History of My RC Gliders

The year is 1974 and I am fourteen years old. Originally, my interest was in control line models and this evolved into gliders after seeing the movie Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which was a R/C model. The model flyer was Mark Smith, so I went and bought one of his Windfree kits, all balsa and spruce. I still believe that the F3B Eagle is just a modified Windfree. After saving from the paper route for 8 months, a 4 channel radio was installed, leaping to the forefront of technology. The Orbit radio had a receiver the size of a shoebox and servos that centered within about 10 degrees. Having spent all the cash, and needing a launching device, 2 pounds of elastic bands from the paper route were knotted together to make a hi-start. It actually worked. The Windfree hit a fence after about 10 flights, ending up on University Drive and was unceremoniously tossed into the trash.

By that time, an ABS fuselage ASW-15 model was nearing completion. It was late fall with snow, but I was way too eager to wait 5 months to try it out. The thermal expansion of the plastic was different than the balsa pushrods so adjustments had to be made at -5 degrees on the porch. The elastic hi-start would never work at that temperature so the model was thrown off the hill. Surprisingly, it flew quite well, ending up in a poplar tree a few minutes later. Ultimately the fuselage lasted through many wing write-offs before being turned into a baseball bat for my younger sister.

Back to the Windfree, this time building two from the plans. I think the taper wing has 25 ribs per side, all different. The first one clipped a tree and broke the wing about 12" from the tip. The expedient thing to do was to cut the other wing off at the same place and call it a slope soarer. It actually worked. This model was used for the 15 minute flight for LSF level 1. Windfree #3 didn’t fly for several years and was lost at Westbluff hill. At Westbluff there is a powerline to limbo and if you’re really daring or dumb, a barb wire fence. It was a great place to trim out a plane or practice snap rolls. Steve Yurchevich was flying behind me in a mock dogfight, when I attempted a downslope evasive dive. Likely the pushrods could not take the stress at speed, buckled and the plane never pulled out. Parts were scattered for furlongs.

About this time high tech designs were appearing and the Aquila was one of the first. Three Aquila’s were built. The first one was really great, red and white. Having acquired a bedroom door for a building board, the wing was actually straight. I flew it for several months on the open university grounds, where the Olympic Oval is now situated. The only interruption was the grass cutting tractor shredding my new hi-start. This Aquila was sold to a friend. Aquila #2 was a blue one with a Fiberglas fuselage. It also flew for the rest of the summer and crashed next year when insufficiently ballasted to penetrate a chinook off of Home Road. Aquila three was built for Rob Yurchevich to fly at the nationals in 1978.

Plans were being made for the 1979 F3B team selection and I had read about one of the US team members using a Legionair model. Since they were relatively cheap, I got one along with a Magnum 12. A Magnum 12 model was flown to the first LSF level 5. Quite an amazing plane with a fat Clark Y airfoil and a phenomenal aspect ratio of about 20 on a 12 foot span. The model was flying at the Shouldice soccer fields and I caught a thermal that looked like it would hit the CFCN tower. This model was also sold.

The Legionair became my plane for the next year. The first one was built completely stock had several interesting crashes. The tail attachment looked suspiciously weak and proved to be when the fin and rudder tore off in a turbulent thermal over the university. The plane was still quite stable and I pondered the consequences while the fin fluttered down. By choosing when to exit spins by applying down elevator, the plane remained near the field, and then clipped a football light standard before auguring in with minimal damage. The plane was finally destroyed in the first contest I ever entered. At the Roper Hull home, while leading in the third round, it was way out over Anderson road. John Hipwell was timing and he might remember this. I lost track of time and realized that I had less than a minute to get back to the spot. Flat dive it back downwind and it disappeared while looking at the model head on. I panicked and pulled up elevator only to see the wing fold and hear a mighty crack. The fuselage was planted like a carrot up to the wing rod and the radio still worked!. The plane was great so I got three more. All subsequent models got heavier, stiffer and more complex. The last one was fully sheeted and fibreglassed with flaperons and coupled aileron and rudder.

Here I am with my 12' span Legionair, Rob Y. with his Maestro MkIII


Look at these fast planes in 1978! Several Aquilas, Legionairs and Maestros.

