Saga Of The Magic Apple Box

[harleym]

Guys, thanks for the nice feedback on my story from those who stumbled into and read all three parts. However, looking at the count today, 137 read Part 1, 153 Part 2 and 290 Part 3. This is all my fault having posted them in 1,2,3 order causing them to appear in reverse order and, as it worked out on different pages.

I am really interested in reader reaction to having read all 3 in 1,2,3 order. Please indulge me. I'm going to redo all 3 into one document and resubmit it. This will afford an opportunity to all to read the whole story and express their sentiments.

Please watch this thread for a follow up.

[harleym]

SAGA OF THE MAGIC APPLE BOX

When Lindbergh flew to Paris in 1927, I was age 6. Hearing about it on the radio & seeing pictures & stories in the newspaper, triggered a lifetime fascination about aviation.

Determined to have a model to run around the house with & accompany with motor like noises, I needed building material. I found a wood apple box. How that box impacted my life since then is kind of well . . . like magic.

A neighbor had a weather vane. I was intrigued by how its prop rotated. I figured to first have me a prop. Tools at the house were scissors, kitchen knives, pliers, hammer, screw driver & a metal file. My dad was a meat cutter & kept knives sharp with whetstones. He said the only time he ever cut himself was when forcing a dull knife.

With the screw driver I pried between box parts to loosen nails. With hammer or pliers, I got them out. I had a stack of wood of different thicknesses & some nails. With knife & hammer I split off a strip of the thinner wood & hacked through it for a prop blank. I pounded one of the nails through to make a hole & got it out with the pliers. I used the scissors to ream out the hole so the prop could turn.

On the back steps, mom’s paring knife in hand, I whittled my first prop. I split a stick off a box end, mounted the prop & took off running around the house. Seeing the prop spin was total delight. I next discovered that if I filed the stick end round, the prop turned better.

Nailing a wood ruler to the stick & using a bit of imagination, I had my first airplane. The joy & satisfaction of being inventive & creative was forever seared into my consciousness.

I made a lot of props. They got better & better.

When the 1929 Depression hit, money became about non-existent. I could have anything I wanted, as long as it cost nothing. I discovered a scrap pile behind a cabinet shop. Occasionally there were some “carving pine” pieces in it. I discovered easy splitting cedar things like shingles, fence posts & thin cigar boxes, bamboo rakes, tissue, wrapping paper & string. Flour & water made glue & there were remnants from school.

Along the way I came into a coping saw & discovered sandpaper and razor blades my dad discarded. Over the next few years I made darts, kites, whistles, sling shots, bows, arrows & airplanes. Making stuff was an unending adventure. Never, never did I complain “Mom, there’s nothing to do!”

From a picture in the paper, at age 11 I carved a Gee Bee racer & painted it B & W. A cousin I gave it to still has it. For a nickel, if you ever had one, you could get a bottle of strong LePages 48 hour Iron Glue. Books kept things in place while it dried. Making biplanes with cedar cigar box pieces for wings & matches for struts, taught patience.

In high school, with the Depression raging on, I scratch built rubber powered stuff & CD’d sanctioned events. After working my way through college & with a little money, I got into original design, gas-powered free flight. I learned about thermals. My best birds flew out of sight. Exhausting chases on foot over wheat stubble with sweat burning the eyes wasn’t fun. My first wife greatly resented the hobby. I quit . . . for good, I thought.

20 years later, mid-1960’s, long time modeler friend Al Schatzel stopped by all excited. He’d read about guys in California flying along slopes with RC gear & about curious hawks joining them. Envisioning thermal soaring to great heights & getting safely back by radio got me all stirred up. I’d figure it out, all by myself. New wife Patricia did not mind.

Ideas started popping into my head. Having free flight experience, I set about doing rudimentary original designs. For a year, I suffered with poor radio stuff, trying to learn the slope thing. I did far more crashing than flying, but got repairing experience!

Getting a reliable Kraft 3 channel changed everything. I designed the 100” Tri-Belle that appeared with Patricia on the cover of the Jan. ’69 issue of Flying Models. The July issue had the 150” Miskeet & me on the cover. Magazines were eager for material about this new game. 17 of my scratch-buildable designs were published. With the contributions of others, much new info was disseminated to the budding sailplane fraternity.

With magazines offering plans & our written instructions in the articles, with simple tools & common materials, guys could build, experiment, discover &, in turn, pass ideas on. Guys were thinking, innovating & contributing something back to airframe development.

