Art & Inspiration U-Control Flying

U-Control Flying

Real honest to God hands on stuff.
None of this electronic gimcrackery, it was you, the airplane, a pair of wires, a U-Reely and some serious HP running straight alcohol, a little lube and sometimes a bit too much nitro.
I mean, what the heck, we were hot rodders and the thinking was, it was about the horsepower and speed and looks were secondary.

‘Course, the looks had to be enough to attract the young ladies.
And it worked even better if you impressed them before they saw your car.

Geez, showing up at their house in a noisy car running a lumpy sounding engine brought knowing smiles to the faces of some fathers.
The ones who didn’t know what the rumpity rump sounds truly meant and just figured you were a dumb *** who didn’t know a carburetor from a water pail and figured a good tune-up was on the list of skills you’d never understand.

We listened politely and bit our tongues about inviting dear ol dad along for a ride and finding out if he could spell tune-up or even talk when banging 2<SUP>nd</SUP> around 6200 rpm.

The other fathers . . . sometimes they’d smile and you could tell they knew something and at times I got the feeling they knew just what the hell was going on, but they didn’t say much either cuz they didn’t want to have their thin veneer of responsible citizen, father of the girl and all that come out into the open.

Anyhoo, got to digging around in the junk closet a while back and found some interesting stuff.
A Torpedo 35 with gr*** and dirt still on it from it’s last crash and a pair of like-new McCoy 29 Redheads that've never been run.

The McCoys were bought those to power a twin Mustang (F-82) we’d been thinking about doing.

A pal had built one from a P-51D kit, used the kit fuselage sides as a template for the 2nd fuselage, added a wing center section etc. and ran a couple of 19's.
It had about a 4' wingspan which was big for a control-line plane.
Hauled *** too, but like any hot rodder, I figured the 29's, one of which was more than enough for the single fuselage kit - and we used 35's there - would do some serious *** kicking.
Got married, moved and the project got shelved.

Thinking back on it there were some interesting times to remember.


Here's one I did and it turned into one of those fondly remembered stories that get dragged out when getting together with the old gang, barbecuing and resurrecting old lies and true stories.
Aided to a small extent by amber colored cold beverages.


I'd built a Veco Warrior kit, an about 36" wingspan U-control low-wing stunt plane with full fuselage, full flaps, symmetrical airfoil wing etc.
The Warrior was designed for a 15 to 19, but with me bein' a hot rodder to the core I stuck a McCoy 35 in it.
Painted the plane white and emblazoned with WW2 German markings we called it the German Ambulance plane for some reason.

Probably cuz the damned engine would pop back and rap your fingers a good one . . . and after a few of those we were searching for the bandaids.
Nothing quite like a fuel soaked bandaid that wouldn't hardly stay on and the burning sensation in the fresh cut from the fuel.
What the heck, it only hurt for a little while and at least you wouldn't be leaking blood all over the brand new U-Reely.

I got pretty good at flying it and was zipping around, just off the schoolyard gr*** when the inner wing hit the 1 and a 1/2 V battery my pal had left sitting upright.
Bad crash I thought, balsa everywhere, but when I looked it over only the inner wing was smashed.
Since the first U-control I'd ever built - also a Veco Warrior - was in the garage, in a box in pieces cuz I'd crashed it learning to fly upside down and stripped of most of the usable stuff I had a good inner wing.
That got spliced onto the busted wing of the new plane.

Did the scarf (angled) cut, reinforcement etc., glued er together nice and straight, got it recovered, painted and we took it out to fly a couple weeks later.

It did ok until I did a hard wingover which put the G's on the airframe and the inner wing collapsed.
It was really strange, the fuselage was still pointed up and the plane climbed vertical to the end of the 70' control lines where it stopped and hung in the air like a helicopter.
I figured it would roll over and crash, but it just hung there.

I did a little flip with the U-Reely control handle, kinda like you would with a rope or hose when you try to get a loop out.

The plane did a lazy rollover and ended up pointed straight up once again.
I did the handle flip bit again, the plane rolled, the prop - spinning along at 13,000-14,000 rpm or so - caught the thin braided steel control line and there was an airborne balsa explosion the likes of which we'd never seen before.