Next year the Yurchevich boys and I headed out to Vernon for the F3B western qualifying. Boy I had long hair back then and I bet Rob still wears the same hat. A great time was had with the folks from BC and looking at all the planes in use. A good time in the 2 lap speed run was around 15 seconds back then. Both Rob and I made the cut, and headed to Winnipeg where neither made the Canadian team. At the nationals however, Rob finished 4th and I aced him out for 3rd. I don’t remember much about the contest except the abnormal amount of litter in the slow combat circle. The legionnaires lasted though all this abuse, ballasted speed runs and dork landings. One crashed in the F3B finals and still flew the next round with 2 rolls of strapping tape holding it together. Life was pretty low tech at that time, a homebuilt wood model was still competitive and the only programs available on your radio was through your thumbs. The next picture shows the group at the F3B finals in Winnipeg with some awfully slow planes.

Dodgson Designs had just come out with the Maestro Megan, so I built one but stretched out to 13 feet . When ballasted to 9 pounds, Steve’s winch would barely pull it without a headwind. This was the nicest flying plane I’ve tried, it could fly dead slow or just zip. This was sold to some guy in Edmonton. The last plane I built was a Viking. All wood and it never got completed before it was time to finish Engineering and get a job. My parents were ecstatic that the disaster area in my room would be cleaned up, and the strange glue smells would cease.

When I started R/C, there was no organized soaring in Calgary, the only clubs around were power. Not having any form of transport and no support from the parental units, everything was learned from books, magazines or trial and error. With no preconceived notions of what things are to look like, some weird stuff happened along the way. Setting up the controls on the first two stick transmitter, I put the turning control on the left and the pitch control on the right stick. I flew this way for 20 years (even aileron slopers), until the first computer radio was obtained. A lot of head scratching and the realization dawned that all of the mixing for the ailerons had to be through the right stick channel. Learning to fly ailerons on the right stick took about two weeks of practice, by programming a rudder/elevator model to respond to either the left or the right stick. Now I switch "modes" easily with the added benefit of independent yaw and roll controls programmed into the brain. Cross control during thermalling or landing, and using the rudder on launch is easy.

Another situation was building a winch and learning to launch on it without having ever seen one. A 12 volt battery was lying around so I used it. The winch drum had a small diameter and was left small. A starter motor came from a old merccruiser, and away we go! When I finally saw another winch (6V) used at the 76 Nationals, the climbs were tame compared to the thrashing my models took. Full pedal launches and zooms would come later but the Legionaire wing flex was huge.

Fast forward twelve years and the Viking is finally completed. The movers crushed the uncovered wing and it is the first model that makes some money (by the damage claim). I use the money to buy a modern radio. I’m living near LA and see several of the ex-US F3B team members are still active in the local glider club. What a difference, graphite and kevlar, vacuum bagging and metal molds, program functions and FM. The thermals in the desert are unbelievable. The Viking was hand thrown into a few that end up over 1000 feet high in two minutes. Mike Regan wouldn’t use the winch, he would just wait until someone else was in lift nearby and throw his Falcon 880 into the center and climb out. Mike would then return to earth in an inverted speed run less than 10 feet off the deck. One guy launched with his radio off and caught a thermal. Later that day he got a call to retrieve his plane from a swimming pool about 2 miles away. There was also a small flying site on a hill overlooking the city. The onshore breeze was very consistent. It was possible to fly indefinitely by hanging out in the slope lift at eye level until a thermal came by and took you up to the cloud base. I also built a Coyote slope glider but it has no interesting stories other than a mid-air that destroyed a Gentle Lady without a scratch on the Coyote. Kind of like a Caddy hitting a Yugo. It sits in the basement for now.

And it is the Viking from 1979 that I am still flying.

I guess that after all of this you would have to believe that I have a huge frustration threshold, but that’s not the case. I enjoyed flying so much that it really has been worth it. Realistically though I don’t advocate going overboard, a simple model is really all it takes to have fun. And it obviously bothers the hi-tech boys when you can keep up with a 20 year old design.

Copyright W. Man-Son-Hing – Oct 1998.

Return to SOARING