A  promise between friends is a trust exercise. When followed through on, it builds a bond of mind, body, and soul that is stronger than steel.
    As children, the ritual is symbolized by interlocking pinkies. As we grow older, and the promises grow more significant, eye contact and then even a micro transfusion of liquid resounds the weight of the agreement and the stronger bond that has potential to turn friends into brothers—or the horrific opposite.
    As grown people, the promise ritual is often simplified, but the meaning is all the more important. So when a friend comes to you for help, know that in your garden of life is growing a true relationship and an example of camaraderie that all who admire will regard as more valuable than gold.
    Where the pinky swear is equal to sharing a chocolate bar, the blood-brother handshake is equal to borrowing someone's car (and bringing it back with the tank full). Each is a short-term challenge of sorts with a lasting reward. The reward in mind, these friends might pose to one another, is ideas, the probable, or the improbable. For the latter, the phrase rarely summoned is the ominous "double-dog dare."
    Not just a single-animal promise, the double-dog dare is the most ghoulish of ideas. A twin-puppy dare acceptance signifies that two people are willing to trust one another with a significant something. It would be something held dear or precious, such as a member of the family—in our case, a model airplane.
    Fred Randall is an inspiration to me. Not only can we tease each other without having to co-read 50 chapters from a sensitivity training manual, but also the fun we have had throughout our thousands of conversations usually produces a new skill set or forehead-slapping epiphany. In short, his friendship is rewarding.
    When we bantered about how his new Golden Era Bipe was going to get flown during a fickle New England winter, what I really wanted to do was drive out to my East Coast compadre and snap the flight shots.
    Fred one-upped me and ended up shipping the model out for me to test-fly. I was moved, I was excited; I didn't believe he'd actually do it. When you read his story about how you can successfully ship a model airplane, maybe you'll learn that mailing your pride, and trusting a friend, can be a rewarding experience also. I pinky swear that it's a great-flying model.
    Besides flying for sport, we're all abuzz here about the upcoming Nats competition season. As we did last year by printing the 1/2A Marval by Dan Berry in time for the NFFS events, we bring you another Nats honoree: the Super Marval 560, by Marvin Mace.
    This is a flagship model in the automated-flight competition event called "bunting." Don DeLoach and Larry Kruse have been good enough to help fine-tune my education on this free flight method that includes language I consider to be pure Model Airplane.
    Even if you're not an FF modeler, when you witness a perfectly executed launch of a bunting aircraft, you'd swear that a friend were hiding behind the hill with a transmitter commanding the model. In reality, mechanics and painstaking trim testing come together in a man vs. machine brotherhood, producing poetry in flight.
    In FF, modelers don't judge the aircraft; the stopwatch does. In addition to Marvin's detailed words about building the hybrid Power model, he also tells us how to trim a bunting model. I think that is good information whether you build the Super Marval or a like aircraft.
    Similar to the Marval, yet totally removed, is our second construction project. That's right; we have two plans for you this month. Leon Shulman brings us a fun model that, in many ways, complements the top-class model our Marval and the original Super Zomby emulate.
    I was thinking that someone who would build any model for frontline competition at the Nats might also like to bring one that's purely for the fun of it that also has an historic story.
    When Joe Beshar told me about his new Elexaco competition, I mentioned that Leon's Blue Foam Super Zomby might be a good contender. All a builder has to do is cut an inch from each wing panel and set up the power system to run on 3.7 volts. Contact Joe for more information.
    No matter what the contest, it's all for the fun of it—with friends. MA