The prop, along with yanking the snot out of the control line got into the plane like a mixmaster running on the top end in dry flour, chewed up and spit out balsa like nobody’s business.

Aside from the wingtips - and there wasn't much of them left - the biggest piece that floated down was the vertical stab.

The amazing part was, the running engine complete with gas tank freed itself from the airborne wreckage and took off to the north.
It flew horizontally for a short bit, doing ok in maintaining al***ude then it looked like torque or gyroscopic precession tipped er over a bit and the thing looked like a Wasp on speed.
It went every which way, but not too far, it was still hewing to its original course and finally it nosed over and buried itself into the JCs center field about where the fence would be if it had one then.

The prop - as you'd expect - was a broken stub still bolted to the engine hub, the engine had one of the wooden engine mounts still attached, the other was gone, a small piece of white painted balsa was still glued to the engine mount and the amazing thing was, the fuel tank was still hanging onto to the engine, but only by the plastic feed hose and the hose was held on only by friction although in this case it probably acted like a Chinese finger trap.

Good thing the fuel tank was still attached to the engine, aside from the broken prop blades in the vicinity we may not have found the engine which was buried below ground level in the soft ground that was covered with gr***.

The little fuel tank was sitting sedately on the gr*** when we got to the engine crash site.
We found later that the fuel tank was ok and it was used to carry fuel for other planes.
The engine came through it all with no problems other than requiring dis***embly and cleaning out all the dirt.
We looked er over and did the proper scientific tests to make sure the hub wasn't bent.
That little bit entailed a bit of looking, somebody said, "looks ok to me", we bolted on a prop, fired it up in a test stand and revved er to the max.

All's well that ends well.

Except that cleaning up all those little pieces of balsa was a *****....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

U-Reely = the control handle with cranking mechanism where the flying wires were stored.
None of this wooden handled stuff for us, we were serious airmen.


F-82 = As the name indicates, the Twin Mustang.

The P-51 Mustang was one of the best fighters during WW2, single Rolls Royce engine and if you've never heard one, think FED rolling down the fire-up road at idle.

Anyway, the USAF decided they needed a long range interceptor so they stuck two P-51 fuselages on a common wing.
The wing was a P-51 with an added center section so as to separate the fuselages enough for the props to clear and the horizontal stabilizer/elevator was very much like a P-38.

The P-82 had its successes and I understand that it was the first airplane to shoot down an enemy aircraft during the Korean War.

 

Cool stuff C9, Veco Warrior was one of the first U-control planes I built. I think that was about 1954. It ran a Olsen 23 as I recall, it didn't last very long, before the dirt& gr*** thing happened. Since I've retired , I've gotten back to building and flying, mostly free flight rubber and R/C electrics.

Thanks for the memories,
..........Jack

 

Top flite 42" Hurricane and P-40 with fox 35 bb's for me. Used to fly em in the parking lot of Razorback stadium when I was in college. Good Fun!

 

I always wanted one of those airplanes! I had a couple neat cars though, a wired controlled indy racer, about the size of a shoebox, and a smaller VW on wires too. This brings back good memories, thanks

 

The most amazing U control handle I had was a 3 wire setup. There was a trigger on the handle which operated the 3rd wire. The third wire was hooked up to a carb on the airplane motor so you could control the motor speed. Let go of the trigger you go to idle, pull the trigger and you go full throttle.

So what was the big deal? Image if you just added a 3rd line to a standard u control handle. Well, if you pull on the 3rd line, then the other 2 lines would go slack and you would loose flight control of the plane.

Inside the handle was the most complicated, rube goldberg looking set of levers, bellcranks, and linkages imaginable. Along with just as complicated a bell crank in the airplane, the device would maintain even tightness in all the 3 lines in any throttle position. Whoever invented that thing was a genius.

 

That had to do with AMA (American Modeling ***.) carrier landing competion.

Basically a hot rodded Navy type prop plane.

Take off from a 'carrier deck' make several laps at full speed.

Then, drop the flaps, back off the throttle and fly as slow as you can.

These speed figures figured into a simple formula that took into account which wire you picked up on the 'carrier' and the landing etc.

