Part of being and crusty
old man is always comparing today with “the good old days.” If you’ve followed
CO2 Model Flying for more than a short time, you’ll have noticed that this is
my true medium. I can’t think of one hobby shop within a hundred miles, and I
live between two major cities in that same radius. I remember reading in the 1970’s the old timers
decry that something called “mail order” was killing the independent hobby shop
businesses. I believe that sort of thinking was just farting in the wind, for
if you look through some of the old model airplane magazines of the ‘30s
through the ‘50s they were replete with mail-order advertisements. The reality
is that those magazines were available not in spite of advertising, but because
of the advertising. My first CO2 motor, a Shark, was bought in 1977 from the
big Polk’s Hobby ad that used to be in FLYING MODELS. My second was a Telco
from the Sig catalog soon after.
A couple of months
back I finally after decades gained that which what I coveted in youth. The
Comet Ercoupe kit. I have fondled this kit in multiple hobby shops as a youth, rattling
the box to hear the contents as they were sealed in cellophane and I couldn’t
see what was in the box. Maybe many, many sessions with a Freudian psychologist
would uncover a deep seated socio~sexual fixation with multiple vertical stabilizers.
The Skyfarer, yeah, baby, yeah. B-24 Liberator, oh you tease. I blacked out
when I saw my first Super-Connie.
I always passed it over that kit, favoring a
Guillows Sopwith or Tern Aero kit. Sterling had a line of scale kits that had a
gimmick when flying ~ the Nieuport shot rockets and a Piper Cub “crop-dusted”
with talcum powder. I just think of all the kit lines available on the shelves
at Mini-City, the hobby shop of my youth in Escondido, California ~ kit makers
like Sterling, Comet, Peck-Polymers, Jetco, Carl Goldberg, Tern Aero, Hi-Flier,
Sig, and of course Guillows. And these are just the kits that appealed to me;
Control-line and Radio Control and gliders held no fascination to me. I think
Peck and Guillows are the only two left that currently supply kits.
I finally came
across an Ercoupe kit on the EBay that was complete, affordable and didn’t
gouge on shipping. So here’s what I got: plans, printwood, sticks, plastic prop
and wooden wheels. These were the good old days.
My first thing was
to roll up the plans and next time I went to Lodi, stop by Staples and have
them scanned to a flash drive, and print out a full-size copy to build upon. Why
scan? Well first and foremost, with these new machines called “personal
computers” you can take that PDF file and increase the vertical stabilizer
115%, 120%, whatever you desire. Do you remember doing that manually on graph
paper? And then just print out that part of the plan with the enlarged stab.
How many scale models wallowed under the rubber torque with a tiny vertical or
horizontal stab? Think Eindecker. Think
Spirit of St. Louis. As well, If I wanted to make that 2 foot span Ercoupe into
a Peanut scale, enter 46% in the print box and *poof* an 12.96 inch span
Ercoupe.But cutting printwood? I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis (yet) but I do have the kind of arthritis that clenches my fingers into a rigid claw: the same strain of arth-a-ritis Fred Sanford had whenever there was work to be done.
A couple of years ago I bought a couple of
what are known as short-run kits of old obsolete kits long out of manufacture. When
it comes to free-flight scale kits they are relatively inexpensive; most are in
the 15 -30 range depending on how “long” the kit is for example, stringer
stock, molded canopy, decals and the like. But the real clincher is the LASER
CUT WOOD. And there are not one or two
people that make and sell these kits, but a lot. Just a simple, cursory Google
search turned up around ten; two or three had the very same Comet Ercoupe for
around twenty clams. Many of these guys will do custom kits of a kit you can
find nowhere else. These are the same as the “Mom & Pop” hobby stores we wax
nostalgic for. Service and selection. These are the guys keeping the hobby
alive.
And it goes without
saying EBay also keeps this hobby alive. Kits and CO2 motors that haven’t seen
a store shelf in this century and now are coming back into the light. We
grumble because they are no longer $2.98 but thirty bucks. But we know that’s
what the market will bear. For such items it’s the only game in town.
But consider this: a
Telco motor from Sig in 1980 cost me $19.95, now you can get an original easily
on EBay for a C-note, give or take. Considering 40 years of an average real inflation
rate of 3.8% annualized, that 20 bucks in 1980 is pretty damn close to a
hundred today. And, mind you, for something that is no longer manufactured. And someone else stored it for you for forty
years.
Again with the
computers, another bit of the future that is now is the 3-D printer. Small
parts can be accurately made on a printer, and are. And a basic 3-D printer,
software included, can usually be had for around a hundred and a half. All
those plastic parts, ball seats, pistons, charger seats for our Modelas and
Telcos ~ maybe, just maybe could be needed by someone with the requisite skills
with a 3-D printer and imagine how many CO2 motors can be resurrected into the
twenty-first century.
So in closing, fear
not. Yes, the hobby is changing. It will never compete with video games to lure
in the youngin’s, it’s an old man’s game. Their generation has no Charles Lindbergh,
Eddie Rickenbacker or Wiley Post. The last aerial heroes I had in my youth were
that guy who pedaled that man-powered airplane across the English Channel or
Matthias Rust. That’s OK. My kids deified a guy named Tony Hawk and now I hear
there is a professional video-game player pulling more than a mil a year, and
he’s around 20 years old. Start arguing with them about this and then be
prepared to defend Junior Samples or Tiny Tim.
So why anticipation?
After acknowledging all these modern day boons to model airplaning, it reminded
me of a line in that popular song in 1971 that a woman sung about ketchup . . .
“and stay right here, ‘cause
these are the good old days”
Ok, I’m tired. I’m
taking a nap then heading downtown to shake my Hurri-cane™ at some
whippersnappers. Join me, won’t you?
