In Keeping With Today’s Theme Of Yesteryear…

 

Years ago, back when I was still essential…my plans were to spend my retirement building a real Aircamper or maybe a Flybaby. Unfortunately I was obsoleted before I was ready, and the Aircamper or Flybaby… will never come to pass. You can still buy the plans, and people still build them with a variety of engines. The classic Aircamper engines are the four banger Model T engine (Ford still makes them) and the boxers out of the 1960’s Corvair. Today the donor engines are small, bullet proof Lycomings and Continentals. One stubfart I saw poured his heart and soul into his build with a Subie engine and the best wood money could buy. The final fabric and paint job were exquisite. The ones built by stubfarts are often works of art and love… and you can pick them up for pennies on the dollar on Barnstormers. The reason is that nobody flies anymore, hangar fees are insane, and we are not the people our ancestors were.

So it goes for the modellers too. A couple years back one of the old boys at Stubfart Airfield passed away, and the poor family had no room or time for all the planes he built. His small two bedroom apartment was filled with planes and airframes in various states of completion, plans, tools… it’s what he did to entertain himself in his retirement. The family gave the club all his stuff - and it all ended up in our clubhouse - a lavishly appointed sea-can out at the field. Technically they were for sale but Scotty The Retard grabbed a bunch of the planes but nobody bitched. Most of us build our own and they just cluttered up the clubhouse. I suppose I shoulda taken something but…it just felt wrong. 

Today the kids fly F16s and 747s on flight simulators and wage grim or hilarious dogfights on the internet… and laugh at our messy, smelly engines and fragile balsa models. They’ve no time for frumpy, temperamental engines and ludicrously simple electronics and the relics that fly them. It’s all stuff from a world that’s long gone and they have no interest in. Who can blame them? The world moves on, and we get left behind with the trappings of our time. 

We will be long gone by the time they realize their folly of letting us go, just as we ourselves did - by then, their world will be as obsolete as ours and they will find themselves obsoleted too. I have no problem with it - I am ready to go today, if I should be called home… but there are small ways to hold onto a world that’s long gone…and I intend to make the most of them. It’s a struggle, isn’t it? You spend most of your youth trying to hold the little ones close…and then you have to let them go all too soon. But - so be it!

This winter’s build looks like it might be the old Speedy Bee. You can download the plans for free here. The wing construction is simply inspired. Elegant, light, and super strong for its intended purpose. Perhaps  one day some kid might get one of my planes, and smile to think of the old fart that built it? And actually want to fly it?

☺️👍