Welcome!
 

Welcome Neons, welcome! :) In this thread you will find help, support, encouragement, and lot'sa good old fashion bustin'! :eek: I hope you will visit us often and share what you are doing. :D We always welcome any input you may wish to share. BTW pay no attention to that crazy Texican (WWI Ace), and Biplane Murphy! :rolleyes: They just like to raze anyone they can, anyway they can. Oh and here's hoping you don't fly any red aircraft. :D:D:D Martin

Build one of the Red Baron's Albatros so you can paint red on it and keep Martin happy. HAHA. I have one of the Red Baron's Albatros but I covered the top of the wings with lozenge to hide some of the red but left the tail feathers red just to please Martin. HAHA

Gotta love Martin!! He's a good sport!! Steve

Martin???
 

Gee, I don't even know Martin, but he sounds like a great "victim"!!! Lee W. Palm Beach.

Not a great victim, just a GREAT GUY!!!!! Steve

I though maybe you guys would like to hear something my dad told me. My great uncle was in WW1. I think he might have been a sniper cause he was an outstanding shot. He hunted rabbits on the run with a rifle. Dad said he wouldn't talk about the war but sometimes when they were squirrel hunting he would tell a little. He probably told my dad this in the 20s. "They were told not to waste ammo shooting at airplanes. The only time he saw an airplane fly over there was one big person that had a larger gun than the rest(BAR?). He stood up with the gun and shot at the plane. My uncle could see pieces coming off the plane but it flew on out of site.

My Grandpa
 

My Grandfather was also a vet in WWI. He drove an ambulance. He never talked about it. I suppose it was too horrific to discuss. Imagine what he saw. He did, however, leave a diary about day to day events that he put into rhyme! I have only seen this diary once in my life. It's very precious to my Father. After my Dad passes away, it will be donated to the Aberdeen Ordinance Museum in Aberdeen, Maryland for study. My Dad also rebuilt/restored by himself, a WWII Willy's Jeep similar to the Jeep he used when he was part of the occupation forces in Japan after the war. That too will be donated. Martin

Martin comes from a family of heroes!! I don't know if I had any kin in WWI or not. I had 4 in Vietnam though!!! I would have loved to have loved to have gone rabbit hunting with Degreens great uncle! A rabbit on the run is a very tough shot. Steve

I have my dad's very first gun, it is a Marlin 39, hex barrel lever action 22. My great uncle bought it new and then sold it to my dad cause it did not shoot fast enough to suit him. He replaced it with a bolt action. To me this is unbelieveable, he could shoot a bolt action faster than a lever. I was told that a rabbit jumped up and he shot at it 7 times before it stopped rolling, my dad went and got the rabbit, it had 5 hits in it. Wonder what he would have done in WW1 if they had put him in an airplane. I have read that some of the WW1 aces were not great pilots but outstanding shots. I know several more tails about him and WW1 but they don't include an airplane. I been told by others about going hunting with him for the first time and thinking he was nuts when he told them to take the setting rabbits with thier shotgun cause he would get the running ones with his rifle.

I had 2 uncles in WW1, one was wounded, the other gassed! In WW2, I had 2 uncles, and 2 cousins, 2 in Air Corp, and 2 in Army. One stepped on a land mine at Anzio, one was a gunner on a B-24 lost over Ploesti, One was a tank commander, who came through unscathed, until a few days after the war ended. He fell off his tank and shattered his left elbow. He was an up-and-coming southpaw pitcher, but that took care of his pitching. The other was in Pacific with air transport command, and made it back in one piece. I went into USAF in late '45, and after radio operator school, they put me into a control tower!! Out in '48, with absolutely no heroism!! Claim to fame-- made sharpshooter with the 45!! Lee

I really enjoyed everyones stories, thanks for sharing those.

My dad's uncle was in B17's in WWII. Shot down 2x. I wish I could talk to him about his ordeals, but he doesn't. My dad told me that when he was a kid, his 2 uncles and his dad would talk about it a bit at the kitchen table when they didn't know my dad was around the corner. The B17 uncle is still alive, and is the highlight of our family reunions. Hope he knows how much we respect and admire him.