There's a lot of genius in the simple mechanical controls found on many devices.

 

Have half a room full of Control Line stuff next room over. Got it out last year was gonna get planes cleaned up and whatnot, ran outta time and gumption.

 

remember the Scientific kits with the balsa carved fuselage, they were the ****. I always ran Cox .049s, Golden Bee, Black Widows etc,etc. Man that stuff was a blast!!

 

Better start soaking those motors now, maybe they will free up by next summer.

I stopped flying R/C 20 years ago and stored my good planes in the attic.
I started flying again 2 years ago. I was only able to free up half of my motors.

Was I in for a shock. People don't build kits anymore. Entire planes come from asia, ***embled and covered for $100. When I come out to the field with my old ***embled kits, they are "vintage", just like our cars.

 

I know what you mean about the "kit" built planes, I get the same thing from the guys I fly with. But for the past 10 years Ive been building "almost ready to fly" or "ARF" kits and prefer them to the full kit models I grew up building as my time for building is getting harder to come by..

 

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with those ARFs. I would buy them too. I've just been lucky, I still have an ****nal of old planes still in one piece.

 

Man, does this bring back memories. Before I got my license I spent a lot of time with HO gauge trains and u-control flying. I used to take the bus to downtown Lincoln, Nebraska and spend my latest lawn mowing/paper route money on plane kits and rail car kits.
As a side note, before returning home I usually walked the two blocks to Bill Smith's Spedway Motors (a small shop about the size of a typical gas station) to see what used speed equipment Bill had on display in the front window. Bill hisself once threw me out of his store for not wanting to purchase anything, just look over the latest used speed equipment he had on display. That's a story for another time.

Frank

 

I wrote a nice long reply to this thread and when I tried to post it the STUPID system told me I had to refresh the page and login in before I could do anything. Did that and lost the reply so F it!

Life's too short to waste anymore time...

Anyway, C-9's thread brings back lots of old memories

 

Well I thought I was the only one arond that used to be a UKEY !
My first plane was $10 and put a Black Widow on it . Screamed like Hell !
The built a Ringmaster and a Sig Twister . Also used to fly the combat Vodoo planes . We would come with 10-15 planes and go home with 1 or 2 if we were lucky . That combat flying was crazy . You had to be about one brick shy to do that stuff . Was a ball though ! This was back in the early 1970'S . The Fox .35 was the choice for me most of the time . The Max .35 was a good choice too but I could by 2 Foxes for the price of one Max . Veco Red Head were awful , Johnsons were fast and SuperTigers .46 were the best on bigger planes . I also had Goldberg "Ruffy" , full body with inverted engine . Didn't fly worth a damn ! Did a few twin engines with Enya .19 . The trick was to get the outboard to run out of gas before the inboard or it would crash ! Could't controll the plane . I do still have a part built " Stillito" which was a scale compition plane in 1974 . They had the big compition in Washington , DC every year . That is where all the big top guns would fly . Really miss flying those planes . They were a total blast to fly but I enjoyed building them more than anything . I still see the kits around but I think you have to order them from Tower Hobbies . I was a AMA member for many years but stopped about 28 years ago . My number was AMA-35098 ! Used to fly in Westerminister , Maryland . We were called the "Westminister Aero Modlers " . Those were the days ! Now everything is radio controll and all put together . No fun in that , but saves time . Really doesn't show your building skills like the kits or the scratch build we used to do . I did the figure 8's and over head 8's , squares , inverts and everything else that was in the pattern that you had to fly in compition . Glad to here from some U-controll flyer ! Been a real pleasure reading all your stories of those great days of flying ! Thanks , JIM

 

those damn things were too hard to fly...i crashed and busted up everyone of them i had


then i switched to real ones and in 38 years of flying having crashed one yet , knock on wood

 

My dad started in u control in the early 50's. The plane he learned to fly on hangs in my office now. He flew stunt in the 50's and 60's, designing some of his own planes. Then flew RC from the mid 60's til now and is now going full circle (pun intended) back to a Nobler that is on the bench now.

