A group of Top Dawgs, a Ken Willard design from 1956 at a VRCS Reunion (above). The Top Dawgwas the first VRCS Theme Plane. Here (at right) eight Class III planes line up at an early VRCS Fun and Fellowship reunion. Pattern competition at VRCS reunions is an important item in the VRCS By-Laws. Hal Parenti is making sure the glow plug is good.
those neat GG actuators. Surprised you say you didn’t recognize the first picture of the GO-AC. Ted Strader made this one, as well as a few other goodies, and marketed them under the name, Special Edition Plans, I be- lieve. While I really only met Ted once, memories of his Southwind have a special place in my memories, since that airplane was my first really successful RC airplane, way back in 1960 or ’61.
“Anyway, I thought I’d write you this short note, just to let you know that I/we ap- preciate the work you do to keep the Vintage stuff out there. Like a lot of us, it seems like only yesterday when we were actually flying this stuff! We put it all away a few years ago, never thinking that forty-fifty years later, we’d open up those boxes, blow off the dust, and start flying with it all again.” From Joe Hass, Rochester Hills, MI: “Always enjoy your column. My father owned a hobby shop for 25 years. I grew up with Sterling Mambos and Bonner escape- ments, Glass City and MIN-X systems. “The enclosed picture (not shown) is self explanatory, a NIB Air Guide Systems R/C Pulse Control GO-AC GG+Trim. The manu- al states ‘Manufactured by Air Guide Sys- tems a wholly owned subsidiary of Special Edition Plans, Box 2555, Schenectady, NY 12309.’
“I occasionally make contributions to Model Aviation as In The Air topics, Re- views and Viewfinder. I had all three in the March 2014 issue.”
From Stacey (Chuck) Mills, (no ad- dress given): “A friend gave me a copy of the April 2014 issue of FLYINGMODELS and I very much enjoyed your ‘Vintage Views’ column. Beautiful pictures. I flew a Top Dawg with Galloping Ghost back in the mid to late ’60s when I was in high school, got out of RC until the mid ’70s due to college work, then got back in when I was in medical school. I flew a lot of Pattern in the late ’70s and ’80s, dropped out again when my daughters were growing up, then got back in yet again in the late ’90s. I have been going strong ever since, flying everything from indoor foamies and old timers to turbines. I’m fortunate to live on a 92-acre farm with my own flying field. “Radios have sure come a long way! In the ’60s I flew at Langley Air Force base with a very active club including Dave Robelen, who was very helpful to me as a youngster. Over the last few years I have been building up my own collection of old radios and I have a pretty good accumulation, including a MIN-X Galloping Ghost transmitter like the one in your article.
FLYING MODELS
“I do think there’s one minor error in your article. Galloping Ghost, at least the trans- mitters that I have/had, doesn’t turn the car- rier wave on and off. The transmitter turns on and off an audio tone modulating the car- rier. Turning the carrier on and off would lead to a lot of stability issues including prob- lems with the receiver automatic gain con- trols ‘locking’ onto the signal, etc. This is also true of the single-channel ‘1-right, 2-left’ transmitters. The carrier stays on all the time and you turn the tone on by depressing the button. It is the same with reed systems. The carrier stays on and the switches bring up different tones.
“At any rate, it’s a very minor point, and really more of an excuse to write you about vintage radios than anything else. Best wishes!” From Dick Woodward, (no address
given): “I found your article about the de- Bolt Super Cruiser very interesting, since that was my first multi-channel airplane. As shown in the original box art, the plane was designed as a tail dragger rather than the trike shown in your pictures, obviously a later version. I actually built mine as a trike in late 1960 or early 1961. It was powered by an old Fox 35 stunt engine con- verted to RC by adding a throttle. “The radio equipment was a homemade Kraft 10-channel transmitter (not propor- tional) built from the schematic and a Bram- co Apollo reed, relayless receiver driving Bonner Transmite servos. The transmitter had a homemade stick box fastened to the side rather than the thumb switches, be- cause I’m an amputee and don’t do multiple thumbs well, actually not at all. “I bought the receiver from a local Atlanta area ace and favored model test pilot named Al Pinson, who had some connection to Bramco (rep?). Al started the Tri County Ra- dio Control Club in the mid-1950s. Mickey
Walker was another local ace and started the Cobb County Radio Control Club in 1962. I was a member of that club. Al test flew my Super Cruiser. Up until the Super Cruiser, I was flying single-channel, rudder only with escapements and homemade ra- dios and later on some Galloping Ghost stuff; all this after the free flight (rubber and glow) and U-control of my really early days. “The Super Cruiser had a dramatic argu- ment with Mother Earth in late 1962 (no equipment failure) and as a result, I con- verted it to a shoulder wing configuration with strip ailerons and a K&B .45 RC for power. I’m embarrassed to say as an aero- nautical engineer that it was a disaster, over powered and marginally spirally unstable. Needless to say, this version had an affinity for Mother Earth that would not be denied. All this proved that if you don’t pay atten- tion to details (vertical tail area), you get an awful flying airplane that won’t stay in air for a guy who’s not a fairly good pilot. Oh well, I always liked building better than fly- ing anyway.
“I’m in the midst of restoring the Super Cruiser today to near its original configura- tion. It won’t be silk and dope this time and it’ll have a brushless motor and modern ra- dio. I’m old and slow, so who knows when or if this project will be completed. I’m now a member of the Paulding County RC club (PCMA) here in Georgia after being out of the hobby for many years. Some of the (real- ly) old original members of the CCRC club are also PCMA members, such as Mickey Walker, Dick Konkle and Frank Stewart to name a few.
“I apologize for the length of this, but I’m sure you realize how hard it is for an old fart to stop talking or writing. Thanks for your patience (if you got this far).”
Note: Dick uses the name “Super Cruiser” but the plane was just Cruiser.
Date
July 26 Aug. 2
Aug. 16
VRCS 2014 CALENDAR OF EVENTS Event
Location
deBolt In-Memoriam Fly-In Rochester, NY VR/CS Fun Fly
Denver, CO
Aug. 30–31 Spirit of Selinsgrove Aug. 29–30 Northwest Fly-In Sep. 8–9 Oct. 11
Muncie Reunion Octoberfest
Old School RC Jamboree Davis, CA Owego, NY Medford, OR Muncie, IN Oxford, PA
Event Director
Giuseppe Fascione Norm Berger Doug Barton Bob Noll
Bruce Tharpe Ron Howard Mike Denest
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