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Nov. 5, 1998 - Bill Cooper
01:00:28
Model Airplanes
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Time Text
Wait all our lives.
Be the hour of the time.
You're out of time. The ice has cooled and broken. You're going to want to be saved by me.
I'm going to have to get you out of here.
I'm William Cooper.
Gee, folks, we have no idea what we're going to do tonight.
I've been busy upgrading software on the computer all day.
Doyle has been busy working and he just got home and I just finished with the last download actually the next to the last I've got a big huge download I've got to do tomorrow to upgrade I don't know what it is Internet Explorer 4.01 service pack I think so anyway Christmas is coming up
And if you haven't decided what gifts you're going to get for everybody, remember this, folks.
We have some fantastic things that we offer on this broadcast to pay for the airtime, to make this program not so painful.
And so we would appreciate it if you would purchase your Christmas gifts from us.
And if you know people who don't have shortwave radios, the best thing in the world you could do for them is purchase a shortwave radio for them for Christmas and turn them on to the hour of the time.
And all the other great broadcasting on shortwave all around the world.
It's an incredible experience for people who have never listened to shortwave to find out
that gee, they'd rather not.
And Ted Koppulait didn't tell me this stuff on the news that I just heard on the BBC,
or from Radio Moscow, or from Argentina, or many of the, in Japan, or any of the other
great sources of news around the world.
It's quite an awakening.
And, of course, when they hear the Hour of the Time, they just go into total shock for
about two weeks, and then they begin to come out of it slowly.
Thank you.
Now, I've been looking around for gifts for us up here on this hill, and I've determined that about the best thing that we could get for Christmas And I'm not talking about from you folks that we personally can purchase for Christmas for us up here.
For a little bit of recreation and other things, sure would be nice if we could send an aircraft out on patrol once in a while with a little TV camera in the nose from Ramsey Products and do some record ordering that way without endangering anybody.
And so we're looking at radio-controlled Aircraft and helicopters and we have found some fantastic Things and I was kind of hoping that some of you out there who may be involved in radio control hobby might want to call in and Give us some pointers But before we do that because of our computer downloading and everything we thought we were going to have to go on the air
Without taking calls.
So if you're listening at WBCQ, if you're listening at WBCQ, what we're going to have to do in order to take calls tonight is we're going to have to break our connection with the station and call in again because we've got to switch two phone lines.
So Randy Steele or Al Wiener, if you're there at the station and you're listening, what we need to do is go off the air for about one minute.
And call you back on the proper line so that we can take calls because we can't take calls on the line that the phone is hooked to right now.
So that's what we'd like to do.
And just to make sure that that's OK, I'm going to have Doyle call the station and make sure that you understand what we're going to do so that we can disconnect at the same time.
And I'm sorry to put you through this, folks, but we did not know that You see, we had a computer downloading massive files from the internet.
After it's been downloading like an hour and a half, you don't want to cut the computer off and start all over again, because then you've got to go through all that hour and a half, two hour downloading again.
So we had switched the phone lines in the studio, thinking that the computer would not finish.
And the computer finished its download about four minutes before we were scheduled to go on the air.
And Randy, that's why we didn't call you until the last minute.
We had no idea what was going to happen because of that computer download.
And for all of those of you who don't have computers and don't understand this, just don't pay any attention to it because it took me several years to learn all about it and I don't have time to explain it to you.
You'll eventually have to learn it because everything that's going on in the world today has something to do with computers.
And the more you know about it, the better off you are.
Not only that, folks, but it's a good idea to get connected to the Internet because there's a tremendous amount of information that you're missing out on.
There's also a tremendous amount of disinformation and and lies and all kinds of other crap on the internet that
you're missing out on that you're not missing at all.
But the stuff that's on there that is good is worth searching for and worth verifying
and doing whatever you have to do.
Did they answer?
It's okay?
Whenever you want to.
Okay, Randy, I'm going to count down to five and then we're going to disconnect our line
and switch these phone lines and we'll be calling you instantly.
Everybody listening, wherever you're at, just hold on.
We'll be right back on the air in about one minute, so don't go away.
Here we go.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Especially with the body, you can see the skin.
This way.
Okay.
Okay, folks, we should be back on the air right now.
You should be hearing me.
So anyway, as I was saying before, I would really like it, and you know, I don't know if you'd like it or not, but I would really like it if we could get some of our listening audience to do this.
I accidentally hit this button as I'm tucking phone lines in where they're supposed to go instead of draping all over the mixing board.
Okay, what I would like to do is have some of you who either are currently engaged in radio-controlled helicopters or airplanes, the model types, or have been at some point in your life, are, you know, if there's anybody out there listening who does that kind of thing, we'd like to talk about that on the air tonight, amongst other things.
But I really would like to get some expert advice Because we're looking at some things that we don't know anything about.
And, you know, I've always been of the mind, folks, that if you don't know anything about something, it's better to get some advice from some people who do, rather than jump in with both feet and get burned, or make a mistake, or screw something up.
You know how that goes.
And so, what we'd like to do is find out From you, in our listening audience, some of you I know, well I think, I don't know, I think may have at one time in your life messed around with radio controlled model airplanes and model helicopters.
And we want to do two things with it.
Let me tell you what we want to do with these things.
We want to provide some educational experience with the girls in what makes an airplane fly.
And a small engine is a good way to teach children about mechanics and what makes engines work.
And I used to do U-control with model airplanes when I was a boy.
But that was so long ago.
I mean, everything is... I'm sure the construction of the model airplanes is pretty similar to the way I used to do it.