Domestic & imported kits appeared at modest cost. Ralph White (Fliteglas Laminates) offered a 102” Phoebus kit with glass fuse for $40 & even a Miskeet kit with one for $75.

Having taken such satisfaction from designing, building & competing with my own stuff, several years ago after ARF’s showed up, I started a website dedicated to scratch building, continuingly updating it as new things were learned.

Now newly redone, it’s at http://www.geniebuild.com/harleys_genie.html. See the file “Who is Harley?” for Tri-Belle & Miskeet pics. With all the website pics, drawings, text & the abundance of magnificent building materials available, I contend that with a modest investment in suitable tools, most anyone can build one of the ever-evolving, state of-the-art Genie thermal ships presented.

Ah, but why bother, you say? After all, there are shiny ARF’s & with plenty of income, the ubiquitous card or a home equity loan, money to buy them is no problem. Having scratch-built original sailplane designs for over 40 years, I can mention a few advantages.

You’ll greatly cut expenses. You’ll be able to do original work. You’ll take great pride in doing your own stuff. You’ll make new discoveries to pass on to the rest of us. You’ll discover the joy in exercising your creative abilities. You’ll learn techniques to serve you well over a lifetime of modeling. You’ll learn to work independently of others for new airframes, parts & repairs. You’ll take control with a sense of empowerment. You’ll be able to keep your mind active during all your retirement years.

Trust me guys; it’s great to be financially independent during retirement. If you’re in this hobby for the long haul, don’t let it steal from the old buzzard you’ll someday be. Each $1,000 a year set aside at only 5% in a tax-favored way grows to $126,480 over 40 years. At 8%, $279,781.

ARF’s are beautiful, perform wonderfully & get you in the air easily. However, they negate original thinking about airframe development. With the current mass defection to them, we are all denied the benefit of the collective creative powers inherent in the minds of our fellow modelers. Going this route, you’ll never know the gratification that comes from doing a nice job on a fine-performing ship you actually created yourself.

By neglecting to develop & use building skills, you have to rely on others for your needs. It distresses me to see someone looking in futility or waiting months for a stab, a wing tip, a nose cone, etc. to fly. Scratch builders don’t have to put up with that. They can fix it or make it.

Some of you’ll be thinking, “Well, but I want to win contests so I must have an ARF”. WHOA! Let’s get some perspective here.

In 40 years of competing, I’ve brought home my share of plaques, trophies, cups & mugs, but really, who cares? The wife might say “That’s nice, dear. Uh, were you planning to get the lawn mowed yet this week?”

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve much enjoyed the contest environment. It’s fun, exciting & challenging. A win gives brief glory as you head home to reality. Been there, done that many times, but what strikes me as being worthwhile is not the win. It’s the stimulation, learning, seeing old friends, making new ones, the camaraderie, helping somebody out, the pure delight of soaring, steadily getting better at it, & always having fun.

I’ve never understand why otherwise mature, sensible adults would go to such trouble & expense to win something as insignificant as a routine glider contest. Considering the way humans are wired up, I suppose possible reasons may include; money, respect of fellow competitors, self-esteem, ego gratification, recognition, clobber your arch ‘rival, etc.

Money? Really? For us ordinary mortals, there’s no validity to that one in going to glider contests. Want to be money ahead? Stay home instead.

Respect of fellow competitors? Sure, that’s nice. If you can be a modest and likeable winner it works. If you make a jerk of yourself in the process, it doesn’t.

Self-esteem? If this depends on your contest ranking, I suggest you need to get a life. The same goes for ego gratification, recognition, etc.

Clobber that so & so? Yah! That has merit, especially if you do it with a scratch-buildable ship you made for $350 while he was using an $1,800 ARF.

Of course, I understand why the ARF appeals to many. But if my reasons for “rolling your own” strike you as valid, check out the Photo Gallery & review the “What’s A Genie?” file. Although scratch-buildable, it should become clear that these are uncompromising, refined, extremely capable airframes. The sleek, glassed-over fuselages are commonly assumed to be molded & using the Rotary Driver System, the wings are free of external hardware.

Genie line ships are probably representative of what would be available in some kit form if the ARF had not appeared & if innovative modelers had continued on with airframe & hardware refinement.

With all the help available from plans, parts, step-by-step instructions, pictures, drawings & e-mail support, doing an excellent job on a Genie line ship is realistic for many.

