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A Long Hello...Again

I am back.
I have been negligent with my modeling ("Father, forgive me
for I have sinned...") but, you see, we had this storm down here in
Picayune, MS, and the model shop got hit by a carport and it almost
got knocked off its 45" high supports.
The carport was wiped out by the tree that fell on
it...pushing it into the shop. That tree fell because its roots were
upset by the three oak trees that fell on the house, busting through
the roof, rafters, ceiling joists, and the like...and sheet rock
ceilings in a few places.
All in all, it has been a rather distracting (and exhausting
five months). The shop is still teetering and I can't use it. A very
religious man (he keeps telling me) continues to lie to me about why
he hasn't gotten here yet. I have a week of chain sawing to do, but
right now I don't dare jar the ground with said shop doing the
aforementioned teetering.
I left this group a while back because I had a book I needed
to finish and that is in print now.
But I wanted to get back up to speed model wise and I thought
this would be a good place to start.
I did download 4,000 most recent titles on this group and I
read many of them. I learned for one thing that I am not needed here.
(Probably never was.) There are many of you giving and getting superb
advice ? and I would only cloud the waters with obtuse observations,
tangent-seeking comments, or be argumentative.
I did see that people still hate (or worse) the AMA, people
still need chargers, power supplies, and questions about batteries
abound ? and Red continues to wow me with his knowledge.
Fellows, this is all rather humbling, actually.
I have been playing with toy airplanes some. I mean TOY
airplanes. I stick a transmitter in my pocket when I take our little
dog for her walk and at a vacant lot on the walk, I toss one of the
little rudder-onlys into the air and run the battery down. As I walk
to the next clearing...we have some new ones since the storm...I swap
out the batteries and toss the toy again and run that battery down.
Did you know that on one charge it will fly 1/3 of a mile? If
I get another battery, I can fly it the whole mile around. Being foam
and 9" diameter, the toy airplane is no bother to carry.
And then there are the silly little helicopters for indoors. I
can make it from the kitchen around the corner through the den,
between wife and TV, and back through the posts in the bar and around
the kitchen again. I can't make a second lap on a battery charge
because it won't clear the two 6" steps going into the den.
"Silly"...is the operative word here.
But maybe that is what modeling was supposed to be. It was
once...a light-hearted distraction from our weekly chores. This was
before we lost our sense of frivolity and became so serious.
I do have two model projects I owe to one of the last model
magazines. Someday I will start putting ink to mylar and...someday.
I always considered that I was primarily comic relief here so
in keeping with that role, I would like to invite you all to visit my
just-released image website. It has no commercials and operates
smoothly.
So...if you would like to know what I have been doing (not
much) and make fun of my models, me, whatever.... The model aircraft
images are in two parts, "1962 to 1990" (retired) and "1990 to
present." There are some images of sailboats, as well.
You can ignore the musical instruments if you would like...but
for real, rolling in the floor comedy, you might check out the part
about the ukes and Flukes.
It is nice to be back...actually, it is sorta' nice to be
anywhere.
Cheers -- Ken Cashion
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
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Thanks, and as for commenting to them all...well, I might just... I had to resist some though. I wonder if many of you know that as an AMA member, after the hurricane, I got a phone call from headquarters asking me if I needed any help. Some AMA members were directed to temporary homes with other members...members they had never met. I know one such fellow in Texas who took in a displaced AMA family. I don't remember seeing this sort of "service" mentioned during the 46 years or so that I have been a member. I was quite moved by it. The local club lost their facilities (storm) but there are three of us flying our e-models at a little park north of me. It is OK, as long as we dodge the downed trees. I have hit trees before but they were always standing and then stepped over in front of my model. I have never hit a big horizontal pine before..
On my image site, their are some pictures of this little park where I have flown my Lil" E-Cumulus et al. (Pictures are pre-hurricane.)
Ken
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
Whatcha writing? I'm redlining the 1st proof of my very first published book, hopefully I'll get it sent off to the publisher today.
Reply to
Tim Wescott
I certainly enjoyed looking at your planes. And as for me, I am still writing my one and only great american novel....however, in the meantime, I note that you do mostly electrics. I don't do electrics, but plenty of glow stuff. If you are in need, I will be happy to try to find something you can use...as for me, I really have more than I need. You should contact me off this list. Frank Schwartz AMA123 in Hendersonville, TN snipped-for-privacy@bellsouth.net
Reply to
Frank Schwartz

I completed "Ball Turret Gunner -- Weather Bad/Flak Heavy." It is the story of a particular crew and B-17 flying at the end of WWII with the 34th Bomb Group. I had to cover a few more subjects, but it is quite authentic. I had the gunner's and navigator's flight logs and the like. I am rather proud of it and have gotten some nice feedback from folks. But I agree with the Good Doctor Samuel Johnson who said that nobody but a blockhead writes for anything but money. I have four others in galley form now and will be unleashing these on the public this year.
Well, good for you, Tim...and yours is about? What publisher are you using? Books are being done many different ways today.
Ken Cashion
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
Thank you.
