post-box

**from JOANNE BOLIN-DUBOIS - ModelFlight's First Lady!**

Hey! Reg

At long last you get to hear from the other half of Mr. B-17 Steve Bolin. I think we are going to move soon and that we will end up living in the Boeing Museum of Flight. This house seems to be bursting with planes in one form or another. Seth will do everything from drawing to making paper, plastic and wood planes, like his Dad. What a scary thought it is that he is so much like his Dad in so many ways; his next step will be to create another Don Smith scale plane! In reality, it is so fun to watch these planes go from a block of wood to the finished project.

I am amazed at what I have seen on the Net that people have put together. Also, the camaraderie that is shown throughout the web sites is unbelievable. Everyone is willing to throw out suggestions and opinions. All in all it is really fun helping and encouraging Steve with his projects, the results are well worth it.

The one way I am helping Steve out is to help with the clutter and spill problems that all of you builders run into. I am assembling a tool/glue caddy that will keep the items that are used most frequently at your fingertips. The glue bottles fit snugly in the right-hand side (5 small bottles will fit), there are two small drawers, slanted holes on the front for knives and an open 5" x 5" short-sided box on the left top for whatever. I found out the joys of using CA glue while doing this little project. The funniest thing is, after starting work on it we found out you could purchase them assembled! If I could draw a pix I'd send it, but I'll send one with Steve's next set of progress pictures.

I'll more than likely e-mail again. Thanks for extending our family overseas.

DUBOLIN@aol.com

Thank you very much for getting in touch, Joanne - a very special welcome. The tool/glue caddy sounds interesting - I can't say I've seen one either in kit form or ready-made; please tell us more if you can. I wonder if Joanne might also become our first lady flier!

MICHAEL HENRIKSON from Denmark said:

Read about your problems with some of the newsgroup subscribers. For what it's worth, I don't see what the big fuss is about. I think your website is great and I encourage you to keep up the good work. Don't worry about a couple of sour grapes. I have my own website, just for the fun of it: http://fly.to/epilot

mhe@kmd.dk

Thanks Michael, welcome to ModelFlight. And that's the end of that! There's a picture of one of Michael's electric models on the photo gallery page.

thanks to BOB NICOL for a supply of cartoons that will pop up here from time to time:

sideshow.bob@virgin.net

included in a supportive e-mail from BRENTON LOHRISCH (alias Grandmaster Bonk!) of Queensland, Australia, was this comment:

. . . I'm guessing that everyone who e-mails you says they want to see more of their favourite r/c stuff (I want more scale stuff . . . I want more pylon racing stuff . . . I want more bla bla bla), so in the spirit of keeping up with the Joneses - I want to see more heli stuff :). Seriously though, I'll e-mail you some pix of my heli and a little bit of a spiel about me if you like, for your profile page. Of course, it's just an excuse to see my name in print on the web :).

Again, congrats on a great site and don't let a couple of . . . [and there I stop - Reg]

mrbonk@optusnet.com.au

I want more of those sort of items too, but I need you to send them to me! Everything relevant to the hobby is most welcome and a lot of folk agree it's good fun to see their stuff on the web.

I shudder to think how you got that alias, Brenton - are you telling?

from BENNIE BROUGHTON from the University of Illinois:

I am writing as a graduate student at the University of Illinois in the United States, but I am actually a citizen of South Africa. I am glad to see both the flags up on your banner (although maybe a little surprised).

I have built model airplanes since I can remember - from plastic kits, powered free flight, control line to radio control. Although things have been going slow since I started studying, I have recently returned to radio control flying and I am amazed at the the progress the hobby made in my absence. I am still a scratch builder though and being an aeronautical engineer, designing my own planes is still the ultimate in fun for me. It is also a great way to test out the theory of course!

Congratulations on a very good looking and interesting web site. I will definitely stop by from time to time.

bbrought@uiuc.edu

Nice to hear from Bennie. He's obviously very busy with his studies, but we might hear more from him if he gets the chance. A picture or two would be interesting . . .

from ROGER FORGUES, Canada:

You have a very interesting web site and you're right about plugging it often, as it's the first time that I have noticed it and happy that I did.

Could you post my web site on your links. Yours will be posted within a day or so on mine.

Also, if you're looking for stories, I have developed a unique servo extension for large aircraft and gliders to eliminate radio glitches at the servo. It's fiber optics. You can see a bit about it on my web site and I can write something about it for your site.

927424@ican.net

I actually did an intermediate update of the links page between issues of ModelFlight as I had forgotten to put up the link to High Peak Model Aero Club, so Roger's link was added then (although initially I got it wrong - sorry Roger). I've told Roger that I would love to publish something about his servo extension and I look forward to bringing it to you sometime soon.

ALEX FORREST responded to my question about news of his Twin Scorpion that I posed on the post-box page of Modelflight #9:

Thanks for your interest in the Scorpion. I managed to acquire two Thunder Tiger GP abc's at the airshow in Glenrothes on Sunday (June 4). Progress will now go forward quickly - lack of two engines the same was the hold up.

I've also bought some 5-Star flexi-cyano adhesive for sticking my glider back together - hope it works!

a.forrest1@cableinet.co.uk

Alex also sent some interesting pics from the show which can be seen on the photo gallery page. I am hoping he will also send us a picture or two of the Scorpion as it progresses.

. . . it was nice to hear from Hendo (Lindsay Henderson) again - he sent me this from Australia:

HOW NOT TO CLEAN A PLANE.

Scenario:

1. Hook high pressure hose up to sudser machine.

2. Turn on.

3. As you leave to go home early, yell to Don, your assistant, "Don, turn it off".

4. Assistant Don thinks he hears, "Don't turn it off". Shrugs and leaves area right after you.

Pictures are thumbnails - click to enlarge. Planes reported to be Beech Hawkers. If you look closely at the first picture you can actually see two nozzles (behind the rudder and the other to the right of the elevator) dumping fire-retardent foam into the hangar. The pics are said to have been taken at the Learjet facility in Kansas where a fire suppressor system malfunctioned. The images were posted to http://www.avweb.com/articles/foam/index.html and started making Internet rounds from there.

this one from 'M SaiNT' sounds a bit unusual:

Dude, if you like you can link to our chat channel here at netradiocontrol.com from your website. Could use some guys from the UK in there. Stop in and check it out. If intrested (sic) I'll send ya the Java source so you can link to the chat.

Webmaster http://www.netradiocontrol.com
Superchat irc network http://www.superchat.org

I'm personally not into chat channels, but the more adventurous might like to give it a go - no responsibility taken for what you might get into though!

MIKE GOLDBY, Development Officer of the BMFA wrote, kindly giving me permission to reproduce a BMFA article which will be up on the next update of ModelFlight (#12).

Had a look at your site and I'm impressed, but it must keep you busy in your retirement. What are you going to call your next model? I presume you haven't got an unlimited number of daughters-in-law!

admin@bmfa.org

Thanks for the 'thumbs-up' to reproduce the article, Mike. It's true that I have now run out of daughters-in-law, but I could move on to my own two daughters and then the grandchildren, I suppose!