ebay Top Flight Nobler. Oh well......

This is the Jr. Nobler which in my opinion is not a good flying plane. It has too many parts using Top Flite iron wood which builds very heavy. Brodak reproduced the kit in laser and it's been redesigned which is structurally different and much lighter wood. This plane was designed around the Fox steelfin .15 which is pretty gutless. It's light which is why it was used. At the time of introduction, there wasn't any real powerful .15's available. I've seen the Jr Nobler do well with the use of the OS MAX-S .10. The MAX was a far better engine in power and quality but it came to fruition many years after the introduction of the Jr.   The green box Nobler was a much larger and better flying plane with the blue box Gieseke Nobler being the best of them in my opinion. What is quite amazing is the Stork a profile kitted by A&J Freeflight later Golden Models and now Brodak. It was a profile copy essentially of the Nobler approx 3-4 inches smaller than the JR and it utilizes a 1/2A engine to power it.

Thanks Andras (I didn't win it, but I'm still looking) and Ken.

There are Gieseke Nobler plans on ebay Ken, but I will need a kit something along a W/S of 24/30"s. There are NOS kit's right now on ebay but expensive. I just want to build a plane over the dark days of winter.

Perhaps more my speed at $40 NIB, but not built-up.




What was the stunter that Rusty used to fly and love? An Oriental?

Rusty had a ARF Oriental which was a full bodied plane that he did fly quite a bit. He also had a Walter Umland Fancherized Twister which was a profile. Rusty had a friend Watt who was monumental in the CAD designs of Brodak's planes. He offered the Oriental to Rusty.  The Umland Twister was a expensive kit more than 2x's the cost of the Sig. No longer available as Walter's due to health reasons has closed shop. Walter's kits were the best kits ever produced in my honest opinion. Rusty's hands were very bad being knotted up. Walter worked with Rusty to provide jigs made of balsa to assist Rusty in building the wing. Rusty had quite a impact on the control line community at his home area as everyone really wanted nothing but success for him. The Fancherized Twister had many features offering far better performance over the Sig such as half ribs from spar forward which smoothed out the scalloped airfoil of the Sig version due to having few ribs. The two planes side by side are not really recognizeable in comparison due to rudder shape and fuselage design changes.


The Twister was sold by Sig originally designed around the Fox .35. Unfortunately, this was a combination that could only be flown when the stars aligned and there was virtually no wind. I find it to be the ugliest plane on the planet. It was designed to get beginner flyers into stunt flying the pattern. In the 70's commercially available kits of 48" wingspans were in strong competition of each other. The Twister upped that by making this plane 49" with no wingtips.  Midwest offered up their warbird series based around their 48" wing which used different tips for different planes. The Midwest wing was a real toilet as it was far too thin. Combined with the Midwest balsa which might as well of been steel, you had a flying battering ram. The Sig Twister really upped the bar and offered a decent airfoil and lighter wood using less ribs and material. Performance now was in the competitive level if one used a more powerful engine.

            The Nobler you show in your picture is a Dick Sarpolus design. Dick has many offerings in sheet wing 1/2A's. I haven't seen Dick in a few years and when I did, I would love talking about these great little designs. I've never built them but I've flown some such as the Zlin and a P-51 Mustang. Two in particular I want to do is the F-86 and the Mig-15. Blackhawk did a rendition of some of them but I was never a fan of those kits as they changed a lot of the original design. I was in awe that they tried to recreate kits from the past but the changes made left a lot to the imagination.

Informative summary Ken mixed in with a little history.

At times when my back is really hurting I thnk of Rusty and how easy I have it compared to what he faced daily. Heals me up really quick.

I have been looking at ebays Nobler offerings and one of the sellers sent me an offer of $115 down from $145 for this kit.




I'm thinking it over, but if anyone wants to take me off the hook.........................

Rusty would make a comment that pain is what let him know he was still alive.