PDF I FULL TEXT

You will need Adobe Acrobat to view this document.
Get a copy here

Reminiscences of a Flying Aces Fall Meet, 1975

by Bob Clemens

I wrote the following after attending a Flying Aces Club (FAC) contest in the fall of 1975, held at a meadow near Durham, Connecticut, known to FAC members as Pinkham Field, a reference to the Phineas Pinkham character who appeared in the old Flying Aces magazine. This piece was published in the December 1975 edition of the National Free Flight Society Digest. At that time I was the digest’s contributing editor for Scale. The FAC has grown considerably since that day 35 years ago when its membership numbered around a mere 100, but I know the same spirit pervades the club and its members today as it did on that long-ago autumn afternoon.

Only a dim afterglow remains beyond the low Connecticut hills to the west as I slide my two model boxes into the back seat of my car. The 1975 Flying Aces Club fall meet is over, but its impressions linger on. As I drive off through the deepening twilight my mind replays the day’s recollections …

The morning dawns clear and crisp; the ground fog and heavy dew are just burning off the meadow at Durham as the now-familiar yellow judging tent, fashioned from a large parachute, goes up. Contestants trickle in at a steady rate, their model boxes and paraphernalia dotting the grassy area around the tent.

A few tentative test flights by peanuts and profile models test the air; it is ideal and will remain so for the next two hours, calm and buoyant. My quarter-ounce Bede-4, inactive since the first Model Builder magazine postal contest, comes out of the box and on to the winding stooge. Two quick test flights confirm its trim, with the little ship turning 1:10 on the second flight. Mike Midkiff from Erie, Pennsylvania, has joined me and will be my flying companion throughout the day.

I change to a fresh motor for the Bede, but the rubber must be lousy as the model fails to climb and hits only 34 seconds. Not good in an event where the flight score is the total of three officials. Back to the test motor: 1,300 turns on the long loop of .065 rubber. The model rides the good air for a beautiful 1:43. Circling with it is a Folkerts Toots 1930’s racer warming up for the Greve and Thompson mass-launch events.

Walking back to my table, I look up and see a Mattel Super Star electric model thermaling smoothly about 300-feet overhead, then start to slowly descend. What air!

Charlie Learoyd has arrived, and is flying his Lacy M-10 in Peanut Scale. His first flight with the nine-gram ship hits 1:21. The second maxes out at 123 seconds, followed by a spectacular thermal flight of 5:31 that peaks out at about 350-feet overhead and lands only a few hundred feet from the launch point.

Charlie has just retrieved his ship when Mike Midkiff flies his clipped-wing Piper Cub into the same air. It orbits in the light lift for six minutes. Again, the model lands only a short walk from where it was launched. Does it get any better than this?

Trying for 2,000 turns on the BD-4, I blow the motor, luckily without damage. Noting that the break was at the knot, I retie and use it for my final official: 1:40. Damn that first flight! But my total score will be good enough for second place behind Charlie Learoyd.

My 18-inch Farman Mosquito makes 1:19 on its first flight in FAC Scale, and I turn it in for scale judging. Mike Midkiff winds up his jumbo Bristol M1-C World War I fighter, his second entry in FAC Scale. It rises slowly and realistically for a short but impressive 34-second flight.

The wind has shifted and picked up, now coming from the south. The blue sky has given way to a light overcast, and the good air has started to fade. My Eyeball Embryo endurance ship, flying in its first meet, lifts off the card table and climbs into what’s left of the lift. I’m able to jog under it as it drifts off the field, finally landing in an open area beyond a tree line. This would be the only max anyone gets in Embryo that day. Lucky!

Some guy shows up a little later to post 73, 117, and 109 and win first place in Embryo for the third year in a row. What was that name again? Oh yes—Henry Struck, one of Free Flight’s greats.

My second flight is a fair 87 seconds, but the third dies out at a disappointing 63, still good enough for second place.

By now most of the contestants have moved to the south end of the meadow for the raceplane events, the Aerol, Greve, and Thompson trophy “races.” These events feature simultaneous launches of rubber-powered Gee Bees, Keith Riders, Travelairs, Folkerts, and other gems from the Golden Age of air racing. They must be seen to be fully appreciated. Last ship down wins the heat.

As I look back at the main flying area, a Comet Waco Coast Guard biplane is thermaling slowly off to the north. Talking later to its builder, Ed Taylor, I was told those familiar words, “It was just a test hop.” Ed had to retrieve the all-blue ship from a tall tree. Even at a small contest such as this, the variety of scale models is both fascinating and amazing.

The contest ends at 5 p.m. Final scores are tallied, and awards are handed out as a Bellanca Airbus circles over the headquarters’ tent. My Farman gives me my third, second place of the day, scoring maximum scale points under the FAC rules, finishing behind Chet Bukowski’s Allied Sport low winger, based on a Comet kit plan from the late 1930s.

His CD chores finished for another season, Dave Stott breaks out some of his own ships for some fun-flying. By now the air is very calm. The sun is setting. Up goes Dave’s Beardmore Inflexible, a Jumbo Scale bomber prototype from the 1920s. It rises like a Wakefield, smooth and strong. Several Embryo endurance models are up again, floating on the cool, dead air. A peanut Mister Mulligan goes up, quickly followed by Bob Thompson’s profile Boeing biplane. Dave Stott trots out a real eye-catcher, a two-foot B-25 Mitchell. Off it goes, its two rubber motors each driving a three-bladed propeller. Beautiful!

Ed Novak winds up a Boeing P-26. Up it goes for a short, but very stable flight. These guys are having a ball, flying in the final minutes of daylight. Dave Stott winds up again, this time it’s his sleek Mr. Smoothie Thompson Trophy racer. And it is smooth, and fast, built with its landing gear retracted.

The fun is contagious. I get out my Farman Mosquito again and quickly put it up for two flights.

Suddenly, it’s all over. The tent is down and gone. Car doors slam in the gathering darkness. Scattered voices sound good-byes along the meadow’s edge.

As I put my key in the ignition I think to myself, “This, my friends, is what stick-and-tissue Free Flight business is all about.”  Q