A new building season is not far off. Now is a good time to check out the Materials List & get things on hand to do a leisurely build for next year’s flying season.

[rdwoebke]

As always, Harley, you have a way with words. I have not built a Genie, but have adapted your RDS philosophy now to two models and have used your plans as inspiration points on a few builds. Building planes is a lot of fun and I have built at least one plane of some sort every year since 1994.

Ryan

[Trisquire]

Interesting read Harley. Just curious, do you still have Miskeet plans? I'm kind of a nostalgia buff.

Tom

[harleym]

I have no Miskeet plans. Rights to produce them goes to the magazine publishing a design as a construction article. Ship involved a 2-piece circular cross section fuselage that telescoped together aft of the wing. I know of no source. :(

[Kenny Sharp]

I liked your tale.

Makes me want to build a Genie.

[Trisquire]

I have no Miskeet plans. Rights to produce them goes to the magazine publishing a design as a construction article. Ship involved a 2-piece circular cross section fuselage that telescoped together aft of the wing. I know of no source. :(Thanks Harley. Turns out, Flying Models still has the plans for $14. Yeah, the fuselage would require some improvisation.

Tom

[Wazmo]

FM also has the Tri Belle (CF148), Spirit of Freedom (CF276), and Sport Pro (CF359), $9 each.

http://www.flying-models.com/plans_directory.php

[ThermalThief]

Harley,

I can relate to your fasination when younger. I was lucky enough to not have a depression to deal with but money was still a hurdle in my path. My first flier had an old standard class wing my Pops had buried in the garage. The fuse must have met it's demise years earlier but I didn't let that slow me. I found a cardboard gift wrap roll and attached the wings like I would see my Pops do on his planes. Rubber bands around dowels (a couple of well used pencils for me) that were pushed through the roll. Taped on a tail made of cardboard and that was it. After the first toss straight up and then straight down I figured nose weight was in order and I headed back to the garage for a couple of wrenches (don't tell Pop's) to tape to the nose. That did it...it would glide all the way across our yard and I have been searching for lift since.
I invested many hours of school recess launching my paper airplanes made during class. Each time I lost one of these to a thermal my addiction for flying multiplied by 10. It is safe to say I'm now 1000% addicted :)
I'm hope you can remember the models Pop's and I flew about 15 years back. They were a pod and boom design with a wing planform similar to the Bird of Time. We used balsa sheeted cores with your RDS and rubber hinge system on the ailerons.
As to the buying, I have a Barnes Supra (Jay Decker sold to me as he didn't have time to build) and a Superior.
As to the building, 2 Supra's are on the bench one is for me and one for my Pop's. I have built Countless DLG's and it is safe to say for me building is still almost as fun as flying ;)

Take care

Ken

[Kenny Sharp]

...... I have built Countless DLG's and it is safe to say for me building is still almost as fun as flying ;) ......



A fact that I, for one, am most grateful for.
I cut my teeth with your Chinsee design (40 in. DLG), and I found out how much I loved soaring, and how much I had to learn.
I take this opportunity to thank you once again.

Guys like you and Harley are indespensible for this hobby.....and I'm truly glad that Harley found someone else to continue his work. :)

[ThermalThief]

A fact that I, for one, am most grateful for.
I cut my teeth with your Chinsee design (40 in. DLG), and I found out how much I loved soaring, and how much I had to learn.
I take this opportunity to thank you once again.

Guys like you and Harley are indespensible for this hobby.....and I'm truly glad that Harley found someone else to continue his work. :)


Thanks for the compliments Ken.

I have alot more building and crafting before I should be grouped with a guy like Harley.

Ken

[Kenny Sharp]

Thanks for the compliments Ken.

I have alot more building and crafting before I should be grouped with a guy like Harley.

Ken

Ok. Sorry....No disrespect intended to either you or Harley.

(I still wish you would make your Chinsee model more availiable.....for the price, it is my favorite choice for beginners to decide it DLGing is right for them.)

And back OT...I once used a Skill Saw to shape a prop out of a 2x4...it was pretty cool. :)

[Tank52]

Great story Harley. I enjoyed reading it.

Tank

[harleym]

I know nothing about any Chinsee. That was not my doing.

[ThermalThief]

Harley,

kkens4 was refering to a DLG model my Pop's and I build. Sorry for the confusion.

Ken