My father-in-law had two sons. After he passed away I found out that I was the only one he ever told about his time in Korea during the Korean conflict. I guess because I was in Korea (1986-1987) he could talk about places in the country and I knew where he was and about the weather and culture so he felt more connected.. Steve

I had two uncles in Armor in Europe during WW-2, two others were in Infantry. A fifth was in the Merchant Marine, sailed a number of North Sea Convoys. An aunt is married to someone who was in the Army Engineers. One of a cousin's husbands was in the Air Corps, B-24 pilot,

They apparently saw a pretty fair amount of combat. None of them ever talked much about their time. My aunt's husband once brought out a couple of his souvineers, a dummy 2.75" bazooka round, a dummy fragmention grenade, and a Luger. My aunt and cousins didn't even know he had them. This was in 2004. My cousin didn't even know more about her husband's service other than that he had been in the USAAC till when she was cleaning up his effects after he died, after almost 23 years of marriage, she found out he had made Lt. Colonel, and had about 18 medals, including a Purple Heart with clusters, a Silver Star, and a DFC. Apparently he'd flown several missions to Ploesti, among others. She only knew that he had frequent nightmares, which he never discussed with her.

And the uncle in the Merchant Marine, had started sailing on the Great Lakes in one of the last Whalebacks, sailed the oar boats till he went into the MM, but after the first season back on the boats after the war, he decided the lakes were more dangerous than the North Atlantic during a Wolf Pack or Condor attack. Also warmer than the Norther Russian ports.

By contrast, my 4 years in the AF were very quiet and boring.

Very interesting stories here. I was born during the WWII era. I don't know anyone with any stories to talk about in my relations. By the way thank you for the invitation to your group. If I have some thing worth submitting to the group I will gladly list it here. I'll be checking in at times with my link. I have almost 2k war books all eras with thousands of pics and history to dig into for references. Lots of building ideas to dream about.
Happy Flyin"
**Neons** Bob

4 years pease time Navy but not quiet and boring. Traveled from east coast to far east. One year on aircraft carrier. One year helo squadron. Watch one person get killed, several injured. Saw lots of pictures of bad crashes, burned up helos. Saw one plane that was just a pile of metal the day after the crash. Help search for downed pilots and even looked for a person that fell overboard. Watched some lucky ones too that walked away. Was in a helo that had troubles but made it back. You never forget.

Sounds like Neons has about as many books as Martin!! Ha ha!!! Steve

While stationed at Wheelus, I did get to see the aftermath of pilots becoming target fascinated with rocket flare or tracers on a ground attack run. Plane goes out as a big F-105-F or F-4, and comes back as a couple 45' flatbed trailers loaded with shredded metal in a bunch of 55 gallon drums. Three funeral services on base, and a quiet memorial service for the back seater from the 105. They couldn't find enough of him to identify, so he was offically reported as missing, presumed dead.

Also got to see the difference between Col. Robin Olds marksmanship with the centerline gatling on the early F-4s and some of his squadron members. Base F-100 went up with two target darts, followed by Olds and about 8 of his subordinates. Rumor was he was not happy with them.

When they got back from the range, the tug made one pass, dropped a slightly damaged dart. Made a second pass, dropped a bit of center beam and a small chunk of honeycomb. Word quickly got around that the first repairable dart was the result of gunnery runs from the first 8 F-4s, and the ruined one was a single firing pass by Col. Olds.

Within 3 months, the rest of the squadron was regularly destroying the darts.

Everybody I knew from his squadron were always very impressed with him.

I just watched some old film of WW1 planes taking off. Now I know why I have trouble taking off, I need 2 little men to run with the plane holding on to the wings to keep the plane stable.

Something to be said for a steerable tailwheel instead of a fixed skid. I even had a couple planes that taxied decently with steerable tailskids.