It's probably a lot easier today because We had to actually make a lot of the parts ourselves, and I understand you don't have to do that anymore.
And I understand also that the model airplane engines are much better today than they ever were when we were using them.
And we had, of course, U-control.
Our control line is what some people used to call it.
And you had these two wires hooked to your airplane, they went through the wing and And the only control that you had was the rudder.
You could make the plane go up or down.
But that was it.
You couldn't do anything else.
And, of course, you went around in a circle as fast as the airplane went.
So the faster the plane, the faster you went around in a circle.
And sometimes it was pretty hilarious to see how dizzy some people would get and what would happen after that.
And, of course, there were the expected plane crashes.
Once in a while.
So, we want it for recreation, for all of us, and for the girls.
And for the girls, we want it to be an educational experience, and we'd like to build the plane.
Or helicopter, whatever it happens to be.
Or maybe both.
And then, we want to adapt at least one for flying with television capabilities to transmit back to us what it sees.
And for that we may want something that uses electric power so that it's not noisy.
But anyway, we'd like to hear from anybody in the audience who's done these things before, or is in the process of doing it, and might know something about it.
So you can start calling in any time you want to if you have Experience with radio-controlled model airplanes and helicopters.
We'd like to hear from you anytime.
So you can call right now if you want to.
The number is 520-333-4578.
And if nobody has any experience like that, it's going to be kind of rare.
I understand this is a pretty popular sport.
But, you know, who knows?
And Doyle went out to get some material that he's going to be using.
And he found this.
I'm looking around to see what I've got here to do ladies and gentlemen and I really don't have anything so we'll just open the phones and you can talk about whatever you want to talk about.
I'd like to get some Some feedback from what's going on now concerning these elections and the aftermath.
I think that's pretty important.
I'd like to talk about that with the listening audience.
And anybody, any of you who have had experience with model airplanes, specifically the radio controls type, we'd like to hear from you any time tonight, any time during this broadcast.
I don't have, folks.
So the phones are open right now, 520-333-4578.
I guess that's what we're going to do for the rest of the broadcast tonight, is take
your calls and talk about whatever it is that's on your mind.
And I hope that somebody out there who has model airplane experience will also call in
and we can get the benefit of some first-hand expertise, which I don't have, folks.
I really don't.
And don't know what I'm doing when it comes to things like that.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Okay, let me just check my radio.
Oh, God.
Okay, I'm here.
Okay.
This is Bill Kittmer.
Yes, it is.
Uh, okay, now, uh, with the remote control, radio control planes, the true radio control planes, you do have to have at least a code-free tech license, hand license.
A what now?
You have to have a, uh, it's known as a technician no code hand license.
Now how do you get that?
None of the, uh, none of the model airplane or radio control catalogs that we've been looking at have said a word about anything like that.
Yeah, you're supposed to have it because it's in the 50 megahertz range.
The cheapest models are about $350 and they go on up $500, $600 for a really good one.
I know some guys that have one and they call it a black tag or something.
I don't have one yet, but I'm very curious about getting one that's like a 900MHz closed-circuit TV hand license.
Uh-huh.
Well, you know, we can get those kinds of things right through Ramsey, and you don't need any kind of license.
Yeah, and it's like even better quality ones are more like your spy camera type lenses, and they're more expensive.
But you do have to have a no-code technician hand license to legally run that type of aircraft.
Huh, well that's weird.
Does it, does those things come with the transmitters?
Uh, you gotta basically go to like Radio Shack or what have you.
Wait, wait a minute, wait a minute.
That's baloney.
Oh, you're supposed to have a license?
No, no, no.
If it's intrastate, if it's broadcasting intrastate, you don't need a license from the FCC.
You're supposed to because it's one to three mile range and you can cause interference and cause problems with other people's stuff.
Excuse me.
The Federal Government only has authority given to it by the Constitution for the United States of America.
The only authority granted to the FCC comes under the Interstate and International Commerce Clause.
They have no authority whatsoever to regulate intrastate broadcasting of any kind.
And I agree with you.
I don't like government intervention either.
Well, it's not government intervention.
That's the law.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
Yeah, but you know what the FCC is.
They think they own it.
I don't care about that.
I drew my line in the sand a long time ago.
They're the outlaws, not me.
I know.
It's the same thing about the gun permits.
I know.
So, uh... But, like, you know, they also have radio-controlled boats and submarines and things like that.
Uh-huh.
Well, what we've been looking at seems to be pretty reasonable.
I mean, you can get a really good model aircraft kit for about $78.
I mean, a real big plane that we've, you know, as far as we can tell, is really a good airplane.
Who knows?
There might be a different class of where it's only like within a mile or something might be license-free.
But these types I was looking at, it's like two or three mile range.
How'd this get to fireworks?
you're not going to shoot them off here.
How'd this get to fireworks?
We're not interested in fireworks.
works.
Nowadays you're supposed to sign a permit.
piece of paper, even buy those anymore. It used to be a free country. You'd be able to buy fireworks and guns
without spending pieces of paper. It's sad business anymore.
Well, it is, but it's not because the law demands that we do that. It's because the outlaws have thrown the law in
the trash can, and they are forcing people to do it through tyranny.
I mean, I'm very upset with some of the local elections in my area, even.
What happened in your area?
What was the, uh... And I'm calling from the state of Indiana.
And, uh, Indiana's got, uh, one of your better laws.
Even though you have to have permits, they got better laws than a lot of states that don't even issue permits, like New York State, you know, unless you really know somebody.
Uh-huh.
