Flying your models.

[Fred Jack]

As a pre teen in the late 50s, some company released models that came with a string that you spun around to make them "fly." I built a 1/72 Walrus and decided to float it in the bath tub, but it sank. However, when it sank, it didn't just crash to the bottom, it glided. So I used to glide it in both the tub and our 10' X 3' kid's pool. Finally Lindberg came out with a 1/48th motorized Stuka. My dad helped me waterproof the motor, switch and battery, then he put enough weight to counter the air pockets produced by the process. He added a little left rudder. We'd put it into the pool and let it "fly". Sometimes it hit the side, but depending on how it crashed, it sometimes took off. I flew it until the battery died.

 

I often wonder, with electronic devices miniaturized today, someone might try putting motors and servos in their models and occasionally take them off their displays and giving them what planes were designed for.

[ssculptor]

I believe you can do that with a light weight vacuform kit, using the thin plastic, like with the combat models kits. Use some carbon fiber tubes and beams for lightweight strength and install the ultra light electric batteries and motors and RC stuff and you may get a flyable radio control model. But not with the heavy thick injection molded plastic models we get in kits.

There are still some 1/24 scale vacuform kits of WW1 aircraft floating around in the UK and they may be suitable for flying scale models. I just sold a 1/24 Nieuport by Contrail Model Aircraft produced by Sutcliffe Productions in the UK. I believe they are no longer produced in 1/24 but some can be found on the internet and often on eBay. Good luck hunting for them.

There are guys making the ultralight models that fly so slow that you can walk along with them while controlling them. I know a group that fly these indoors in an armory in northern New Jersey.

But powering an IM or resin kit? Like trying to fly a brick. You may be able to swing one on a string around your head but you can do the same thing with a hunk of concrete. Is that flying?

Stephen

[babyduck5]

You mean something like this?

[Out2gtcha]

You mean something like this?

 

 

Thats actually quite amazing..........................He obviously has some small thrusters on their or something as there are no props or underwater rudders readily visible.

[Fred Jack]

That was cool, man, I'm showing my age, only I never talked like that then.

[ssculptor]

RC submarines have been around for years. Making a flying object into one is a very interesting approach. That is a cool looking performance. I like it.

But to get it to fly in air is another matter. I would like to see it as an ultralight that we can fly in the air. I really do not think we can get a heavy IM model to do that in air. Of course we may be able to convert an IM model helicopter to fly if we have enough power. Interesting idea. The electric motors are getting smaller, lighter and more powerful as are the batteries to power it.

Still, not my cup of tea. I just do not see the point in converting a heavy plastic IM model to fly when one can make a lightweight model that will fly much better.

Another question, at what point is a large scale model a model or just a small airplane? They are making 4/5 size flying models that are controlled by the pilot sitting within it. Is it just a large scale model or is it a small piloted airplane?

Well, enough idle chit chat. Off to work.

Stephen

[TimW]

When I was a kid, I "flew" my models all the time (that is, walking and carrying it and letting my overheated imagination do the rest). My 1/32 P-40 and Corsair made many a long range patrol in and around the neighborhood, looking for my buds with their A6M2s.

 

Funny, I don't think anybody does that anymore.

 

Tim W.

[Out2gtcha]

When I was a kid, I "flew" my models all the time (that is, walking and carrying it and letting my overheated imagination do the rest). My 1/32 P-40 and Corsair made many a long range patrol in and around the neighborhood, looking for my buds with their A6M2s.

 

Funny, I don't think anybody does that anymore.

 

Tim W.

 

 

Shame...................I did that all the time round my neighborhood as a kid.

[Fred Jack]

I used to have my Allies on one side of the white line of a ping pong table. The Axis, both Japanese and German on the other. It was required to fly around the furnace to get from one side to the other. I would then take off with the enemy plane with the other hand. A previous flip of a coin determined who'd win. As far as kids today, including us, do it on computer.

[Fred Jack]

I remember those ultra light planes, Stephen talks about. The wing frame was dipped in a plastic, not unlike soap bubbles, except it hardened. This included the propeller frame. They could only be flown indoors, and they were so light, that sunshine coming through a window could send them out of control. Any one in the room was not supposed to make any sudden moves. The prop took about 5 seconds per revelution. It seemed as though they flew for hours.

[Fred Jack]

I should point out that watching those ultra-lights fly was as much fun as watching dandelions grow. Only with dandelion you could make wine out of the flowers. With the Tibetan Monks still in Tibet, we only had the wine to make us relaxed enough not to get bored to death. Too bad the 60s hadn't arrived yet. It would have been a trip to watch these thing under the influence of LSD, no not LSP, that's a different trip.