Model Aviation Online - Modeling Spoken Here (May 2006)

I could easily see myself building one of these character-filled airplanes ...

Have you noticed the trend toward recapturing the best of the good things of the past in our society? It seems that many are taking a look back over their shoulders and fondly remembering experiences from an earlier, perhaps simpler, era.

    People are willing to pay greatly in some cases to own even a small part of something that reminds them of their younger days. An example of this would be the cars sold at the Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction, featured on the Speed Channel television network.

    Old stuff from the 1950s and 1960s—and in most cases American Iron from Detroit—is selling for astronomical prices. Cars that originally sold for, say, $3,000 new are routinely fetching prices in excess of $100,000! That's really putting your money where your memory is!

    In our hobby this nostalgia trend has been going on for quite a while. Certainly one successful and popular manifestation of this is the Society of Antique Modelers (SAM) movement.

    This group is dedicated to preserving and even repopularizing the models and competition events from a long-bygone era. In the March MA we featured coverage of the 2005 SAM Champs that was contested in the high desert in Las Vegas, Nevada. Old-time FF models converted to RC assist, FF replicas, and, for the first time, Old Time and Classic CL models were invited to compete.

    Another successful nostalgia group is the Vintage Radio Control Society (VR/CS). It is dedicated to preserving all aspects of the early RC movement, including not only the models but also the radio-control units that were used in the early RC models.

    Have you ever watched an escapement work? How about a Galloping Ghost system? That will leave you twitching for sure! Check out the VR/CS booth at any hobby consumer show for a lesson about how far we've come technically.

    Technology is great, and it's a safe bet that given the choice we'd probably opt to keep the equipment we have today for routine use. But I'd also bet that most of us would book a trip to the past a couple of times each year if we could, just to enjoy things at a slower and perhaps more enjoyable pace.

    As my good friend Bill Werwage (current F2B World Champion) once said in reference to the Classic CL Stunt event, "The past is a nice place to visit but a dangerous place to live. Don't forget to work on the new stuff too."

    His intent was, in my interpretation, to remind us that the stuff of today will be the nostalgia stuff of tomorrow and that we should strive to push the technology to a higher level while giving a more than occasional nod to where we've been.

    Another nostalgia modeling group, like the VR/CS, focuses on early RC modeling. The Senior Pattern Association (SPA) is dedicated to the preservation of, and participation in, RC Pattern (Aerobatics) flying. The VR/CS also has events for Pattern flying, but its focus is on more than one aspect of RC nostalgia.

    This issue contains an article that is dedicated to explaining and promoting the efforts of both organizations in respect to early Pattern-type flying. The author of this "State of the Sport" piece is Duane Wilson, whose father was active in RC Pattern in the early 1960s. It naturally followed that Duane's "heroes" in modeling would be the famous modelers of that era that his father also revered.

    Duane flew Pattern into the 1980s and then took a long sabbatical. He recently re-entered the hobby, and his interests immediately gravitated toward the vintage Pattern events. His positive insights about how the vintage events are being conducted and about the people involved in them is interesting reading.

    We convinced Duane to expand on his original idea of a revisit type of piece to a State of the Sport report, including a list of plans sources for those who might be interested in getting involved and contacts for the SPA and VR/CS.

    I found this piece to be extremely inspirational. I have always liked flying RC Pattern and did so semicompetitively in the 1980s. I did not keep up with the technology and the new patterns being flown. I did not feel that I would have the extra time to spend in the future getting up to speed enough to be competitive in modern Pattern events.

    I have always loved the designs of the Pattern models from the vintage era, however, and I could easily see myself building one of those character-filled airplanes and competing in some vintage meets in the semi-near future.

    What model would I build? No contest; it would be Hal "Pappy" deBolt's Robin (my close friends will understand).

You can reach me via landline from a nostalgic rotary-dial phone at (610) 614-1747 (okay, a Touch-Tone phone works just as well) or via that newfangled computer service called E-mail at robinhunt@rcn.com. The pony express is no longer operating in our area, but the horseless vans will deliver to Box 68, Stockertown PA 18083. Ah, the classics ... MA