And, uh, but we, uh, our local congressman, we got a very liberal Democrat who's opposed to death penalty, who's opposed to gun rights, who's opposed to, uh, I mean, I don't dislike all Democrats, don't get me wrong.
There's some very good Democrats.
I like some of the Democrats in our state.
sponsored opponent that narrowly lost to this guy and we're kind of upset about it down
here.
I mean I don't dislike all Democrats, don't get me wrong, there's some very good Democrats,
I like some of the Democrats in our state, but there's also some very too liberal Democrats
in the state too.
Well, you're not talking about the too liberal.
What you're talking about is the outright subversives.
Yeah, yeah, socialists and, you know, almost fascists, in my opinion.
Yeah.
Well, all I can say is, yeah, good luck because, yeah, I had some fun when I was a kid, too.
You're talking about the two-string aircraft.
I enjoyed this.
It had kind of a yellow tail with a star on it.
No, we used to build them out of balsa wood and... Yeah, and the thing would go vertical and crash on you.
Well, if you didn't work the control lines right, yeah, it's liable to do anything.
You hear the rubber bands, you can go, uh-oh.
Anyway, good talking with you.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Alright, bye-bye.
Okay, folks, we're not interested in putting explosives in planes or anything like that.
All we're interested in is learning about radio-controlled airplanes so that we can have some recreation with them.
So that we can use them to our advantage as reconnaissance craft if we need to.
And so that we can educate the girls.
Pooh is at that age now where she's really interested in airplanes and helicopters and things like that.
And mechanics.
I let her use my pocket mechanic.
I think it was today.
Yeah, it was today.
I let her use my pocket mechanic today, and she was thrilled to death.
And a few weeks ago, I gave her her own pocket knife, and she was just thrilled to death with that.
Of course, she had to have a long lecture on safety with a knife and all that kind of stuff, but she loves those kinds of things.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah, this is Paul from Ohio.
Hi, Paul.
comment on the election night broadcast you have. You're coming okay in this area, just
had a little bit of bleed through from that Voice of America, but some of the issues that
were going on around here, it seems like they're all dealing mostly with Social Security and
Medicare and Medicaid. That's all socialism. Yeah, they were, it seems like all the campaign
literature, we'd get in the house there, you know, you could just black out Democrat or
Republican and you could tell who was running for what, you know. Yeah, well, they're appealing
to the base nature of human beings.
People don't care about the issues anymore.
They don't care about freedom anymore.
Most people, all they care about is, what else can I get from the government?
What else can I get from the government?
They're all talking about, oh the social security trust fund is in danger and they're not even smart enough to go look in the law and find out that there isn't any social security trust fund.
Never was.
All that money goes in the general fund because it's not an insurance policy and right in the law it tells you it's a tax.
Yeah, that's all I got to say on that.
Thanks for getting back on the air there.
You're welcome.
Catch you later.
I got that feel pretty safe now that everyone's fighting for me in Washington.
Who's fighting for us?
I don't know.
They say they are.
They're fighting to enslave us.
Yeah, but that's all I got to say on that.
Thanks for getting back on the air there.
You're welcome.
All right.
Catch you later.
Thanks for calling.
520-333-4578 is the number.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
I'd really like to hear from some people who have some radio control model airplane or helicopter experience to give us some advice, but we'll take calls from anybody.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Good evening.
This is Bill Wick, Bill.
I need you to talk really loud, Bill.
Put that receiver right in front of your mouth, as close to your lips as you can, and talk real loud.
Okay, sir.
About the radio control airplanes.
Yes sir, that's exactly what we run here.
I fly with a couple friends from work and it's really good stuff.
is a Futaba 6XA. That's a 6 channel?
Boy, that's exactly what I've been looking at.
That same OS Max engine, it's a 40 engine and a Futaba 6XA was what I was looking at.
Is that the one that you're recommending?
Yes sir, that's exactly what we run here.
I fly with a couple friends from work and it's really good stuff.
What about this license thing?
Uh, what he's talking about has something to do with transmitting video.
For flying an airplane, you don't need one.
Ah, that's what I thought.
I figured if you need a license, I mean, how could these catalogs and these people doing business in this hobby sell this stuff to people without telling them that they have to have a license?
That's correct.
There is a 50 megahertz band that was, you know, a ham radio band, the license for.
But anything you're going to use or buy, it won't be that.
Oh, good.
Well, we wouldn't get it anyway, because we know what the law really is, and as long as we're not transmitting commercial broadcasting across state or international boundaries, then we don't need it.
Your helicopter is way up beyond us.
The helicopter is the hardest thing to fly there is.
Really?
That's years down the road.
Years down the road?
All you need is a train or airplane.
something very slow and very big that you can see.
Uh huh.
And you really should find somebody locally to help you fly it the first few times.
If you're good at craze, it's inevitable.
Well, yeah, I learned that when I was a boy.
It's inevitable or whatever you're flying, however you're flying, and it's eventually going to crash.
Well, I don't even know if there is a local RC club.
I remember Annie and I took a drive out by the airport in Eager Springerville Airport one time.
And there were some people out there flying model airplanes.
But I don't know if there's a club.
And I guess I'm going to have to find that out.
Well, that would be fine if you just see somebody, you know, just stop and talk to them.
Yeah.
Everybody's really friendly.
And there's also a computer simulator you can get from Dave Brown Products is one.
A great plane is just put out wide.
And that way you can do it on a computer with a similar transmitter that you're actually flying with.
And that'll help you out some too.
Is it really like really flying a radio-controlled airplane, or is it kind of hokey stuff?