Keep plugging away, Frank. Good writers are going away at the same rate as good readers, but a good book can make a reader out of a lot of people. I don't think I have a fictional piece in me. One might appear that way after I hide the names and places but I would still worry about someone popping up with a writ in hand saying, "My son died of a heart attack...NOT as a result of AIDS." "Well, Mam, I have a letter right here from your son's lover and he tells how your son died in his arms...from a heart attack."
I simply got tired of the noise, the grease, the cleanup, the messy repairs, and the general field bother. But some of my favorite memories are from converting an Arden .09 to glow and actually having engines run for a change. I have some favorite engines that I would like to put on something just because they have given me so much fun...but then I would have fuel on my hands, and transmitter, and the noise...
(yet)
Frank, that is very gracious of you -- and thank you, but I, too, have more than I need. I got Max's everywhere. I really ought to clean them up and see if I can get them on eBay so someone can enjoy them. I am believer in eBay. I have sold bunches of stuff there; and bought an equal amount. Once Frank, I had 43 auctions coming due in the same week! That was one of the dumbest things I have ever done. I had OFBs coming out to the woodwork writing me these cryptic little notes..."Ah-h-h-h...Ken, I see the model things you are selling on eBay...and it worries me. Are you OK?" Isn't that nice? They were concerned -- or looking for a good deal -- I prefer to think concerned.
Ken Cashion
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
I too am a writer - of sorts. I had no idea that Frank was a writer too. Veddy Interesting...
I am beginning to appreciate electrics for the same reasons as you, Ken. Less work, less gook, you can use any paint that pleases you, etc.
Not hearing an engine running is not a big loss. In fact, it can be downright relaxing.
Ed Cregger
Reply to
Ed Cregger
Ed..and everyone... Well you could call me a writer. I had many articles in the old Grid Leaks, a few in MAN (60's and 70"s) and also Scale R/C Modeler... and I was R/C editor for Model Builder from about 1976 to 1979. I also wrote a club newsletter that was more widely circulated than I suspected and got in trouble with John Maloney of World Engines for giving his radio, the Blue Max, the emphatic thumbs down... The truth was really that the Blue Max was not a very good radio, in fact, in my opinion, it was trash...but it had nice stick assemblies. Frank Schwartz
Reply to
Frank Schwartz
I have so many old glow designs I want to electrify. I still have the plans to my Fred Reese Sopwith Trike (look-a-like). And I have a set of the Ace constant chord foam wings it uses. (There are images of it on my image site.) I would like to put brushless and LiPos in it. It never did anything but wobble through the sky -- yet, it did it in such a cute manner. And with electric motors, multi-engine models are a snap...I always like the ugliness of the He-111s. And they would belly in nice and I wouldn't have to use landing gear. I could have the tires rotate though to ease the landings. Some of them stick out like on the B-17.
I was at a contest and I was being bothered more and more by the noise. I had put in four test flights on a couple of models and in one event, it was OK to run without mufflers. I started my Max 20 and it had a small prop and lots of nitro and it was loud. Just after I released it, someone not 10' away started a Fox combat engine on one of these duration models and he had open stack, toothpick prop, pressurized nitro system, and honestly, it made the fillings of my teeth hurt. I just cringed in acceptance of the fact that was enough noise for me.
Ken
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
Uh oh, I'm in trouble.
So, you must, like, do this for a living.
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems", or everything that you didn't bother learning in school about making motors work because you were going to be a programmer -- and now 90% of the software jobs involve telling motors what to do.
I doubt that it will pay for itself in royalties, but it's part and parcel of marketing my company, and I'll be giving seminars (hopefully) starting next year.
Elsevier. So far it's been very positive.
This one is almost all electronic -- I sent the whole manuscript over email, the proof sheets obviously came out of a laser printer. I think they have me marking up real dead trees is so I can't touch their nice formatting.
I keep telling my editor that I'm saving all the really extensive edits for the galley proof -- so far she hasn't seen the humor, for some reason.
Reply to
Tim Wescott
Grid Leaks? GRID LEAKS? My heavens, Frank. I tell people that I am older than some rocks...you must be older than all rocks.
You must be proud to have written for one of the oldest (Grid Leaks) and one of the best (MB). I wonder if most of the fliers here know how much of our hobby started in Grid Leaks.
Now I learn this! I thought all those crashes were from bad batteries. I had a Blue Max and other World Engine radios but back then our choices were EK, Kraft, and what? Proline? (Ace came along later, I believe.) World Engines got a lot of fliers in the air who could not afford anything else...I started flying with Controlaire and I still have a Mule xmitter that I swear I will put good electronics in one of these days. I love rudder only. But then...I am older than some rocks.
Ken
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
I didn't say I was doing it for a living. I just said I was doing it for money. I did write for a living once...when I worked for Old-NASA. I wrote tech papers and was paid well for it. Then the last three years before I retired, I wrote science- fiction for Neo-NASA.
Well done, Tim. Tech writing is fun. I have done a bunch of that.
Hey, these multi-billion dollar empires have to begin somewhere.
Good one for tech work. I found them when I was looking for an outlet for my treatise on "Neolithic Farming and Megalithic Monuments." (Yeah, I know that sounds like a joke but it is serious work, fellows.)