 

I had a long story to tell but some how it disappeared, WTF. Anyway, here's my fleet now. I've been playing with some sort of RC since I was 7,started with a Cox U-Control PT-19 (well dad and grandpa did, busted it to hell before I ever got to fly it). I shamed them into buying me another, but this time it was a Cox U-Control F-15, it was the biggest POS as it was underpowered and would barely fly. Had a Kyosho motorcyle when the first came out. Had a Big Bear that I modded by cuttin the ch***ie in half and lengthening it to match a Grave Digger body when I was 16. Few years later I got my first RC plane, traded the Grave Digger for it. It was junk. Got another RC plane and crashed it. Fixed it up so I could cut my arm up pretty good with the prop because I was reaching over a prop while adjusting the needle valve, DOH! (That was many years ago). I also had a 7' wingspan B-29. It was a vintage model that was in dire need of repair. I had a guy that worked at the Granite City Army Depot rebuilding it for me. I lost my job due to cutbacks and I never seen it again. Wonder if he still has it, I'd love it back and convert it to electric. I won't touch a glow motor, electrics are the way to go for me.

 

This sure does bring back memories. We used to fly in the schoolyard on weekends, better not try that today. My favorite was a Baby Ringmaster with a Cox .049. I recently found one on eBay and I'm thinking about doing it again. I remember when I was a kid, my old man built a beautiful P-51 planked body & wings painted silver, it was really sweet. The engine was mounted inverted so you could barely see it. Anyway, after flying it for about a year or swoo, the cowl became saturated with fuel but we didn't notice it. About half way through the flight, the cowl burst into flames, balck smoke and allo. My old man was about to have a cow, yelling "Bring it down". My response: "But Dad it looks cool like that, like it was just shot down." He was pissed at me for about a week, I can still remember that.

 

Hotrod40coupe,
Yea, sure, bring it down. The only way to bring them down was to crash. Without throttle control you just hoped your equilibrium would outlast the fuel tank.

Ah, the "Ringmaster", the "Nobler", and the "Fox35", all Great cl***ics!

The Northern California organization compe***ion was WAM. Western ***ociated Modelers. I remember going to contests and there must have been 3 or 4 circles constantly busy.

Anyone remember those Jets that they would light off, I don't know even know why they had a wing, they could just fly on centrifical force. They would start them up and the pilot would stick his handle in a post in the ground, just for safety. Then he would run around the pole to keep up with the jet. ******** stuff, they used one line instead of two for less drag. Some sort of twisting motion of the single wire for control.

Racing was big too, I recall, about 4 or 5 pilots flying in the same circle.

 

A name( baby ringmaster ) I haven't heard in ages. It was my first plane. I learned to fly U-Control on one.
In 57, my Dad had to go to Amarillo Texas for school ( military ). The 2 things I have left are my profile P-51 Mustang which hangs in my garage now...and his hat from " Burlington and Sad Monkey rail road "
In my " Do Not Throw Away " bin, I have my original U-Control lines as well as an O&S 09 engine......loved that stuff. I may have too look for a pic of my planes.

 

Perhaps this stuff sounds off-topic to the new guys and I suppose to an extent it is.

Even so, we learned some important lessons about building, seeing the job to the end as well as some stuff about aerodynamics.

All of which is handy stuff to know and have in your background when you graduate to hot rods.

If you go into full-size airplanes, both the aerodynamics and a hot rod background will give you a leg up on many.
Especially so knowing about ignition timing, fuel mixtures and how carbs work so you can understand carb icing problems.
Dual magnetoes on aircraft aren't for safety, but it was a nice byproduct of the installation.

Pulleys, levers and ratios of same help as well.

Getting back to the models, building them will give you an education about structures, strength of materials used and you'll be able to make some good decisions about light weight vs strength when you build a ch***is.

Sometimes you get a little inventive where the models are concerned.
Anyone who flew U-Control learned early on about gyroscopic precession.
The end result of which made the control lines tighten up when performing an inside loop.
Do an outside loop and the lines could lose so much tension that the inside wing would dip and the plane turn into the center of the circle unless you were quick to back up which kept the control lines somewhat taut.