I haven't tried the Great Planes one.
It's much more expensive.
It's probably $250.
I use the Dave Brown.
It helps some, yes.
It's not exactly, exactly the same, but it is pretty good.
And do you have the same kind of controls to play with it?
Yes, you do.
You have, you know, it's not a transmitter, but it looks like the transmitter box with the control sticks.
Uh-huh.
Pooh, pull that chair up here.
Talk to this man.
Pooh just walked in here.
She wants to fly an airplane.
Come on up here.
Talk to him.
Ask him how hard it is for an 8-year-old girl to fly an airplane.
Go ahead.
Talk.
How hard is it for an 8-year-old girl to fly an airplane?
It'll be real hard, but what you can do is to have a thing called a trainer cord.
You need two Futaba radios to do that.
Uh oh, now we're talking money.
You can jump control from one transmitter to the other.
Because that's what I do when I get in trouble.
I say you take it over, and the other guy will take it over so I don't crash it.
Does this particular one you recommended, does that have that feature?
Yes, it's an optional $15 cable, but you have to have two transmitters to do it.
I see.
One transmitter is actively transmitting, and the other one is just a dummy bus.
Oh, here comes Allison.
She heard Pooh on the radio.
She's coming.
Here she comes.
Okay, well, you know, what would you recommend for Pooh?
I mean, Allison, we all know she can help us build it and give us moral support and be the great cheerleader.
She's only three years old.
But, you know, she's going to really enjoy She enjoys watching a lot of things, you know.
I imagine this would be very exciting.
It's a lot of fun.
What kind of advice would you give to Pooh?
In fact, all of us.
None of us have ever done this before.
I mean, I built and flew U-controlled planes when I was a boy.
Long, long time ago.
I've forgotten almost everything except every once in a while I used to get smacked by the propeller and it hurt pretty good.
Uh-huh.
So if you're real calm and you don't want to fly in any wind whatsoever.
Okay.
Uh oh.
Well, we have those days around here once in a while.
But that would be your best is find somebody flying and talk to them, have them help you
set up your airplane.
Uh huh.
And that just gives you the best odds for success.
Is there a particular airplane kit that you would recommend that wouldn't destroy us or
take eight months to build or something?
Uh, when we fly, we fly a Dora plane.
A Dora plane?
Dora plane.
Dora.
Uh-huh.
It's real easy to build, and it's real hard to break.
Oh, well.
Basically, a square plastic pipe is the body.
Ha, ha, ha.
Nice.
Yeah, nice.
And you attach the tail to that.
Yeah.
And it's pretty bulletproof.
I think it's about $60.
Wow.
There's a catalog called Tower Hobbies, and I think they're on the internet, tower.com.
Uh-huh.
We've got the catalog.
Is that plane in there?
Yes, yes it is.
Okay.
How big is it?
It's about a 60 inch wingspan, I believe.
Okay.
The one we were looking at had about a 73 inch wingspan, I think.
Pooh, would you go get that model airplane catalog?
Actually, it's not a model airplane catalog.
It's a model airplane magazine that has a lot of those ads in it.
We do have Tower Hobbies catalog though and I think we have Hobby Co.
or Hobby something, Hobby Lobby or something like that.
I forget exactly what it is.
The door plate is real nice because it's a foam wing.
Uh huh.
You don't have to tissue it or build it up with sticks or nothing.
And it's really quick assembly time.
And it's surprisingly strong.
How do you cover the wings and things today?
Because in my day we used silk and airplane dope.
Right, that's changed.
With this, being foam, you have to use a low-temperature plastic wrap, basically.
It's plastic, and it's gummy on one side once you heat it with an iron.
But you actually heat it with a small iron, the edges, and then you hit it with a heat gun, and that'll shrink it down.
You're kidding.
What?
Oh boy, I can see me screwing that up real easy.
The plane we were looking at is called a TeleMaster.
TeleMaster 40.
Have you ever heard anything about that?
No, that's supposed to be a really good plane.
Really?
But that's going to be your stick construction.
It'll take you a lot longer to build.
Yeah.
It'll fly a lot better.
But when you crash it, you're going to have sticks.
Well, if we have some glue and some extra sticks, how hard is it to fix these things?
If you have a good set of plans, they'll actually detail out the shape of the ribs.
I remember we used to rebuild ours when I was a boy.
In fact, we built most of what we flew from scratch.
We would send away for some plans and they would come back and we would spread them out
on a table and we would get my mom's pen cushion full of pens and we would cut the shapes,
draw the shapes on balsa and cut those out and just, you know, assemble it right on the
table over the plans and it was a lot of fun.
But I understand now everything comes, it's already cut out and labeled and all that kind
of stuff and all you do is put it together, is that right?
That's fairly much it.
Most of it is die cut and you'll just assemble it, do light sanding and with the advent of
super glue the building goes pretty quick.
Wow.
You know, that's one thing that kind of, another thing that I was kind of hesitant about I
I see all these ads for something called CA.
What in the world is that?
That's superglue.
Superglue.
You use superglue on balsa wood?
Sure.
Now, fast drying, you have thin and thick.
The thin, your pieces have to perfectly mate and westernly glue them.
If you have any kind of cracks or imperfections from the joint, Uh huh.
Wow.
It is a super glue.
Wow.
I also noticed that there's like a hundred different kinds and that's what scared me
because how do you know what glue to use on what joint or what wood and if you use the
wrong one is your plane going to fall apart in the air?
I would use stick all the time.
And then they may have you use epoxy in the motor mount area.
Uh huh.
