Glendale, CA 91207, or via e-mail at
mikemyersgln@charter.net
Hal Wightman holds his Forster .99 powered Taibi Powerhouse (above left), in the native habitat for F/F Texaco ships—El Dorado Dry Lake. You need room to fly these big F/F birds and their cousins, the F/F Gas Scale class, and El Dorado
46
has it. That’s a Cox Tee Dee .15 needle valve assembly (above right) on an Ohlsson .60. Dave Harding machined various diameter restrictor inserts to achieve the best fuel economy.
SEPTEMBER 2013
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