Nostalgia

LAST EDITED ON Dec-09-04 AT 02:29 AM (CST)
 
Amazing what you find on the web.

All this started because I saw an ad in Flying Models for the Bill Barnes Silver Lancer (rubber free flight, I think). Model Aviation published something on Bill Barnes years and years ago, so I'd seen drawings of the Lancer before, and I was thinking, hmm.. profile stunter? Why settle for a Mustang or a Thunderbolt, those have been modeled to death. So I went looking for a 3 view, and I came across this site:

http://home.att.net/~dannysoar4/misc.htm

in particular, this page:

http://home.att.net/~dannysoar4/newgoodguy.htm

Interestingly enough, the Lancer was an amphibian. This wasn't obvious from the FM photo. The whole lower hull is a slipper float, which lowers and moves forward under the props for landing. In this configuration, the wheels are extended on long winglets sticking out from the float, so the Lancer turns into a sesquiplane. The wings look pretty long, high AR, the fuselage is long and narrow. The Lancer used two engines (1200 HP diesels, it turns out!) in tandem, thus a very long nose ahead of the pilot. It sort of has the same looks as a Me-109, just more pugnacious.

I suppose it'd work as a profile stunter (I use the term "stunter" here loosely.. I'm thinking something along the lines of a Sarpolus 1/2-A, but bigger, with foam wings). I'd build it with the float retracted, of course, and use some other sort of landing gear.

There are other planes worth looking at, on the site - there's the Snorter (no relation to Howard's Snort), which is a seaplane with an underslung hull, and the Scarlet Stormer. Both of these had "Butterfly" wings, so they'd be hard to model. The latter was also gull-winged.

So after looking at these, and since Bill Barnes was pulp fiction, I was reminded of another piece of "pulp fiction" (comics, in this case) which might contain interesting flying craft, namely, the Trigan Empire. Bill Barnes was way before my time - I would have had to be over 40 by the time I was born for it to have been in "my time". The Trigan empire, though.. I'm sure many here of my age and older who lived in England remember it. It was published in a boys' magazine called World of Wonder, in the 60s and early 70s. I remembered seeing some airplanes in that.. I wondered if it was on the web.

Sure enough...

http://trigan.com/

This site's got a bunch of scanned comics. I never did get to read very much of the Trigan Empire because I didn't subscribe to WoW - the ones I did read belonged to friends or relatives, so this was a treat. The stories were sadly a lot hokier than I remember - I guess things look better when you're 9 or 10. All the bad guys in the beginning look oddly like Barney Fife (and the good guys like Forrest Gump).

http://trigan.com/cgi-bin/trigan.pl?id=198

They haven't finished compiling all the comics online yet, by a long shot, but I do distinctly remember seeing these particular frames, which they use as examples on these pages:

http://trigan.com/arttrade.html
http://trigan.com/reprints.html

And then I found this page, which made me laugh so hard it hurt:

http://trigan.com/dlprints.html

Here's an example of what was so funny:

[photo not recovered: uo19.jpg]
[photo not recovered: uo05.jpg]

I think that's supposed to be Dutch, dood..

Sadly, I didn't see anything worth turning into a CL model. Since the stories were written in the 60s, everything seems to be based on jets and rocket ships.

Hmm

The Snorter has a look of some of the Schnider(sp) Trophy aeroplanes f the mid 30s and the Charger has a touch of the Dorniers

Interesting though

Regards

Mike

A look alike Barnes Snorter stunter showed up at Brodaks Flyin in 2003 and I think is was there again in 2004. Blue and White and a real attention grabber. I liked it and recognized it. Many didn't, too young I guess. It was different. I used to read all the Bill Barnes stuff in Air Trails. I prefered Black Hawk and his international squadron and the F5F' they flew, then they went to the F90. Much of the things we read in the 40's thru 50's and saw at the local movie on Sat for a dime, is what inspired George Lucas to do the Star Wars movies. This from an interview I watched on Discovery Channel. All part of the hobby in one way or another.

>
>Sadly, I didn't see anything worth turning into a CL model.
>Since the stories were written in the 60s, everything seems
>to be based on jets and rocket ships.

Maybe that was the inspiration for the StingRay.

I believe the Classic Crusader design (the twin-boom, not the jet one) was based on this:
http://www.rareplanes.com/revw.htm

German stuff:
http://www.luft46.com/

Fantasy Planes in general:
http://home.att.net/~dannysoar/FantasySectionIntro.htm

The BEST fantasy plane source may be the Microsoft game, "Crimson Skies:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/gallery_planes.asp

Then again, there's always the old Batplanes:

See page 19 in the December Model Aviation.

The Bill Barnes stories were a monthly Air Trails feature in the pre WWII years, authored by "George L Eaton." In reality, there was no George Eaton. More than one person wrote those stories, they were all just published under the Eaton name.

I still have a few of these mags.

Well whaddya know. I just got my December Model Aviation, and guess what's in it.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-09-04 AT 08:52 PM (CST)
 
A question for Bill Netzeband.

Did the Fierce Arrow have anything to do with these?

http://home.att.net/~dannysoar2/Payen.htm

Ron B.
F4Fguy

One of the prettiest PA airplanes I've ever seen was Scott Richlen's "Silver Lancer". I've been looking (unsuccessfully) for a pic that I know I have. Perhaps Scott would oblige.

David Dodge - - a.k.a. dannysoar - - is a wonderfully creative guy who loves to build and fly nostalgic and unconventional indoor and outdoor rubber powered free flight planes. David will, for example, show up at both indoor and outdoor free flight events with a relica old-time A-frame canard with two hand-carved pusher props, or indoor with a creation with annular wing and empannage and tandem hand-carved props. And, yes, they do fly.
Six times a year David produces, virtually single-handed, the news letter for the Glastonbury (CT) Aeromodelers, a loose association of an ever growing number of young and old practitioners of indoor and outdoor free flight. The news letter - - called "Air Flow" - - is chock full of David's wonderful original art work, especially his fantasy planes, and his amusing prose.
Even if you do not live in Connecticut or fly free flight, "Air Flow" is well worth the $12 yearly subscription price for the novelty and fun and for some interesting cross-over modeling ideas.

I have enjoyed David's site for a long time and have found his research to be helpful in advancing my own 15-year project. Correspondence with him has been enjoyable. He is resourceful, but has just the right touch of whimsy to keep open the portals to strange and appealing worlds, where aviation and the mind are still sources of adventure.

SK