A Flying Fool at the Airshow

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This is the Sterling Flying Fool I build while in high school. Had a Stallion .35 R/C in it, with a J-Roberts bellcrank and handle. It was one of a pair of airshow specials I built, where I swept the top wing a bit and dressed them up with a lot of monokote checkerboards. The photograph was supposed to be reminicent of those shots during the war where the prop is running and the daring fighter pilot is posed next to the machine. You can see the prop tip arc if you look for it.

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This is the same plane from the left rear, sunburst on top.

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And this is my very first airshow performance captured on film. I was flying wing in a two-ship formation, because I had the throttle and the lead airplane did not. Once we got the two planes settled down relative to each other, we did a couple of simple wingovers and loops in formation. Crowd loved it.

We thought we were the Red Devils.

Heavy Sterling kit wood, over built and over powered, probably nose heavy even after the wing shift forward. Dragging an extra line around for throttle control. I suspect they flew more like the old time stunt planes than any responsible monoplane after, say, the Nobler. It seemed like a big fan with just enough wing to get going and an elevator to direct it.

If you got them going fast enough you could do loops and wing overs and stuff. Big lay down eights. Anything past straight and level seemed a stunt in the pure sense of the word. I loved flying inverted but getting there and back in a wind had to be done at the right part of the circle.

Flying formation was the unique thing you could do, given that I could throttle the big Stallion .35 back and cruise up alongside little Louie Kear's stock Flying Fool, which had something like a McCoy .29 in it.

I had a heck of a lot of fun with my airshow biplanes sport flying and shooting landings with power, touch and goes, spot landings and stuff like that.

But at the time I had no idea what a real fine tuned stunt ship was like to fly. Probably still don't although I did later on get a green box Nobler put together, which gave me a clue that the Flying Fool might have been named for the guy who built one.

I am really looking forward to completing my 'Zoot Suit' Brodak Nobler, as everything I've learned in the last couple of years of reading Stunt News and this board (and Isky's, although I still don't know about the Honda Civic) is in the fabrication of all the parts to date and it should turn out to be ten times the airplanes I flew as a kid if I can figure out how to trim it.

One senses that a really light, straight well tuned Nobler is going to be a sweet stick to handle.

We'll see---if I ever get the thing done.

I still like bi-planes and have built two 38 Specials (thanks Tom Dixon) and two Bi-Slops. Both good flying aircraft for what they were designed to do! Hmmm, I wonder if anyone has working drawings for a Flying Fool...Time for lesson number three?

Rich

A LOT has to do with the film type/processing, storage, etc., etc.. etc. I have some photos from back in the '50s that are like that, some others that look like they were taken yesterday. Photography is a funny art, kinda like the model airplanes I love too...

Yeah.

I spent some time in Photoshop after the scan and managed to make the photos look have as bad as the actual prints do in terms of color.

But I guess faded and color corrected memories are better than none.

I'm lucky to have the photos at all, given how few were taken while I was modeling and how little attention I paid to them.

These three got framed a long time ago which is the reason they're here at all.

Cy