I got my first U-Control plane when I was ten and when I tried to fly it, the line tension went way down, the plane turned, I dropped the handle and ran for it.

My last U-Control, a Smoothie, a well known full-on stunt plane which I changed a bit so it could carry the British Spitfire camo paint job and the roundels.
Gotta do something to stand out against all the schoolyard P-51's the gang was building.

Remembering the gyroscopic precession bit - which was usually covered by a bit of built in right rudder - I hinged the rudder and made it operate from the bell crank so that I had more right rudder on an outside loop to cover the gyro precession bit and less right rudder, almost neutral, on the inside loop.

Worked fine and the plane still exists last I heard.

They're - a Veco Thunderbird, about the biggest stunt kit plane of the time, the Smoothie and some other full fuselage stunt plane - are hanging in little brothers big storage shed.

Along with a Jaguar XK-120 automobile battery box that the flying paraphernalia was carried in.

Nobody said you couldn't use car parts for airplanes....

 

Well it was model airplanes before building and driving cars. This is a pic of my Proto-speed that I flew in the 1956 Nationals in Dallas Texas. It had a Dooling 29 in it flying on mono-line.
Note the price of diesel and kerosene at my Dad's service station.
Peace,
Chaz

 

Off-topic? Like everything else it depends on who presents it here and how it's done.

We couldn't afford such luxuries in my youth.
However, a "rich American kid" came to visit each summer and brought some toys.
He had some u-controls and some straight-line (run on a string with a vee at the end for brakes) .049 cars.
Wild stuff.
Eventually we did get some engines (I even had a few .010 baby bees. SCREAMERS!) and built some air cars and air boats.
Fun stuff.
One guy found an old larger (.1 or something) engine that had a squished cylinder, which he rounded out quite well. He made his own fuel and we had a ball. Almost chopped our fingers off more than once. That ****er had power.

Off-topic? Heck ya. And so is a VW but at 14 I learned how an engine was built (dug up parts from 10 engine to make one), how to weld (dad showed me once and said,"Now you know how... practice) and how to drive with those things so I don't care how off-topic they are.

Thanks for the memories and stories.

 

I loved to ride my bike down to the park on Saturdays and watch the compe***ion. They had a scale aircraft carrier deck complete with catch wires. My biggest memory was watching the dog fights. They tied a crepe paper steamer to the tail of the 2 compe***or's planes and they would try to cut the streamer of the opponent with their prop. It was really cool to watch the compe***ors dance with each other to keep the wires from getting tangled. The guy in front would ofter do a loop cutting the trailing planes streamer on the way around.

My best memory is that unlike hot rodding a bigger engine is not always better. My uncle built a P-51 Mustang entry level plane designed for an .049 engine but the closet hot rodder in him just made him equip it with a much larger engine so that it would go faster. Oh it went faster! It went so fast in that small circle that he spun around like a top trying to keep up with it. It only took a few revolutions at that pace for him to get dizzy and fall over with the beautiful P-51 doing an out of scale speed nose dive into the macadam. It exploded into balsa wood shards.

 

Been flying them for a long time. Me and Fraz got about 9 in the puter room right now. Got two Sig Banshees and a Twister and a couple of ringmasters.

Try www.stunthanger.com Like the HAMB for Control Liner's. Also Brotherhood of the Ring for Ringmaster fans. There's a lot at stunthanger forums on bout any kind of flying you'd like to do. As long as its on lines.

Even the Musciano hollow logs from Scientific model company. Blackhawk models is reproducing them. Brodak's is a place to get quite a few things especially kits and supplies. Engines also.

Tons of info if you wanna get back into it. Oughta bring them to the HAMB Drags and put on a demo out on the spectator side. Should be plenty of room. Dunno. Just a random thought.

Send along a PM and we'll talk circle burnin

Remember C/L Fliers do it in a circle.

VonDad

 

I never had a get-dizzy prob, probably due to being a free-style skater, but one of my pals did.

He liked to build and did a nice job, but the first flights worried him so much that I did almost all of them for him.
Never crashed one of his, but I did crash another guys.