Uh-huh.
I don't know.
She's got a lust for words.
First time ever.
Okay, well I really appreciate your call and the help that you've given us and I really
am pleased that right off the bat you told us the transmitter and the engine that we
were looking at.
Yes, sir.
That's really good stuff.
Good.
Well, thank you.
That's great.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
In fact, I remember OS Max, when I was a boy, that factory had just started.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, and we used Fox and Inyaz.
Inyaz, of course, is a Japanese engine manufacturer, but we used Fox Uh, there were some others, I can't remember all of them, but we used like 15s and 19s and now people are using a big giant engine.
Yeah, a lot more.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello, this is Louise near Chicago here, talking about planes.
Yeah.
Um, there is another option to consider.
Is this something that you're just for now going to play with?
Oh yeah, we'll play with it for a while.
I mean...
Well, consider the two-channel option.
Two-channel option?
Instead of a four-channel, like some of those four-channel radios, you'd have engine control,
and you'd have your other three axes of yaw, pitch, and roll.
Actually, we were looking at a six-channel transmitter because...
Pepper and not pepper.
Pardon?
If you want to do things like have flaps or bomb drops and stuff like that, it gets very
elaborate.
Well, we don't have a six-channel transmitter.
We have a six-channel transmitter.
Well, one of the things you can do is get a 2-meter glider.
That's what I got into because I don't have any money over here at all.
Well, we don't either.
In fact, if somebody doesn't start buying something, we're not going to have a radio show either.
But go ahead.
You bought a 2-meter what?
Well, you can get a 2-meter glider.
So you're talking over a 72-inch wing stand there.
and you get something that's ultra-stable that's got like a polyhedral wing.
A poly... you lost me there.
What's a polyhedral wing?
A polyhedral is... you got a dihedral, which has a nice parasol shape,
well, the wing about halfway out is bent again.
Oh, I see. Okay.
This thing insists on flying right side up, you know, it's extremely stable.
Uh-huh.
If you think you're going to crash, you get off the controls and it rights itself.
Oh.
But what kind of power does it use?
Are you talking about a glider?
Well, you can power it in two ways.
There are powered gliders.
There are also gliders that were not intended for power, and you can buy a little old 49-engine strap-on mount that rubber bands right on the top of the wing.
Rubber bands?
Well, that's how the wing's attached.
That's in case of a crash, by the way, so the wing breaks away.
That reminds me of Bob Swan when we were young.
We used to call him Bondo Bob.
No, but the rubber bands would hold the wing on all these planes.
Well, that's how his Chevy was put together.
That's why we called him...
Well, you have to because we got an area around here where they fly a lot of these planes
and I could only get in with two channel equipment because I just didn't have the money for anything
better.
Well, the only reason we're looking at six channels is because if we get good with this
and we decide to use it for other things, for like carrying a small television camera
to do things like that, it could be very useful, believe me.
I've learned in the past that if you start off buying a lot of stuff that won't meet
your needs later, you end up spending three or four times the money that you would have
spent if you just bought what you might need later in the beginning and start off with
like cheap planes.
The sooner you're going to have to learn to fly it.
Yeah, that's true.
You have to get comfortable and confident with it.
That counts for everything.
It's nice to have something you can hand launch and just play around with it and fly it and
then go for more and more power because you're going to be flying it.
I've seen these planes power dive into the ground and just go for more and more power.
It is a pathetic sight, and you see kindling when it disintegrates.
Yeah, I've seen that, too.
In fact, I've done it several times.
Well, I've seen guys with expensive planes.
I mean, you can have ducted fan jets that go upward of $1,500.
Oh, no, we're not... These characters will spend that.
We're not even interested in even approaching anything that costs that much.
Well, you know, the ultimate would be, if you could, I don't know what Ramsey has, but
if you want to make one that you want, you want to do telemetry, you want to have radio
signals going to it and coming back, the ultimate of course would be something that you would
sit at a control with a flight yoke for your computer and control this airplane and actually
watch on your monitor screen what's going on.
That would be the ultimate.
That's what they use in the military.
Yeah, that's exactly what we want to do.
That would be the ultimate because then, you know, when you're flying, you have to remember
you're left and you're right, you have to, you know, if your plane flies out of sight,
you better have somebody follow it with some powerful binoculars or a telescope because
you could be flying away from you and think you're coming back towards you and then you
really lose it.
But if you've got one of these, you know, if you're getting telemetry that's showing you in real time what's happening inside the plane, what attitude it's in, you correct it immediately.
Well, where we're at, it would be impossible to fly a model airplane out of sight.
No.
Absolutely impossible.
We're on the top of a little mountain here.
Right.
And we can see like 40 miles in every direction.
Oh!
Oh!
Oh, well if you're looking to extend your eyes, One of the things I'm into now is kites.
It's possible to put a rig on a kite and send that up.
That's very old, by the way.
Well, that sounds interesting because we do have some kites and we fly them quite often, as a matter of fact.
Oh, I'm into kites.
I have a secret in planes, even though my first love is planes, of course, and copters.
Oh, we all love kites, and that's something that even little Allison can get into.
She can do that very well.
Jay Conine of Chicago was taking architectural aerial photographs in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
With kites?
With kites.
Wow, that's great.
And his equipment used to weigh over 800 pounds, so he used to use a string of conine kites, if you're familiar with all the types.
No, I'm not familiar with all the types, but I am familiar with kites and how they work.
I mean, some of the big ones like the straddle scoops have awesome lifting power.
They can take payloads up that... You know a lot about this stuff, don't you?
