James M. Lewis
Armed Forces
Hmmm, never given that much thought then. But you right it would have work.
General Basic Flight School For The Little Ones
Admiral
Well-Known Member
My first venture into Aeromodelling (as it was known) was to scale up a plan from a magazine and build a control line (solid wing) Hunting Provost at the age of 10, it was very unsuccessful due to lack of building skills. The body was later converted to a gyro-copter which was equally unsuccessful. The break through came on my 11th birthday when I was given a trainer kit called the Hot Rod and transferred the 1.5cc Diesel motor out of the Provost. Around the same time I inherited a unfinished Sailplane called the Apache from a boarder who couldn't take it with him when he left, it flew quiet well, spent many happy hours chasing it through the local paddocks before I discovered De-thermalisers. As time moves on I am nearly 70 and still doing the same as I was at 10 and still loving it.
James M. Lewis
Armed Forces
Hi Admiral,
I was 12 years old when my parents got me my first control line airplane. It was made by a company called COX, don't know if they're still around. Wingspan was about 14 inches I think, made of plastic and powered by a Cox 049 gas motor. Remember then you had to use a dry cell battery and attach it to the glow plug of the engine. It had a spring off the motor shift that you would place over the propeller and would turn until it was tight. You had a needle that had to be adjusted for fuel mixture. Once you release the prop (just like they did in the 1930s when a person would yank on the prop to get it started). Never was very good at control line flying, that in itself is an art. Once I built a awesome P-47 Thunderbolt out of balsa wood and silk screen covering. It was painted and pin striped. My little sister went with me to a vacant parking lot to fly it. Just knew it was going to be a great day to fly. Cranked it up and my sister held on to the tail as I walked back to the control handle. Everything looked fine, gave her the signal to let go and away we went. Straight up and straight down...........BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Probably the only model P-47 in the world that had a kamikaze ending. My sister helped me pick up the zillion pieces and we went home. When I was in my first tour station in South Vietnam built a Jap Zero. Never got to fly it, that was 1968. When I was station in West Germany from 1972-1975, joined a German American model airplane flying club. Great bunch of guys and it was there I saw my first RC helicopter. Back then there were no gyros, electronic speed controls. They were gas powered birds and they were on either 27 or 29 mhz. I flew helicopters in the army and was station at a former German Luftwaffe air base called Dolan Barracks. Legend has it that the Germans had a squadron of ME262 jets. From the air you could see the outline of the whole runway. We only used about half for our aircraft that were UH-1 Huey, CH-47 Chinook, OH-58 Kiowa , Birddog and U-21 Ute fix wing. What made that a great place to be assign was the base commander allowed us to fly our model airplanes on the South 40 on weekends. Good duty
I was 12 years old when my parents got me my first control line airplane. It was made by a company called COX, don't know if they're still around. Wingspan was about 14 inches I think, made of plastic and powered by a Cox 049 gas motor. Remember then you had to use a dry cell battery and attach it to the glow plug of the engine. It had a spring off the motor shift that you would place over the propeller and would turn until it was tight. You had a needle that had to be adjusted for fuel mixture. Once you release the prop (just like they did in the 1930s when a person would yank on the prop to get it started). Never was very good at control line flying, that in itself is an art. Once I built a awesome P-47 Thunderbolt out of balsa wood and silk screen covering. It was painted and pin striped. My little sister went with me to a vacant parking lot to fly it. Just knew it was going to be a great day to fly. Cranked it up and my sister held on to the tail as I walked back to the control handle. Everything looked fine, gave her the signal to let go and away we went. Straight up and straight down...........BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Probably the only model P-47 in the world that had a kamikaze ending. My sister helped me pick up the zillion pieces and we went home. When I was in my first tour station in South Vietnam built a Jap Zero. Never got to fly it, that was 1968. When I was station in West Germany from 1972-1975, joined a German American model airplane flying club. Great bunch of guys and it was there I saw my first RC helicopter. Back then there were no gyros, electronic speed controls. They were gas powered birds and they were on either 27 or 29 mhz. I flew helicopters in the army and was station at a former German Luftwaffe air base called Dolan Barracks. Legend has it that the Germans had a squadron of ME262 jets. From the air you could see the outline of the whole runway. We only used about half for our aircraft that were UH-1 Huey, CH-47 Chinook, OH-58 Kiowa , Birddog and U-21 Ute fix wing. What made that a great place to be assign was the base commander allowed us to fly our model airplanes on the South 40 on weekends. Good duty