We got up one morning at the end of August and had a lot of paper pulp trees down just waiting to be scooped up...so use all the paper you want. I can pop a CD in the mail with a couple of pdf's and a book happens. One pdf is the cover. I like controlling the images and captions. The files could go out over the wire but I like to have something in my hands at some point.
Maybe you are not her first author?
Ken Cashion
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
-snip-
I tell people "when I was growing up I dreamed of being a science fiction writer -- now I write technical specifications". Usually it's only the engineers and tech writers who get the joke.
Y'know, if you dig around the edges of NASA you'll see that the part that used to be NACA is still there, and it seems to still be doing good, solid NACA sort of work -- they're designing new airfoils, and new methods of designing airfoils, they're coming up with wingtip designs and other induced-drag reduction techniques, and all sorts of other cool big-science stuff applied to air transport.
The 'S' in NASA is what's suffering -- but when you get right down to it the whole reason for the space race was to cow the Russians into submission -- or at least less aggression. Since the wall has come down space travel has been (unfortunately) just meaningless reverberations from Kennedy's call for a moon landing. I think that's a tragedy, but I also think that we're the Lief Ericsons of space travel -- it's a good idea, but we need to wait a few hundred years before the _real_ explorers start successfully poking around.
Reply to
Tim Wescott
Better check those pay stubs -- I don't see your name in the February '78 Model Builder. I _do_ see 7 -- yes, two times three plus one, construction articles, however. Compare that to today where a magazine with three construction articles is 'dense'.
Reply to
Tim Wescott
Ah, now I'm beginning to remember seeing your name before, Frank. Son-of-a-gun!
I had a Blue Max rig in 72 or so. It worked okay. We didn't keep it all that long. That whopping 125 mw of broadcast power wasn't exactly awe inspiring.
You never know who you're going to wind up talking to on the internet.
Ed Cregger
Reply to
Ed Cregger
Yeah...I got it. One of the last things I did with Neo-NASA was represent our center at a big meeting and we were to generate a listing and approaches for the new NASA technologies for the next 25 years. I had my section and we were just cranking away and at the end, during open session each team leader had to summarize. They thought mine was accurate. I told them that all this week while I was trying to think ahead in the future for NASA, I was phoning NASA headquarters repeatedly trying to get enough money to pay this quarter's Lear Jet fuel bill. (I was Aircraft Mission Manager for our remote sensing aircraft.) It turned out that each team had people leaving the meetings over and over checking on how much money was coming in on yet another continuing resolution budget.
We have the capability to do many things but they are not around NASA...but yes, there are little enclaves of engineers who have been sorta' forgotten and they still crank out good work. A couple of new, junior-grade managers with no engineering experience but proper social credentials will find them eventually and "fix" them.
Not exactly. We didn't want to get too far behind them in space...our economy just out-matched them. And in the end, we were relying on their functional space station and coming home by parachute...like in the Mercury days.
Bush gave one little shot at it with talk of a Martian lander and all he did was mislead Neo-NASA management and they in turn further screwed up the budget. Good management would have suggested that congress identify money to that end.
What hope do I have for NASA and the exploration of space? None...zip...nada... Neo-NASA can only celebrate the accomplishments of Old-NASA, but they cannot aspire to do what we did with slide rules. (A little personal observation, there. ) And as for the last the "A" -- Burt Rutan has repeatedly demonstrated that Neo-NASA is top-heavy with managers with no engineering background...in an engineering administration, yet.
Ken
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
Yeah, Ed, and you never know who is listening (reading). We have lost a lot of people in the last couple of years who made this hobby great. This makes a fellow feel like he hasn't done his share of payback to these people. All we modelers are just their living legacy...whether we recognize it or not. Or care to admit it. That was the main reason I became a CD and started doing contests. I went to contests that others put on and enjoyed myself. I thought I should put on some contests so they could come play at my house. It seemed the considerate thing to do.
Ken Cashion
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Reply to
Ken Cashion
I think a lot of old time modelers are coming to this conclusion. Electrics open up a lot of modeling opportunities, multi engine, small size, building a Gillows kit again, easy to transport and learning to fly on the wing again rather than the prop. Now what do we do with those giant scale monsters we were so thrilled with a few years ago?
Red S.
Reply to
Red Scholefield
Convert them to Electric Red...
I moved to electric fairly soon after coming back into the hobby...one effort with an overpowered 40 trainer had me back at the LHS for something a little less complicated. That didn't have the potential to kill me if it went out of control, and that I could fly without a 15 mile drive and half an hour packing all the support kit up.
Now I've flown most of the smaller types of electric models..and a huge lumbering giant scale has appeal..but as for going back to unreliable engines, flame outs and dead sticks. No way. I reckon I can even scan the sound of a WWI rotary from somewhere and make it sound right too..:-)
Somewhere along the line from where I left the hobby and what it was 6 years ago is a change from fun, and challenge, to cash book, club and showing off..electrics have brought the fun back.
The advent of the DX6 radio also means that frequency clashes are no longer a reason to congregate around a safety conscious pit area either.
It is a different hobby now, but then it was a different hobby from the one I knew as a boy then..so what?
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

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