Anybody working on anything or flying? Too much work and bad weather here!!! Steve

nope......on vacation for a while.:tc:

I can fly my Sopwith Tripe in some wind so I had it up twice yesterday. It is fun to watch it fly backward in the wind.
I was wondering how the WW1 planes made an Immelmann turn. The drawings I have seen show it climing into half a loop from level flight. Finally I found a write up saying to start the turn dive to gain enough speed to loop. I always have to dive my WW1 models to do a loop. I also found an interesting write up from a WW1 pilot that said his aircraft was so unstable that if he let go of the stick he did not know what the plane would do and he did not think the enemy did either cauese the 2 times he met the enemy he just let go of the stick and lost them.

Immelmann turn
 

The Immelmann turn consists of a half loop followed by a rudder turn (with resulting half roll) at the top of the loop. It was used to reverse the direction of the aircraft so the pilot could return to combat. Martin

But I always wondered if any of the WW1 planes could do it from level flight or did all of them have to dive first. I think they all had to dive. From what I have read one of the advanges of the DVII was it could hang on the prop and shoot upward at about a 45 degree angle. This tells me it could not climb while doing that so it had to dive to get speed for loop would be my guess.

repairing my DR-1 from damage being blown off work table at the r/c field.....been 2 cold n windy

Sounds like a Camel found it.

That was a...

(are you ready for this?)
















...low blow :D

You know how those "Camel jockeys" are Flying Monkey!!! Ha ha!!! Steve

As if I don't have enough projects in the works, the latest RCMW has plans for an E-scale Thomas Morse Scout, 33" span, by Peter Rake. Sounds like England's answer to our Walt Musciano. Getting the itch to build this one.

I've been flying my GP SE5a as much as possible. Playing around with a little video camera on it!

Just trying to improve my skills with it, trying different things like rudder or whatnot. Fun plane, and I've not crashed it, but I'm often reminded that my abilities are NOT beyond this plane by anymeans!

Been trying the Immelmann, and I guess I had it wrong. I thought it was an aileron roll when the plane is pointing straight up in the loop.

I've got lots to learn!

Take a look here. I thought about enlarging this, cutting it out of foam. Then printing the paper and glueing it on the foam after the foam is made into the airplane. Maybe it could be printed on paper or tissue and use to cover a balsa plane.

http://www.modele-kartonowe.com/thom...s-5/index.html

I can do the first half or the Immelmann with my Sopwith Tripe(R/E/M) but have not learned yet how to do a roll with rudder only. When the Tripe is upside down it is easy to roll upright with the rudder. I guess giving it rudder going into a dive might look like the second half. I guess I am doing as some of the pilots probably did in WW1, do just the first half to try to loose the enemy on thier tail.

For aerobatic competition, the Immellmann is done by doing the first half of an inside loop, then as the plane comes level and inverted, rolling upright. Just the opposite of a split S. The AMA and FAI rule books show it in diagrams. It can be done with a rudder-only plane.

An article in one of the 1960s Air Progress magazines discussed the actual Immelmann manuevers, one offensive and the other defensive, neither of which resembled what we now call an Immelmann. Both apparently were intended to take your plane from a bad spot in front of your opponent and put yourself in the kill zone either on his tail or coming up at his underside. In fact, I seem to visualize that the offensive manuever started with a dive at the front of your oponent, and as he tried to dive away, you pulled into about a 30 degree climb, rolled inverted, and did about a 3/4 inside loop to put your sights on the other guy's belly, where he didn't know you were there till your bullets came up through his floorboards.

Few of those old fighters could stay inverted for any length of time with their low power, heavily underchambered wings, and primitive fuel feed systems.

50+ is always a great source of information!! By the time you figured out where your enemy was he had already eliminated your athletes foot problem!!! Steve

This place has a couple of ARF DR1s. See if you guys like 'em. They have a gas and electric version. www.flyboysmodels.com Steve

Here's a pictorial on doing an Immelman.

Looks like I am doing a full Immelmann not half of one. Now to find one of those planes with the black crosses on it.

Funny, my Fokkers are in the air all the time and not a Camel in sight!!! Steve

I guess that's what happens when WW-I aerodromes are more than 150 miles apart. Fighters only had maybe 2-2.5 hours of flying time.

Hey there blokes,
New to this thread .. just finished an LX Models DR1 .. maidened it on Sunday .. not good ..but undamaged! here's the vid ..Cheers
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtncMf4c2ZE[/media]