[Greg Reid]

That's a beauty Walt. Don Smith plans or what? So right about dwindling flying sites for the big stuff. Losing our field was a major contributing factor to me quitting as well. I heard that my old club had a new field. I went out there a couple of years ago and EVERYBODY was flying foam electric powered, ARF and RTF stuff. The field was not suitable at all to larger glow or gasoline powered planes.

[Hikin Mike]

Originally Posted by PontGuy

I got pretty deep into model airplanes until our club lost our flying field. There are no fields suitable for big model airplanes nearby anymore and my airplanes have been gathering dust since.

I gravitated into large-scale warbirds and multi-engine speed planes. This P-61 Blackwidow is one of my favorites, now hanging from the ceiling of our sunroom. Powered by two big supercharged glow engines so very fast, a real knee knocker to fly. I won several awards for it including best of show here.



And here it is displayed under the full-scale Blackwidow being restored at the Mid-Atlantic air museum in PA. I got Bob Bolinder, ace P-61 pilot with 5 kills, to autograph one of the tail booms for me. He passed away a few years ago, just about all of the WWII pilots are gone now. But it was great fun getting a chance to discuss the flying characteristics with him. Those guys were real men.

Very nice!

[PontGuy]

Greg I built it from an ARC kit sold by VQ, so not scratch-built. It still took the better part of a year to put together, work out the "engineering quirks" and do the finishing. Powered by YS 110's with straight pipes, 15 servos, matchboxes, electronic sequencer for the gear doors, etc. And it flies great, or at least it did last time I put it in the air. Very realistic looking slow rolls, etc.

I have no interest in foamies or electric power and most all of my airplanes require a big field. I put everything in storage thinking another field would be set up pretty quickly. That was many years ago and still no field.

I always liked bringing out planes that would really get everyone's attention. Here is another I flew back then- powered by Jett 50 rear exhaust tuned pipe racing engines, custom-matched for me by Dub Jett. 100+ MPH on glow fuel

[Greg Reid]

Great looking Duellist. That's a classic. Twins re one area where I would be interested in electrics. They always scared the crap outta me with wet power. In fact, flying always scared me just a tad...nothing like the adrenaline you get on a first flight unless it's a first flight with an engine-out situation. 9 months of building (sometimes) followed by 9 seconds of flying. Take that long walk of shame and go home with a bag of sticks..lol
Building was always my real passion though.
Here's a couple more of my survivors. The Bearcat is just a .60 sized kit build from the old Royal kit. The CAP is an 80"-er with a Brison 3.2 gas engine.
I'd love to have another convenient flying site. I'd pick it back up in a flash I think.

[Greg Reid]

This is the last one I was building before I got frustrated with the flap geometry and it's been in my basement ever since...12 or 13 years probably. Ziroli P-47, the small one at 70" wingspan and a 35cc gas engine. I have a TON of kits, plans, engines, etc.

[PontGuy]

Very nice airplanes Greg!

A lot of similarities in our experience. I admit I was also a much better builder than a flyer. I really liked challenging builds and put in as much time as I thought needed to make an airplane fly good and be reliable. I really liked twins and had great success with them. The only twin that I ever lost was that Duellist. It eventually went in hard when an engine flamed out. With those racing engines there was not much room for error and it was all over in seconds. I still have what's left of it in a paper bag.

I still have a dozen or so airplanes ready to fly stored away in the basement. With the trend toward electrics, foamies and small fields they are probably not worth much anymore so I am just hanging on to them. I am with you, if a nice field suddenly popped up around here I would really enjoy dusting them off and flying again.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by PontGuy

The only twin that I ever lost was that Duellist. It eventually went in hard when an engine flamed out.....it was all over in seconds.

Yeah...that's exactly what I'm talking about. I couldn't count the number of flameouts I've had but with a single, as long as you've got some altitude and not in some funky position (like low, slow, downwind and inverted-lost a big bipe like that) then it's not a problem. With a twin...like you said, it's all over in seconds. For instance, I never landed that Bearcat above under power. It was deadstick all the time because of the cooling issues I was having with it. Still in one piece today.
Great hobby though. I still miss building and flying them.