As a missle crew commander once told me "I'm an urban engineer, I redesign cities" (this is refering to himself, not me)

With 20 years of military service, I've built quite a few targets...

George

My first "best flying" plane? A Top Flite(?) Combat Kitten. Was finally able to begin learning to do stunts with one. (Previous couple of planes were "plank wing" type trainers.)

Originally Posted by LA Ming

My first "best flying" plane? A Top Flite(?) Combat Kitten. Was finally able to begin learning to do stunts with one. (Previous couple of planes were "plank wing" type trainers.)

I still have the (double) kit in the kit stash, must build "someday".

Originally Posted by GeorgeG97322

As a missle crew commander once told me "I'm an urban engineer, I redesign cities" (this is refering to himself, not me)

With 20 years of military service, I've built quite a few targets...

George

With an ICBM, you have roughly 30 minutes between the launch and the big boom. The SLBM's it depends on where the boomer is located relative to you.

A Goldberg Shoestring Stunter with a Fox .35....and then I got hold of a Midwest Magician and put the Fox .35 on it. THAT plane was really FUN!

Soft landings,

Joe

My favorite plane was a flite streak without the wingtips powered by a modified McCoy redhead 29. I omitted the landing gear infavor of a wire skid, so hand launch was required but it sure was fun. I kept it out of the ground for several years (to my surprise). That was back in the mid 70's

George

Originally Posted by piperjoe

A Goldberg Shoestring Stunter with a Fox .35....and then I got hold of a Midwest Magician and put the Fox .35 on it. THAT plane was really FUN!

Soft landings,

Joe

What were the flight characteristic differences between these two planes?

Magicians with and without coupled flaps flew far differently than one another.

The unflapped one was the better flying one, if the finished weight was reasonable. I had a couple of each back when Midwest first kitted it. The kit wood was typical for that company, hard and heavy, but less heavy than a Sterling selection.

A heavy Magician, coupled flaps or not, might not fly as well as a Goldberg Shoestring. Both were good fliers when built at good weights for their sizes.


Kiwi

Originally Posted by old4570

1st Good flying ?

Self designed Mono Boom ... Mono booms were hard to come by in Oz , as we mainly flew Euro / British designs ..

So obviously I had to have one :

Voodoo - Great flying wing ! Loved mine

Anyone have a plan ?

A combat wing makes for a great flying machine , especially when enough power is used to pull it around ..

A well balanced Voodoo with a stunt engine = 1 great flying plane. The Voodoo would take a trouble free 31/2 Oz surge tank, and perfectly balanced should turn a 1 1/2 foot loop. I like the looks of John Jo's Super Voodoo but it's designed around a pacifier.

Ringmaster Jr with Hope19, Veco Warrior (60's style) with McCoy 19 and Stallion 35, Magician (Midwest) with Fox 35 and Stallion 35.
Chris...

tigreflyer, that was a many years ago LOL, however, as Kiwi noted, I recall that the lighter Shoestring was the more agile and smoother flying model. The Magician that I flew did not have flaps and it was a "heavier" CL model with a much bigger "eyecandy" impact. The model was just fun to fly and I enjoyed it. After 45 years it is a bit hard to recall actual traits other than the enjoyment we derived from flying these CL planes when we were younguns.

Soft landings,

Joe

out of the box the best flyer for me was the cox crusader. plastic fusl. & foam wings. at first i wasnt sure about the foam, but after a few flights it was my best flyer, not my favoret looking cox. that would be one of the later cox stukas. it had a 3rd string in the middle of the handle, when you pulled that string it would bend a pice of plastic over enough to release a bomb. & the canopy slid on both pilot & rear gunner. it also had the small props on the wheel skirts witch on the real ones charged up the electronics. ... larry

Hi All, what a trip down memory lane. Built my first CL plane in about '54, a
Veco Tomahawk covered in nylon with buterate dope. Had a Johnson 35 which
had a nasty habit of kicking back. Taught to fly myself on it and it survived over
200 flights. Next was a Flite Streak with a Torpedo .29 covered in silkspan, which I'd say was my best flying plane due to it's light weight. Could do 6 foot inside loops going full throttle. Graduated to a Zilch X-pendable which looked like a ringmaster with a built up fuse, then a Veco Smoothie, a Thunderbird, a scratch built Ruffy, and finally a Nobler which was the smoothest of them all. Think I was about 11 years old when I flew the Nobler in the NATS at the Los Alamitos Air Station in Calif. A club called the Harbor City Barnstormers had just formed and I was very fortunate to fly with some very talented fellows who shared their skills and taught me alot. There was a hobby shop near Western and PCH operated
by a chap named Clarence. Am now thinking it may have been THE Clarance Lee who later became famous as an engine guru. Would love to know if anyone was around then and could confirm if it was the same Mr. Lee.

Smokin Joe

Originally Posted by GeorgeG97322

As a missle crew commander once told me "I'm an urban engineer, I redesign cities" (this is refering to himself, not me)

With 20 years of military service, I've built quite a few targets...

George

Happily.. That level of Moron never got do do anything other than sit on his enlarged Ass and babble incoherently ..:-)

Los Alamitos Air Station in Calif.

Smokin' Joe:

Would that have been in 1963?

If so, my control line "Mentor", a pint-sized fellow by the name of Bill James, placed 3rd in Open Combat there. I have a couple of pics of him at that event.

If you were there in '63... did you go watch Open Combat? If so, do you remember any particulars?

Thanks.