Does this book interest anyone?

Kim wrote:I owe it all to Buster!!!

HalfaDave wrote:Hi Kim, Back in our Cox (pre-High school) days, the girls were easily just as good flyers. They just rode girl Mustang bikes. Natural, at getting the crowd control of the younger kids that got in our way. We had boyfriend/girlfriends, before we knew what that it was all about. As far as I know, no one got pregnant flying Cox.049s here... Bell bottom pants, and Disco distanced us...

HalfaDave wrote:Hi gg, I have read both Laumer/Thornburg books. Model airplane philosiphy to me. I returned the borrowed books.
I loaned out my 'Andy Lennon, Model Airplane Design' book and did not get it back. I have a well used Martin Simons 'Model Aircraft Aerodynamics' book to trade...

HalfaDave wrote:I will try to balance this laptop, while taking a poop...

Admin wrote:I remember this thread. I probably should've bought that Keith Laumer book when I saw it. I too prefer having a physical copy.

Admin wrote:

HalfaDave wrote:I will try to balance this laptop, while taking a poop...

Way too much information.

Preface to the Revised Edition

In the ten years since the publication of the first edition of this book the world has changed more than it has in any decade since the dawn of history. Social orders have toppled; regimes have risen and fallen; international balances have swung; man has reached the moon. But interest in modeling among people of all ages and nationalities and political persuasions has continued unabated. Black and white, old and young, male and female modelers continue to whittle balsa and tease cranky engines to life, to rise at dawn to gather at the flying field, to labor far into the night over the newest project. The field of international model competition is one of the few in which Soviets and Americans have engaged in friendly rivalry, unmarred by accusations of foul play.

There have been changes in modeling, of course. Rocketry has lured away a few devotees more interested in brute power and outer space than in the delicate balances of airborne flight. Radio control equipment has become increasingly sophisticated, efficient, and inexpensive. And the plastics industry has contributed marvels in new materials.

But the basic urge to create a graceful structure capable of winging off into the high blue sky on its own power remains unchanged. The satisfactions of craftsmanship, the companionships of the flying field, the excitement of experimentation, and the challenge of competition still intrigue the active mind.

Youngsters who read the first edition when it appeared have now completed high school and college, and have gone on to found careers in many fields - including aeronautics and space research. Who knows what wonders will be seen - and performed - by those who now greet the second edition? Perhaps future editions will include chapters on "How to Fly in a Null-G Field," or "Modeling on the Moon." But whatever changes take place in man’s habitat, wherever he explores in the universe, the urges that made him build and fly will go with him.

KEITH LAUMER

Brooksville, Florida
1970

Introduction

For several generations, the building (and flying) of model airplanes has been a most popular hobby with the American boy. Almost from the time of the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, model airplane clubs, manufacturers of kits and supplies, and even books about this scientific hobby have existed. A great many books have been published but, unfortunately, progress has been so swift up to now, that virtually all of these books are as outdated as the trolley car. Now that hobby shops number in the thousands, and model airplane items are found in countless stores of many kinds, the need is greater than ever for a truly useful book to help the beginner get started and to assist the active hobbyist improve his skills.

How to Design and Build Flying Models is such a book.

The listing of chapters indicates a rare perception of the problems besetting the would-be modeler. A bewildering variety of models attract: ready-to-fly plastic items, built-up balsa-wood designs, gliders, powered planes, free-flying jobs, types that fly captive on the end of control wires, even radio-control miniature aircraft (for the "graduate" hobbyist) capable of any stunt known to full-scale designs. Where should one begin in this wonderland? Chapter 1, "What Shall I Build?" points the way. Other chapters develop the picture most logically: Materials; Engines, Accessories and Gimmicks; Equipping the Shop; then follow precise discussions about Building Your Model, Covering and Finishing, Getting Aloft, and so on.

This book does more than update the techniques of this hobby-sport. Showing a sensitive awareness of what the hobby really is all about, it goes beyond the basic areas of information with badly needed pointers, as for example, the chapter "Rebuilding a Wreck." Everyone knows that any flying machine, especially a fragile model airplane, will be damaged on occasion. But who has ever told us how to repair, or to make good as new again, a broken aircraft? Experts take this for granted; why not share this knowledge with the tyro? This Mr. Laumer has done.

Or what book ever considered how to make a landing gear retractable? Many modern big planes retract or fold-in their landing gears. Many a builder of flying scale-type models has wondered how this feature can be introduced in his handiwork. The author shows many ways in which this can be done.

Having accomplished its task of providing a comprehensive run-down of a complex hobby, this book soars to still greater heights. Roughly speaking, flying models fall into two categories: free-flight and control-line. Special chapters detail attractive sport projects in both these areas.

Nor was the author content to rest upon the how-to-do-it aspects of the hobby. His well-rounded analysis of the field is capped by the chapter "Designing Your Own." The great failing of the hobby, as it is practiced by millions of men, boys (and girls!) today, is the withering away of resourceful initiative, a natural result of the trend to prefabrication, ready-to-use items, and things that require little or no basic know-how.

The modern hobby overlaps more and more with the toy field. If model planes are to remain more than toys, keeping traditional values of training and worthwhile accomplishment, it becomes highly important to understand why and how a plane flies. For a model-plane builder not to have this understanding would be like a doctor lacking the ability to diagnose his patients’ complaints. Unthinkable!

Assisting the builder who would know why, and how, a lengthy index and glossary renders an invaluable assist.

WILLIAM WINTER

Publisher, American Aircraft Modeler

Foreword to the British Edition

All that my good friend Bill Winter has written in his introduction to the original American edition of this book has equal application in Europe. Just as in the U.S.A. the hobby and model shops of Britain support a very keen following for the admirable pursuit of aeromodelling. There is also a distinct need for this purposeful book with its skilful approach to the problems of the self-taught enthusiast.

Keith Laumer spent several years in London, and his gifted talent for breaking the most obvious point of instruction down to simple understandable terms was quickly appreciated by readers of Aeromodeller. Keith contributed a complete beginner course of model designs ranging from a solid balsa wood glider to a three foot span acrobatic control-line model, which are still among the most popular full-size plans available. *[See list on page 211]

In so doing, this quiet American made a deep impression on the established model fraternity in Britain. He introduced some more of that "know-how" for which his fellow countrymen are famous and the characteristic line of his designs became accepted as new shapes among hitherto traditional outlines. But it was not a "one-way" trade, and the dozen chapters which follow serve to illustrate how much Keith Laumer’s association with British aero-modellers stimulated his own appreciation of what was needed in this book.

In fact, Keith may well have written his piece on "Getting aloft" or "Rebuilding a wreck" after a weekend at a London model flying club field instead at his home in Florida.

Apart from vital references, little is changed in this edition from the original American. Modellers have a universal understanding which permits them to follow that a "ship" is an aeroplane, a "shop" is a workshop, "gas" is petrol and "endurance" means duration. To alter these expressions would diminish the atmosphere Keith has created, that of the maestro imparting his wisdom with not a word wasted on the way.

Read on - and enjoy this introduction to the satisfaction of craftsmanship, the companionship of the flying field, the excitement of experiment and the challenge of competition.

RON MOULTON

Managing Editor, Aeromodeller

rdw777 wrote:You bet George, I find it interesting to read over the different trims for single channel depending on what the pilot wants from it….Winter has several construction articles in OZ on single channel designs that are fun to read ….. Laumer’s articles are fun too…. Very descriptive on his flights ….