More Windspiel Models;

Windspiel Models catalog, continued;

Windspiel catalog;

You guys ROCK!! Thank You!!

Joe

Thinking big is nothing new.





Joe

Class time boys and girls.
Articles like this gave us better understanding of what is going on with our sailplanes and why.
Now-a-days it is slap the radio in and balance the latest and greatest that cost an arm and a couple of legs and go fly.

Glad I only paid a couple of legs for my moldie

On the other hand it is the guys that have been around that are handing this knowledge down to the new guys and their carbon slippers. Some of them get it and some of them get it but don't know it.

Aspect Ratio, L/D, Cl, Cd, MAC, Stab Moment, Nose Moment . . . . . it's what makes them fly.



Joe

Originally Posted by John Cole

Nice thread Joe!

Ok, all you nostalgia junkies, here's the COMPLETE 1975 Windspiel Models catalog.

Windspiel was owned and operated by Pete Bechtel (yes, of Bechtel Engineering fame) out of Santa Rosa, Ca. As a kid, I lived in a nearby town, so guess where I used to hang out?? Pete was an interesting guy, and was not working in any way with his brothers at the engineering firm. He got to build and fly gliders instead!! There's a complicated story there somewhere...

Enjoy.
John

Great history there John.Thank you.
Would love to get a pdf of that catalog if at all possible.
Do you hang with the Nuker?
Skies.
Jay.

I have had several MKII kits and a Classic Windsong which I regret letting go of. A bigger regret was not scanning the plans or even looking over them for that matter.
So I come across this ad thinking it is another MKIII ad but it mentions a Talisman.
What was the difference?

Joe

Originally Posted by AirBornOne

Great history there John.Thank you.
Would love to get a pdf of that catalog if at all possible.
Do you hang with the Nuker?
Skies.
Jay.

Hi Jay,

I'll send you a PM.

John

Originally Posted by Thermaler

I have had several MKII kits and a Classic Windsong which I regret letting go of. A bigger regret was not scanning the plans or even looking over them for that matter.
So I come across this ad thinking it is another MKIII ad but it mentions a Talisman.
What was the difference?

Joe

Joe, the MKIII had full span flaperons and the Talisman had separate flaps and ailerons. They all still had spoilers.

John Cole and I were competing at the U.S. Scalemasters in 2009 and a guy was selling some old kits in the parking lot. One of them was a Talisman for a hundred bucks....neither one of us thought to buy it!

Cheers, Nigel

John,

Thanks for posting the catalog!

Originally Posted by monocoupe110

John Cole and I were competing at the U.S. Scalemasters in 2009 and a guy was selling some old kits in the parking lot. One of them was a Talisman for a hundred bucks....neither one of us thought to buy it!

Cheers, Nigel

Hey Nigel!! Yes indeed, I too was thinking about that Dodgson kit. The only reason I did not buy it is because I bought his Hobie Hawk instead ($60. NIB, can you believe that??). In a perfect world, I'd have bought both, I guess..
Glad you liked the Windspiel catalog. Sure brings back good memories for me.

John

More good information from one of the best, he suggest we read Jim's poem.
Again, Jim Gray was beyond his time.
Buzz Waltz had a fine line of "models" and sailplanes.
RCM always had "nice" cover photos.
This is the one Buzz Waltz kit I have not found, yet.

Thank You Nigel for the lesson.

Joe

You know, this has to be the best darm thread on RCG for RC Sailplanes since I have been here!

"Buzz Waltz Conquistador"
My first competition ship I recall.
I think I got it *Buzz at a AMA show in SoCal in the mid 80's,
I even chose to cover it in MicaFilm as Pear White and Trans Yellow.
What the nice picture does not show is it was a flat bottom airfoil with turbulators on the upper LE. No D tube. Super Gas Bag, but at a certain speed turned into a Fluterbug. Proven at an SC2 in TOSS around 1986. Survied well though.
Don't remember the babe though.

Perhaps Ross remembers.
Sorry, had pics and more, but were lost, stolen, destroyed long ago.

*I saw last year on RCU, and posted a thread with no response here on RCG, that Buzz was calling it quits and F/S.

Oh, I missed out on this kit last year on Ebay. Sad we cannot even buy legit plans on the web

Soaring News April 1979

Jim Gray shares more.

The good ol' Wander, I still have and fly mine although the rudder is the only original part any more. A lot of dumb thumbs teaching myself to fly with it at a school football field taken over by soccer.
Corpus Christie school was on the back side of a park who's name I can not remember. The park was about 40' higher than the field with a mound in the corner another 15' up.
I tossed that Wanderer off that mound a million times before I found a larger field at Mary Frank School. Got myself a high start and started letting it rip. That first incarnation lasted long enough to get an Oly II built.
I would hit that field every chance I got, then stop at the LHS to get repair materials. They told me that there was a guy flying sailplanes at Red Hen Turf Farm. The routine became drive by the turf farm, nobody there, go to the school and fly, stop by the turf farm again. Did that for a good three months.
One time I was slow getting out and there was this guy sitting under the hatch of his Ford Esort wagon staring up at the sky with a Tx in his hand.
I introduced myself and that began a 20 year friendship with Conrad "Tiz" Lesch. Tiz taught me enough to get me interested in contest, so that summer I entered my first one where I got the lesson that only a timer can give a rooky. "why didn't you turn there?", "Where?", "Where your wingtip got a bump, turn to the rising wingtip dummy!" Picture to prove that win at my first contest, thank you Dad.
I have meet several great people through those years at the sod farm, Richard Sorenson, Dave Hauch, Jim Deck, Jack Strother, Bob Burson, Steve Boone and Steve Bailey.
I have this picture and the Falcon 880 Tiz gave me after I broke it. I have Dave's Victor, the only plane that the Falcon didn't get the best of at least once of all the planes that have been to the sod farm on the days the Falcon was out hunting. If you can't beat it buy it.
We have lost the farm to row crops, Tiz to the good Lord and Dave is into motorcycles now. Richard just faded away.
I miss all you guys, those of us still kicking and flying are going to have to find a place to fly together again.

Joe