Many times when flying we'd have spectators come over and check the planes.
One divorced dad who had his son for the weekend commented that he thought he'd like one.
Surprising too, how many people thought you could just buy one and go flying.
When they found out you had to build a kit, their interest fell by the wayside.
Probably the same guys who call your car a "Kit Car" as a form of insult insinuating you're not much of a builder and they could do it without a kit.

Anyway, a couple of weeks go by and divorced dad shows up with a nicely built trainer running a 19.
He asked me to do the first flight and after looking over the well done plane I agreed.

Since gentle wingovers and wide loops are about all you can accomplish with trainers - unless you get reckless - I flew it level and did a couple of gentle wingovers.

About half way through the tank of fuel I felt a little click on the control handle, the plane jerked and I found that I had no control.
The plane kept getting lower and lower until divorced dad said, "not so low."

I told him I couldn't control the plane and was hoping the fuel ran out before the plane smacked in.

It got lower and lower until the prop hit the gr***, the plane nosed over and came unglued a bit.
After we looked it over things didn't look too bad and the plane could be repaired.

The crash was caused by divorced dad's not reading the plans well.
He'd used a piece of balsa wood for the bell crank base.
The usual setup there was a piece of 1/8" plywood that ran through the inside reinforced with plywood ribs and to the next ribs over.
It had to be strong there since the weight of the plane plus centrifugal force was supported by the bell crank and the mount needed to be sturdy.

Just went to show that even if it's a kit, you still gotta follow instructions....

 

The Cox Thimble Drome stuff was always neat. Due to the plastic construction they were heavy on the controls and you had to lean the little .049's out for max power. This usually killed the glow plugs and eventually the motor. The only one that I had any long term use out of was the PT-19. It still flew like **** compared to my balsa profiles but it was a challenge...

 

Chaz,
Cool pic, that plane looks like it means business. Is that a '50 Merc in the back ground with lincoln tailights? Looks like fresh primer where the lights where installed.

"Hey buddy, you're standing on the lines!!" Ha Ha.

I have a NIB 20 year old r/c motor they say is the hot setup for stunt. I'll probably keep it though and use it. It's a rear exhaust OS .40.

 

You're not alone. I used to fly( correct that, crash) u-c also. Lots of Ringmasters, one Nobeler, and lots of those Midwest profile P-40s.
I still have about 125 sets of full size plans. Some Cleveland, lots of Hobby Helpers.
I'm luckey enough to have inherited my uncle's UNFIRED '43 issue Super Cyclone!! Thanks, Mike

 

The Cox PT-19 model, man that was impossible to kill. When I realised there was more to all this than a plastic monstrosity I could never find models of anything I liked. Made dozens of profile models a lot of one off designs with very air race influenced shapes, flaps, throttle and combat wings, I would think like a thousand of them. Ok so maybe 10 or so.......
Though I am a ****er for any WWII Aussy aircraft.
Being an avid aircraft modeler too I went 'ape ****' with the paint detail, never used decals. As you can guess I learned two things quickly,
A. It hurts to crash something with so much work, and
B, Aeronautics!!
Stuff like working out how much tail surface area should be increased for the scale of the model to maintain control. Aircraft center line, centerline thrust, degrees of down thrust to wing incidence to wing lift capability's. Lifting surface area & lifting weight capability. CofG, you would be surprised how many people dont fully understand that!Man there is a lot of maths in all that!
I had a great collection of 1/48 scale plans of all my favorite aircraft and worked from them. They had each bulkhead and profile so it was sweet. You could build a real one from them!
Some of the models I have drawn plans for and built, P40K, CAC CA12 Boomerang, CAC CA 15 Kangaroo, Seafury, Mk Vb Spitfire, Mk VIII Spitfire, AOP Auster, DAP Mk **I Boomerang, CAC Woomera, and some non Aussy operated aircraft like the Lysander, Bristol Blenheim, Dornier Do 335 Pfeil.
Never finished the Pfeil, Blenheim or Woomera, I wish I still had all of those plans though. I did start to dig up some older stuff and picked up some new motors for future projects, like 10 years ago including my first balsa kit!! Its a Mk 1a Spit for an 049 mill. I have it all just need the time to build it.
Man this stuff can be fun!
Doc