Of course!
The resourcefulness of the citizens had better be here.
We may have to get your phone number and use you as a permanent advisor.
Well, that's another way to do it.
And another way would be with a helium balloon.
It would be radio controlled, like a blimp.
Yeah, I've thought of that too.
And that, you know, they're making... I'm just absolutely amazed at what they're making today.
When I was a boy, we were all into this kind of stuff.
And I look around and I see these boys running around getting in trouble when they could really be doing stuff that's a lot of fun and very interesting.
Well, they're taught not to be creative.
They're taught not to think independently.
Well, that's true.
If I had had, as a boy, what these children have available to them today, I would have literally been in heaven.
You couldn't have made me happier no matter what you did.
They have little tiny electric motors and battery packs that can fly model airplanes for like 30 minutes up in the air.
Well, some of the motors now they've got, it's just mind-boggling to think you can get that kind of performance out of an electric motor.
Well, it's mind-boggling to me to think that you could have an airplane with a 73-inch wingspan that you could put an electric motor on, and it's absolutely silent, and put enough batteries in it that this thing could actually take off and fly for 30 minutes.
And of course, if you've got someone with a 73-inch wingspan, you can follow thermals with that.
You get it up to altitude, and if, you know, you expect the power source to quit, then you've got yourself a very nice flying glider, and you can keep it in the air for a long time.
Well, that's what this TeleMaster has, is a 73-inch wingspan.
Well, if you want something bigger, it'll get you up in the air.
I've even seen them actually towed by... Well, listen to this.
Here's one.
It's the Senior TeleMaster.
It has a 95-inch wingspan.
Oh, those are nice.
And it says it's really, really light.
Now that's an 8-foot wingspan, and that's incredible.
It says nothing, nothing, nothing flies like the senior telemaster.
Well, I have a 12-foot wingspan glider called a Pegasus.
And that thing, you can just keep it up all afternoon.
You can lay on your back, flying this thing overhead, it just won't come down.
Wow, where would you put it, though?
We're already wondering that if we... They're getting it into the air, that's... You know, they actually tore it up with another plane.
I mean, some of these characters go all out.
I'm thinking if anybody's going to go out there... You see, the most I've had as far as ever encountering anybody who's using anything that represents surveillance or any use like that of a plane was something like a... one of the... a KAP-41 or whatever, one of the...
Well, you know, that's easy to do with these planes.
The plane was large and it had a wingspan of about 8 feet.
And the guy had mounted a camera in it, a 35mm camera.
This huge bubble canopy.
And so he would snap pictures at altitude.
Well, you know, that's easy to do with these planes.
They're so big and there's such light construction.
And they have such a wide range of engines that you could put anything you wanted into them
if you had the power to propel it fast enough to get enough lift to take it off.
And that's, you know, that doesn't seem to be a problem to me.
I used to get my planes from a place called Hobby Shack in California.
That sounds familiar. I think there might be...
Hobby Lobby and...
Yeah, there's Hobby Lobby here.
Mm-hmm, that's our hobbies. But the Hobby Shack had a good catalog.
Do you know that they have nine-cylinder model airplanes?
Well, they're gorgeous, aren't they?
And they're radial.
They have 3-cylinder, 5-cylinder, 7- and 9-cylinder radials.
I'm looking at a 9-cylinder right now that just makes me drool.
And they're 4-stroke.
Yeah, they're 4-stroke.
One guy had a Piper, about an 8-foot wingspan Piper Cub J5.
And he had a four-cycle engine on this thing, and one of the channels he used on his radio was to run the starter.
This thing had a starter on it.
He would bring it in over the field and kill the engine, and it started going, going, going.
It didn't fly.
It didn't go around.
So, I mean, you know, you can knock yourself out with this stuff.
Yeah.
You see all these boys with their expensive toys, and it's like, well, I love to fly.
I love anything that flies.
And it's like, all I can do is watch, because I don't have that kind of money.
They buy vans, so they can put their huge model planes in them.
Well, it would depend upon what you'd be using it for.
I wouldn't do that, no.
Well, here we have pickup trucks.
And lots of them, as a matter of fact.
I've got a glider with a 12 foot wingspan. There's no place you can put those wings. Well out here we have pickup
trucks. And lots of them as a matter of fact. You know I see a lot of uses for these things other than just playing
with, although we will use them.
The best stuff is done for shows.
The bombs are like plastic.
They're filled with flour.
good enough to use them for other things. Not as the previous caller insinuated for
dropping bombs or anything like that. No, no, that stuff is done for shows. The bombs
are like plastic. They're filled with flour. And they're done for model airplane air shows.
I think the only bomb that we would ever think of dropping might be a water bomb.
No, no, they use flour. They use stuff, you know, because it looks like smoke and everything.
And they use stuff that I saw a beautiful air force, a Corsair, that was set up like
that and was doing that. That's not it at all. But if, do you by any chance have a Microsoft
Flight Simulator?
We do somewhere, but it's an old version that ran with Windows 3.0, I think.
Well, if it's 5.0, because that's what I do, and I've got a feeling that I want to play with radio control.
You can have a view, like from the ground, and the thing it'll get you used to is your right and left coordination.
You know, Pooh used to operate that, and she was really good with the Learjet.
Oh, and the Learjet is tricky.
Well, she was really good with it.
She could fly it and take it off and all that kind of stuff.
The only thing that she never learned to do was land it.
And, you know, I didn't either.
Well, I downloaded some stuff.
I got a DC-9, so I had a lot of fun with using the Learjet.
