One of the issues that I’ve encountered over the years is a lack of depth in my flyable plane inventory. It’s not that I lack planes but rather that I typically have only had one or two of a given type of plane (control line/free flight) available in a flyable condition at any given time. There are many reasons for this but for whatever reason, the lack of flyable planes has left me with an issue. And that is the fear of putting whatever flyable planes I do have out of commission thus leaving me with NO flyable planes. And that has made me reluctant to fly what I do have or to fly the plane in anything but a safe mode that will reduce the likelihood of a crash. As a result of all this my progress at improving my flying skills has been hamstrung. And nowhere is that more evident than in overcoming my mental block at performing outside loops while flying control line.
So I have made a bit of a concerted effort to rectify that situation by making sure that I go into this upcoming flying season with a bit more depth in my flyable plane inventory. To that end, I’ve been working over the past few weeks to prepare what for me would constitute a small squadron of planes for flight. The photos below show the results of that effort to date.
First up was my Control Line squadron. Most of this effort was to clean the planes and run a through pre-flight on each of them. My old dependable (red) Ringmaster and (green) Twister were quick efforts. I then dug out the blue & white Banshee which also proved to be a quick turn-around. Next, I turned my attention to the blue Akromaster. It needed an engine swap. The O.S. 15 that was on it was old and worn out and not delivering enough power for a reasonable flight. I went to my engine inventory and found a New-In-Box O.S 15 that made the engine swap out a breeze. After an engine break-in period at the flying field, the Akromaster will join the flying squadron with hopefully some better flying performance.
(Click on photos to zoom in on them)
Next up was ‘Ugly Betty’. I inherited this yellow and white, foam winged plane and it needed a couple touches to be flight ready. After I cleaned it, I replaced the single main landing wheel/tire which was literally flat. I found a new one in inventory and after drilling out the wheel hub to be able to fit onto the axle wire it was installed. Next, I had to make up and install lead out wires for the control lines. This job always seems to take me 5 times as long to do as it should. ‘Ugly Betty’, with its Fox .35 engine, is now ready with the rest of the Control Line squadron.
While the Control Line planes were being tended to, I was also working on preparing my Free Flight squadron. First up was the blue & orange Jr. Commercial which has suffered a catastrophic engine failure (broken rubber band) during its last flight session that ended up shredding major portions of the fuselage covering. So I stripped and recovered the entire fuselage. Here are a couple before and after photos:
My olive drab Guillow’s Bird Dog had suffered a similar fate but only needed the forward section of the fuselage covering replaced. And finally, my Guillow’s Hawker Typhoon, which I build last Fall, needed only a few final construction tweaks before it was ready to be flight tested. At this point, I ended up with 3 flight ready Free Flight planes in my squadron.
So at this point, I have 5 Control Line planes and 3 Free Flight planes ready to go into the flying season with. Despite that, I’ve determined to continue building up the squadron numbers with additional reinforcements. I have pulled out another Control Line plane that needs attention. It is a Flite Streak Jr. that crashed almost 3 years ago when attempting a loop with an engine that crapped out during the loop. The plane pancaked in resulting in cracks to the wing/fuselage joint. Repairs will begin shortly on that and then we’ll address any engine issues.
So in the final analysis, with 8 flight ready planes, I feel much better going into this flying season then I have in the past. Of course, the million dollar question is…how long will it take me to go thru the squadron to the point where I’m back to only 1 or 2 flyable planes?! The weather is supposed to be excellent (75 degrees, no/low wind, and sunshine) for flying tomorrow (4/23/25) so I’ll make my first foray out to the flight line and start putting my squadron to work!
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