I’m sure many of us build Guillow’s flying balsa models as kids and teens. Though these models could be powered by a Cox engine, the vast majority of them flew with the supplied rubber band. Flying them was no problem. They didn’t go very far.
But then you get older, and want something more. I was a teen in the mid-to-late-'70s. Back then, radio control was expensive. People had been building gas-powered airplanes for decades that were uncontrolled – ‘free flight’. I built a Midwest Super Sniffer, but I was too young to know that I actually needed the ‘dethermalizer’ – the tilt-up horizontal stab that causes the model to stall. A rubber band attached to the front of the vertical/horizontal stabiliser unit, and the rear was held down with a small rubber band that spanned a hook on the vertical/horizontal stab and another hook on the end of the fuselage. A fuze, held in a metal tube, was inserted between the rubber band and lit. Timed correctly, the fuze would sever the rear rubber band after the motor had run out of fuel. The model would stall and come down instead of catching a thermal and flying away. Lacking this feature, I lost the model in the desert on its first flight. A few years later, I built a Sniffer (smaller than the Super Sniffer). This time I used the dethermalizer and it worked as advertised. I still had to jump on my Yamaha to get it.
Here’s the thing: I did this in the desert. No trees, and miles of empty space. How and where did kids fly free-flight models in places not so blessed? Farm fields, sure; but living in Washington now, there are an awful lot of trees around and not so much open space. With the advent of cheap, quiet, radio-controlled ‘park flyers’, I guess nobody has to think about it anymore. I don’t know if free-flight planes are still a ‘thing’ – except to oldsters. But I’m still curious how people pursued this hobby in places with many obstacles.
It is very tough these days. I live in the desert, and it seems FF mostly survives only in desert or agricultural areas (think huge wheat fields).
Electric power is a boon for noise reasons. A large park with a treeless area can serve.
Fuse timed DT is a bit out of favor, and banned some places due to wildfire concerns. There are mechanical and electronic alternatives.
There is also RC assisted FF. The competitive part is FF, then the radio is switched on to bring the model back to the launch site. These tend to be OT (old timer, nostalgia) designs rather than high performance FF…some go so far as to use old spark ignition engines. RC has gotten much cheaper and lighter.
My next door neighbor did free-flight with a gorgeous biplane that he built. The engine was unreliable and he only had short flights. Other free-flights I saw rarely worked well, landings were tough. I got someJetXengines and mounted them on cheap balsa planes like the Guillows. I finally got the engine positioned correctly and with a tiny twist on the rudder it would circle a few times before gliding to a safe-ish landing. But it was always out on the field behind the school and the landing gear would just catch in the grass and it would nose over. I hand launched them, rolling take-offs never worked.
I built a Guillow’s Arrow like this one. For years there were streets laid out, but no houses built. I could wind up the Arrow and put it on the asphalt and let it go. It would take off by itself, make a big circle or two, and come to a nice landing. I actually have an Arrow kit in a box somewhere. (Along with I-don’t-know-how-many other unbuilt Guillow’s kits.) Sure would be fun to build them and fly them – as well as at least one unbuilt Sniffer – but there’s so little time, so few places to fly, and I’ve been told I need to act my age.
I did Estes model rockets at the high school track, football, baseball practice fields (all connected together). Still ended up in a lot of yards and parking lots. Mid to late 70s
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Right in the street in front of the barracks.15 seconds of power from an 010 or an 020. Climb to the left, glide to right. Tight turning radius. About 12 to 14 inch wingspan stick models of real fighters of WWII. Good for the space we had.
U control, half grass, half street. There were curbs. Tough carrier landings to mess up on. he he he
Long long time ago. Prefer to be in one big nuff for me to drive…
I built bunches of them when I was a kid in rural Louisiana. We had a very large yard 10+ acres along with a lot more forested land around it but losing one in the first few flights was always an issue. I had to get really good at climbing tall, thin trees to even hope to get them down and even that didn’t always work. The best plane free-flight that I ever got was from the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. It was a fairly large foam model with a huge rubber band that would take literally 10 minutes or more to wind completely by hand. I only wound it half way for the first two test flights and it took off and landed so well I was thrilled. I decided it was time for a ‘real’ flight and cranked it up for all it was worth. It took off, rose and flew and then flew some more until it was well above the deep woods. Much like Amelia Earhart, I had a rough idea of where it went but a days long search found no wreckage and it was never seen again. I was heartbroken because it was a good little plane but the result was inevitable in retrospect.
I had the same results with kites and almost everything else I tried to fly (and I tried to make everything fly). They were destroyed fairly quickly because of the number of large trees, water and powerlines around. Those conditions did teach me to become a boomerang expert at a young age however.
Finally, a flying toy that would come when it is called! I spent countless hours with several of the heavy models (don’t try to catch them, it will hurt you) and got so good that I could make one fly out and come back to hit specific people if they said I wasn’t really that good. Duck asshole because you are about to lose your head.
I used to be quite adept at FF, I even took part in a few competitions.
Living in a city it was difficult to do the thermaling stuff so I mostly did indoor FF, either “Peanut Scale” (13" maximum wingspan rubber powered) and competition EZBs. Either flying inside a basketball court or a large concert hall, kind of neat to play the Stenway on the stage as you watch your plane circle overhead!.
The EZBs are IIRC, 40cm wingspan, 1.2 grams minimum weight and rubber powered, mine could fly up to 10 minutes on 1000 or so turns in the rubber. They are very delicate and refined little machines, just tiny slivers of balsawood, twisted, shaped, covered in 5 micron thick Mylar and made to twist and bend to regulate the propeller RPMs, rate of climb and turn radius.
Some of my builds and designs even made it into magazines and newsletters, ah… those were the days!.
This days I do R/C planes for aerial photography mostly, since I moved to Thailand I don’t have a place to fly FF and the rubber just turns to chewing gum in the humidity and heat.
I haven’t visited the forum in a long time, but SmallFlyingArts.com is still alive and kicking, if anyone wants to see what this FF thing is all about.
I think the UK hobby depended a lot on half the country’s real estate having been converted into airfields in the 1940s. Anywhere big enough to set a B17 or a Lancaster down would have no real issues with a free-flight model plane. That’s where the free-flight contests are still held, anyway (as far as I can tell, the “Bowden Trophy” hasn’t changed noticeably in sixty years, except that the contestants are now venerable old balsa-hackers instead of teenagers in short trousers or young servicemen).
