Nostalgia Carrier Class 1

[Randy Snow]

   Here's the bare bones of my Nostalgia Class 1 - Boeing XF8B-1. A long with the article from Aero-Modeler that made putting a three line system so eazy and simple for CL. Dad designed this Boeing in '66.... carved a plug and made a fiberglass mold. The original model had a fiberglass fuselage but all of his plugs and mold work disappeared after his death and no one knows what became of any of it. I remember the wing span and used the same general arrangement drawing that he used. His source was one of Green's little 3" x 5" books .. this one was ' US fighters'.
   My first deck baptism came during a ' club contest'in late '66. At the time I had been flying a profile SE5A that Dad had designed with a throttled K&B with an AM-1 throttle. I had a lot of fun with that plane. For the 'club contest' there wasn't any appearance points just straight flying scores. Everyone was trying to make a joke saying that I should fly my SE5A for the 'club contest' and was giving Dad a raz about it ... so Dad punched a hole in the tail skid ... Adam Rivero found a piece of wire ... Dad fashioned a really simple hook .. fed it into the hole - bent in around the skid and there I was ready to fly my first carrier event. And everyone thought it a joke. My high wasn't so good.. Everyone was still laughing.... then came my slow flight...... everyone stopped laughing.... that bip hung real slow( less then the 45 degree angle allowed) I flew less then 18 mph with that SE5A.... lined up for a landing attempt ... signaled.... came around and landed on the deck the first time. Dad, Adam and John Smith all were making this " move forward" motion  ... waving their arms and telling me to taxi forward .... so I did and that's when I engaged the hook on to an arresting line. Everyone went silent .. then tried to say that I shouldn't have been allowed to fly ... but Dad just smiled ... I don't remember how I placed but  .. wow... what a cool day it was. My first carrier flight ... with a more than perfect landing.
   After I had proven myself capable of flying carrier Dad allowed me to build my own Boeing for carrier .. had a Fox 36x with an AM-1 throttle . Flew it at the '67 NATS Navy Carrier Class 1 jr. and took 1st place. Before the year was out I had set a jr. record with it -- 350 points. Didn't last long but it was cool while it lasted.
  The US Navy still sponsored the NATS then..... ABC Wide World of Sports covered the NATS that year. They ( ABC Sports) filmed the carrier event as well as the entire Nats.... did some 'set up' .. shot quite a bitt of coverage but when they aired it in September they cut it way down... but there I was on ABC's Wide World of Sports.. less then 5 minuets .. but there I was... they told who I was , what I was flying and how I placed. They even mentioned that the jr. and sr. winners at the Nats were all invited and flown by the Navy to the naval base at Pensacola Fl. There we spent time on Lady Lex.. was to go out and spend 2 weeks aboard her but she was in dock under going some refit. Us ' kids' had 4 Marine officers as escorts-- 2 male and 2 female officers... the 2 female officers were really good looking... had a crush on one. She knew it and treated me really nice.. I even held her hand a couple of times. It was something really grand... ABC Sports coverage -being on ABC's Wide World of Sports being aboard Lady Lex and having a crush- a female Marine Officer for a GF---lol. There was even an article in the Tucson Daily Star about Gerry Perkins an myself placing in our events at the Nats. The Marine escorts found out what I had flown at the Nats and gave me Navy Pilots wings.... not the real gold ones--damn.. but US Navy Pilots wing never the less. And still have them. So YES I earned US Navy pilots wings.. when I was only 14 years old....lol.

[john e. holliday]

Thanks for the history.  64 was my first NATS.   The next one was 70.   Got to meet your Dad when he was in better health and it was sad to see how he was going down each year.   He always had his gorgeous planes in display and a pleasure to talk to.   He is still missed.

[Randy Snow]

I thought that I would share this pic.... it shows a decal that some how I've been able to save an' keep all this years ---- it's the decal from the '67 Nats. My US Navy pilots wings that were given to me by the Marine escorts we " kids" had while at Pensacola and  the pin I was given at the '77 Nats .. I was one of the officials at these Nats.. was in charge of CL safety...such as pull test ( stunt, carrier and scale), line size and quality. And helped run carrier.
 Remember many good looking carrier models from the '63, '64, '67 and '77 Nats. Over 95% maybe closer to 99% of these models of carrier aircraft built were never published nor kitted. Wildcats, Hellcats, Buffalos, Helldivers, a Claude, Devastators, Avengers, SBDs, a Destroyer, Bearcats, a Buccaneer,  Vindicators, Skyrockets, Hornets, a Barracuda, Trojons, a Texan, Fireflys, Zeros, Kates, Graces, Vals, Sea Hurricanes, SeaFires, Sea Furies, on and on and on. Any thing that had actually been built has been modeled at one time or another. And despite all of those types modeled Nostalgia says only such a very small % is allowed for those points.... and even then if the original designer/ builder/ published model didn't know how to go about incorporating flaps with his model... .....   .... no designer/ builder that ever got published ever said:: " if you build my model you have to build it just the way I did--- no deviation from my design. Just because I couldn't figure out how to incorporate flaps you can't ....." What ever........ never mind...... carrier is fun .... and worth being involved with.