All our Yesterday (Tall Tales?)

[Zflyer]

Talk of our childhood exploits, memories of early adulthood and missed spent youth. So we have somewhere to go without being off topic.

[Simon Chaddock]

Not a childhood memory as such but it was 53 years ago.

Some 5 earlier I built a free flight DH4. Never flew it as I realised it would destroy itself on landing even if it actally flew.

So I modified it to control line. When at university I actually flew it, that's me starting the Mills 75.

At 18 I had hair!

A fellow student hand launched it as the grass was far too long for a ROG and he then took a picture of it in the air. Impoverished students couldn't afford colour!

 

Of course it flew very slowly. Note the slack nylon lines!

After a couple of circles bit of a gust actually caused it to 'turn in' so no contol at all. The drag of the lines equalled the rudder offset so it flew straight and level almost over my head. Anticipating a destructive jerk once the line went tight at the appropriate point I took a pace forward. The DH4 managed the sudden left hand turn no problem and continued to fly as a control line as if nothing had happened until the fuel ran out. Never flew it again but I still have it.

A more recent (2010!) picture.

 

Drew up the plans myself scaled from a 1960 Aeromodeler "Planes in detail" article which included a "skeleton" 3 view.

Not bad for a 13 years old.  

           

[Dickw]

33 minutes ago, Simon Chaddock said:

 

Of course it flew very slowly. Note the slack nylon lines!

After a couple of circles bit of a gust actually caused it to 'turn in' so no contol at all. The drag of the lines equalled the rudder offset so it flew straight and level almost over my head. Anticipating a destructive jerk once the line went tight at the appropriate point I took a pace forward. The DH4 managed the sudden left hand turn no problem and continued to fly as a control line as if nothing had happened until the fuel ran out. Never flew it again but I still have it.

          

This brought back some memories.

in the early 1960s I built a small control line biplane powered by a DC merlin and flown on nylon lines. Like yours, there wasn't much line tension so I experienced a similar event. After a bit of further experimenting I found I could regularly fly it high and cause the lines tension to drop off completely at which point it would "roll in". A few quick steps backwards restored line tension and control. After that a CL model I could roll at will became my party trick!

 

Dick

[J D 8]

    Teenage fun.  Had a KK Champ with Frog 100 and one day my friend and I decided it would be good to shoot at it with his .22 air rifle. After take off he went behind an earth bank and I stepped towards it so model was flying over him for some of the flight and I was protected from flying pellets. He got off a dozen or so shots before the fuel ran out.  On inspection three holes in the balsa were found, not bad we thought.

   Walking back he had an accidental discharge,[ forgot he had reloaded just before fuel ran out ] the pellet bounced of a stone and struck me in the a backside. Shure did smart some but no lasting damage.

  Still friends. Still have Frog.

 

[Ron Gray]

2 hours ago, J D 8 said:

Walking back he had an accidental discharge

Oh dear, I thought for one moment that this was a real trip back to one's youth!