I'd rather the real thing, but, you know, that takes money once again.
Imagine having to get myself a strap-on power pack and a paraglider and have a powered parachute.
Those are so cool.
If you want to check out possibly hostile territory, it's nice to have a drone.
Well, we want to do it without risking anybody.
And that's why we thought that these model airplanes would be good for that.
You know, we're not into getting anybody hurt unless we absolutely have to defend ourselves.
And then we're perfectly willing to get hurt and hurt anybody who wants to try to attack us.
Yeah, I think it would be a wonderful second, third, or fourth set of eyes in the air.
Oh sure, and if you want to protect a landing zone, or rather set up a landing zone trap, you can have things like barrage kites.
Or get shredded.
When I was a boy, I graduated from high school in Japan.
And the Japanese are the most amazing people with kites that you would ever dream of seeing in your life.
In fact, they do... I'd say that that's true over a long period of time, but the exotic materials, the strong space-age materials, I think Britain and the United States kind of lead the league there.
If you look at some of the custom stuff out of England and the stuff that's over here, like the, is it a wind catalog?
Oh, well, you might be right, but in Japan they have these teams and they build these huge giant kites.
And they are so big that it, like, takes 15 men to control it.
Oh, yeah.
And they have battles in the air with these kites.
And it's the most incredible thing you ever saw watching these.
Oh, okay!
The, the, the, the Kuros and the Pakipos.
Right, they have, that's the decimal, decimal ceremonial kite fight, and then there's Rokkaku fights in Japan, the big six-sided ones.
And they're incredible.
And there's a little one in India, the little fighter kites.
You're scary.
You know that?
You know so much about all of these stuff.
Please, I can do it.
You certainly are.
I think it's wonderful.
Oh, I do too.
I think it's wonderful.
I mean, freedom.
That's my idea of freedom, is flight.
Well, I'm hoping that Pooh will get really interested in it.
She is already.
She can't wait to get a plane and start building it.
I know.
I remember when I was doing that at that age.
And then when I turned 11, I got to fly a real plane for the first time, and I was permanently hooked.
Well, flying a real plane is not hard.
It's taking off and landing.
Oh, I love all parts of it.
And taking off is the easiest of the two.
Which one?
Taking off is easier than landing.
Actually, taking off is the most dangerous.
You're climbing out at a dangerous attitude, and you're depending on your engine.
See, when you're landing, you're set up for an approach.
If your engine fails, there's a good chance you're going to get down in one piece.
But if your power fails, you want to take off, even if you avoid a stall, you don't have enough altitude where you're going to come down.
But you're talking about a plane that you've got to climb up for some reason.
Why can't you just take off and go up slowly?
Well, you can do that too, but I mean, usually, Usually when you're trying to avoid man-made structures, power lines, things like that, those are all factors.
And also, by the way, a pilot has the hardest time flying radio control.
Really?
How do you fly real planes?
Really?
Uh-huh.
Now that's interesting.
Why is that?
Well, because it's hard to be part of the plane.
See, that's the one thing, when you've got a kite, you're attached to it.
Uh-huh.
You have a feeling for it.
When you're flying a real plane, you're attached to that, too.
Yeah.
Through all the control surfaces, but when you've got this little two-gimbal joystick in your hand, in a box, and you've got this little dot that's out humming around somewhere, and you want to make it do what you want, it almost has a mind of its own, and that's where it gets really tricky.
Wow.
As far as a chopper, as far as getting a radio-controlled chopper to fly though, I understand they have a device that you clamp this thing into, and what it is is a limiting device, It will not allow you to crash it.
It tethers it.
Until you learn how to fly it.
And when you get good at it, supposedly, you can take it off this device, fly it without the attachment, and you won't crash it.
Wow, that's interesting.
There's all kinds of gadgets out there.
I've been away from it for a while.
Well, I've been away from everything for a while, between jobs and everything.
Well, I was extremely interested when I opened up this model airplane news magazine and saw an electric helicopter.
Can you imagine a helicopter that makes absolutely no noise?
Um, just flying up right behind two people that are talking and listening to their whole conversation and they don't even know it's there.
You'll hear something.
You'll hear something because in the way of kites, you can have a gyro kite too.
I have one of those.
Uh huh.
And you spin up the blades and oh, you hear the blades.
They do make sounds.
There's no sounds in the engine, but you hear the pop pop pop of the air rushing past the blades.
Well, you know, I'm learning, so you're teaching me.
But I'm sure it would have a usefulness to where it could get in situations and close to things and people to look or hear things that would be useful.
And I don't know how far away you could hear those blades without an engine, but I know these model airplane engines are loud.
Some of them are unbelievably quiet.
I've heard stuff that's muffled down that, uh... The first thing I wondered was, is that an electric motor?
And here are the things, a gas engine.
Some of them will break your eardrums, and other ones are so quiet that the sound of the air rushing past the prop blades actually competes with the sound of the engine.
You've got to be kidding.
How can you have a combustion engine... With the right muffling system on there, they are so...
Awesomely, unbelievably quiet.
Well, that's amazing.
You wouldn't believe it.
No, I'm finding it hard to believe what you're telling me right now.
But I'm sure you're telling me the truth.
I mean, you've got a plane like a contender that's all thrust.
You can stand it on its tail.
And just like one of the bigger jets, you can hit the throttle and this thing will climb out of sight straight up.
Wow.
And, um, very quietly.
Well, you know, it's like a big motorcycle.
You can see it and not hurt.
Wow, that's incredible.
There's a money factor and there's getting comfortable with it and not crashing it.
