From modeler to test pilot

Model Airplane News, Mar 1999 by Meyer, Corwin

One man's journey in aviation

Thousands of wide-eyed boys were catapulted into aviation after Lindbergh's solo, nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. In my mind, the spectacle of that flight has neither waned as the epitome of adventure nor been eclipsed by any other event. I started hacking out models of the Spirit of St. Louis from the slats of wooden cheese boxes immediately after Lindbergh's flight. The most difficult part of modeling was applying cheap F.W. Woolworth silver paint to that porous wood without leaving great streaks of black. I still can't do it.

I had a slightly more intense introduction to Lindbergh when he flew into Springfield (Illinois) Municipal Airport on August 21, 1927, during his countrywide tour after his tremendous flight. My mother was a frustrated housewife who had always wanted to be an aviator, so my brother John, my cousin Armin and I were hustled to the airport an hour before his landing to get front positions at the fence near where his airplane was to be parked. I was still spellbound when he entered his limousine to be driven three miles to the Oak Ridge Cemetery to place a wreath on Abraham Lincoln's grave. My mother hustled us into the car again, and by fast driving and the benefit of back roads, we saw Lindy ride past us at four different places along that route. My cousin Armin and I still remember that Paul Revere-like ride as if it were yesterday.

Shortly after that, my father took me to the YMCA to introduce me to its director, Andy Santenen, who kindly included me in his new model airplane club. There, I was introduced to the Wanner ROG stick-and-wire model that would really take off and fly no matter how badly its parts had been maligned during assembly. At seven years of age, I was forever hooked on things that left the ground, and I emulated Lindbergh.

In August of 1930, I saw my first issue of Model Airplane News, and the real world of aviation opened wide. Ideal and Paul Guillow's model kits, Balsa Products of America's 35-cent models of all the WW I fighters, Scientific's 6-foot monocoupe guaranteed to fly 500 feet and Madison Model Airplane Co.'s lifelike replica of the airship Los Angeles were all on my wish list. The Cleveland Model and Supply Co.'s advertisements were pages to drool over; their kits were the very best. They had printed parts, finished hardwood wheels, fiber propellers, all the dope and glue ... everything including plans that we imagined looked like real airplane drawings. In 1932, my mother splurged and bought me the Cleveland Albatross kit for an awesome price of $2.50 "post free." That was enough money to build 15 models, since I was drawing my own plans, stripping my own balsa stringers and spars and stealing my mother's tissue paper that she had saved for wrapping presents.

Robert C. Hare's articles on the development of Fokker fighters, the description of the new Consolidated Admiral flying boat that had flown 2,100 miles from Washington, D.C., to Panama and a variety of aviation articles were in each issue to keep you abreast of all the new developments in the real world of airplanes. The very detailed, exact scale Wylam 3-view drawings were especially important to we modelers who had much more enthusiasm than money. We could adapt the 3-views to build whatever size plane we had in mind.

The latest National Aeronautic Association Junior Membership news was most important to read to find out how much we had to improve our models to compete with model airplane builders who were setting records. John Zaic set a national record of 19 seconds for his hand-launched glider. My best time was 12.5 seconds ... I had a long way to go. Joe Kovel set a record for Fuselage Model Airplanes ROG of 2 minutes, 30 seconds. Everybody's hero, however, was Maxwell Basset. His Class F (gas engine) ROG record was an unheard of 28 minutes, 18 seconds. That was before there was any limit on the amount of fuel carried or the requirement for a 30-second enginecutoff timer!

I read Charles Hampson Grant's "The Aerodynamic Design of the Model Plane" every month, because he could tell a 12year-old why an airplane flew poorly-if at all-while using 12-year-old language. His article, "The Effects of Distributions of Weights on Your Airplane's Directional Stability, and Causes of Spiral Diving" educated me far beyond anything he ever realized. I found out later that real fighter aircraft and models could be cured quite similarly of their bad habits, albeit more expensively.

That great magazine even had book reviews for those of us who were able to take time off from building Polish PZL fighter models to read. I remember reading the review of Dick Grace's book entitled, "I Am Still Alive." He was the daredevil pilot who crashed airplanes for the movies. I couldn't possibly realize that in only eight years, I would be doing the same thing "accidentally" as an experimental test pilot and getting paid a fabulous salary as well.

I was not just an avid model airplane builder who always had layers of glue on his fingers where double-edge razor-blade cuts had chopped them; I was beyond obsession. I was so afflicted that it caused many emotional discussions with my father, who profoundly professed that flying in airplanes was all right with him as long as he could keep one foot on the ground. My grades were passable, but only with the help of my mother, who also talked my father out of wanting his second son to become a Lutheran minister. She saw the handwriting on the wall and happily aided and abetted model airplane building for her simple-minded, aviation-fanatic son.