AIR WAVES

Model Airplane News, Apr 2004

WRITE TO US! We welcome your comments and suggestions. Letters should be addressed to "Airwaves" Model Airplane News, 100 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT 06877-4606 USA; email man@airage.com. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity. We regret that, owing to the tremendous numbers of letters we receive, we cannot respond to every one.

RISING SUN WARRIOR

Talk about perfect timing! I had been contemplating giving myself the giant-scale Japanese Zero from The World Models as a gift, and then your March 2004 issue shows up in my mailbox. I have always loved the clean lines of the Zero, and I think there are way too many Allied fighters in the world. It is a perfect air weapon for chasing around all those Mustangs. The review reports that the author used a Moki 2.10 glow engine to power his model, but I would like to use a gas engine. Do you have any suggestions? Again, thanks for the timely information and that great cover photo! I'm psyched to get my own rising-sun warrior!

Phillip Stephens [email]

Phillip, The World Models Zero is a beautiful IMAA-legal warbird, and we agree that West Coast editor John Reid's cover photo makes us want to get one as well! With its 80-inch span and 1,085 square inches of wing area, the Zero is perfectly suited to several gasoline engines. For general all-around fun flying, a ZDZ 40cc engine or a Zenoah G-38 would power it nicely. If you want to up the power to the max, you could squeeze a Fuji SO or a Quadra 52 into the nose, but you may have difficulty enclosing the muffler completely. The larger engines would also increase overall weight, and the wing loading (and landing speed) would go up as well; but it is possible. My choice would be a lightweight 40ccclass engine such as the ZDZ. Banzai!

PHOTO PERFECT!

In his article "12th Annual Warbirds over Delaware" (November 2003 issue), Gerry Yarrish featured some really great flight shots of the model warbirds. I try to take pictures of models at our local flying field, but they never come out right. What's the secret? I especially loved the sequence of the hardluck Mustang coming in for a "landing" on pages 34 and 35. Keep up the good work.

John Hartmann [email] John, we're glad you like our work! There really isn't a secret for getting the in-focus, dose-up flight photography that is the Model Airplane News trademark. The two main "ingredients" needed are good equipment and practice. The field equipment most editors take to flying events is a Nikon FS camera and several Nikon lenses. We use a fixed 300mm lens for most flight shots but sometimes switch to a zoom 80 to 200mm for static and general crowd photos. A 35 to 70mm zoom is great for static work. Recently, we also started using a 3.2-megapixel Nikon CoolPix 990 digital camera for close-up detailed photography. This has saved us a lot of film! And speaking of film, we use Fuji 64 color-slide film for all our flight shots.

To take the photos, we set ourselves up with the sun at our backs, and we stand as close as we can to the pilots without getting into trouble with the safety officers. We try to listen to the pilots as they talk to one another so we'll know what they will be doing. On average, we shoot between 20 and 40 rolls of 36-exposure film during a three-day event. You have to shoot a lot of "bullets" to hit the mark. Of all the pictures shot, about 50 percent are rated decent, and of these, our art department usually finds that one in 10 is worthy of the color spreads you see in Model Airplane News. In the case of Scott Bonomo's "hard landing" P51, it was one of those rare moments when we were at the right place at the right time with our camera pointed in the right direction. GY

SILVER DART SAGA

I read with great interest the "Build your own full-size model!" column in the January 2004 issue. Having just completed a full-scale replica of the "Silver Dart"the Canadian equivalent of the Wright Flyer-to coincide with the Centennial of Flight, I know what lies ahead for anyone who attempts to build a full-scale model of a vintage airplane.

Built in 1909, the Silver Dart was the brainchild of Alexander Graham Bell, who was a summer resident of Nova Scotia. Bell had formed a Canadian association to design and build a powered aeroplane. The association's members included Glenn Curtiss and J.A.D. "Doug" McCurdy-the Silver Dart's first pilot.

It took a great deal of research to come up with original drawings, many of which did not include dimensions! We used computer drawings to fill in the gaps, and the entire project was completed in about nine months. The Dart is now displayed at the Aero Space Association Museum in Calgary.

We used original construction materials wherever practical, but the wing, canard, rudder and aileron surfaces were built using modern materials. We maintained the integrity of design and built 90 percent of the hardware from scratch.

Air museums such as ours need to expand their collections, particularly if they have restoration facilities. The Aero Space Association Museum of Calgary has the parts to restore an original Hawker Hurricane and a de Havilland Mosquito, and it's exciting to know that a company such as PPE can produce blueprints and laser-cut parts for any airplane, thus expanding a museum's horizons. Could you put me in touch with them?