Almost everybody crashes them every now and then.
Well, that is inevitable.
Not only that, just as the voice of, whatever the voice of, if it's a jam in your broadcast, if either that or a castor is a bubble machine, it's terrible to see somebody's plane get jammed because, you know, it just spirals right in.
Well, I remember when I was a boy the first time I crashed a plane that I had put, gosh I must have put 40 or 50 hours into building it.
Went out and flew it around the circle a couple of times and landed it and then flew it around again and crashed it.
and it was just a million pieces and I was hurt.
I saw a real big boy with a redundant radio system.
He had two radio systems to control this thing that looked like a Piper Pacer.
And this thing looked so big he could put a five year old kid in it and fly away.
He could crash that thing and that didn't look too pretty.
I mean the body was just going smoosh. The wings were just kindling.
And about five months later he was back with it and rebuilt it.
But all that time it was in pieces.
I mean like the Byron kits? These characters have gone so far.
They have a 400-pound, four-engine, radio-controlled B-29.
Uh, you know, I saw a photograph of a B-29 model airplane that is so big that it... That's probably the one.
This thing weighs 400 pounds!
Wow.
A monster!
Yeah.
I also saw something else that I thought was incredible.
It's about a 1920 something Dornier, a huge airplane that's got 12 electric engines on it.
That's one I've never seen.
It's in, you can see it in, let me see, what month is this?
It's December 1998 model airplane news.
Incredible.
You know, when you look at those magazines, you start getting, you start drooling too much.
I want this, I want that, and it does it every time.
That's why I kind of stay away from it.
You got this beautiful stuff in there, don't you?
Well, I love to look at that stuff, but I wouldn't want that plane.
I mean, I can imagine how many years it took to build it, and then get everything balanced so it would fly, and then get the right power to power 12 engines and 12 propellers.
And then learn how to fly it and all that kind of stuff.
No, we want something like the TeleMaster that I told you about.
You know what a paraglider is?
It's like a larger paraglider.
Instead of strapping it on, it attaches to a chassis and you can steer it along the ground.
Oh yeah, I've seen those.
They've got a radio-controlled version of those too.
Huh.
And they're a slow, easy flyer.
Yeah.
And you put like a 20-size engine on them.
A 20-size engine?
Oh yeah.
How big is that?
What do you mean by 20 size?
The size of the engine.
20, what is it?
20?
You're not talking about 20 horsepower, are you?
No, no, no.
The size of the engine.
Like 20s and 40s.
Those are decimal again on the size.
Yeah, those are .20s and .40s.
The what?
Those are .20s and .40s.
Right, okay.
.20s, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Okay, now I know what you mean.
.20s, yeah.
That's the small engine, yeah.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Now, I wasn't sure whether you were talking about the small engine or a huge engine.
No, no, no.
Yeah, probably could.
Every militia should have their air units.
Well, absolutely.
Of course.
The Army does have an Air Force.
But we don't have an Air Force here.
So we want to create our own little Air Force that can do some things that might come in handy.
Yeah, and we learned from what happened to other people.
We may not be able to communicate.
If we had something like this, we could communicate.
We could send out messages and videotapes and anything else we wanted to send out.
That's where a plane that drops something is ideal, because you can drop messages, too.
Sure, yeah.
We were looking into homing pigeons until we found out how much they cost.
They're more expensive than radio-controlled airplanes, believe me.
I know.
You get a radio-controlled pterodactyl or a pteranodon.
I've seen those.
They look real when they fly.
Boy, that might be interesting.
I mean, it looks like a real prehistoric bird.
This thing is radio-controlled.
You control it with a transmitter.
That would be really interesting.
And it's got a system that slowly moves the wings, so the thing has to glide.
I mean, it's got a lot of power.
Yeah.
Wow.
That could have psychological potential.
It sure could!
I got an email from a friend today on the computer, and I need to share it with the audience.
And what he said was, just before John Glenn lands, everybody put on monkey suits.
I love it!
I think it's great.
He's not going to bring back any Martian rocks?
Oh, that's right!
He said he encountered any Klingons up there.
That's what they're saying on the Tonight Show and everything.
Oh, well.
Yeah, he must have found the Klingons.
Gene Roddenberry's still floating up there, too, I'm sure.
Well, I hope he doesn't get in the path of this thing that Hoagland and Bell are saying, you know, the aliens are coming.
Hold on just a second.
You're listening to WBCQ Monticello, Maine, USA.
Okay.
Got that out of the way.
Well, let's call this a good call and see if there's anybody else out there that wants to get in here and chat about this.
Okay.
Thanks a lot for all your help.
You really have been helpful.
Thank you very much.
Gosh, I'm amazed at how much she knew.
Just incredible.
Incredible amount of information.
That's just great.
I mean, she's really into that stuff.
Kites and gliders and radio controlled airplanes and parasails and everything.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hi Bill, how are you?
Good.
I've flown radio-controlled airplanes since I was a little boy.
I need you to talk a lot louder if you can.
Okay, my name's Jeff and I'm from Michigan.
Hi Jeff.
How are you tonight?
Good.
And I flew, actually flew in the radio-controlled jet circuit all around the country.
I'm one of those guys the ladies before there talked about where I had a 14-foot trailer I pulled behind my pickup truck with Seven or eight jets that I had in there.
Wow.
Now, when you're talking about jets, what are you really talking about?
Are you talking about a plane with a fan in it, or what?
Yeah, well, they started out with inductive fan jets.
By the way, the best engines for those are the inductive fan jet engines, or the OS Max 91.
Wow.
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