Hi Riley:
You mentioned the Lester Grogan-designed Sweet Sweep in your recollections. Can you give us any more information about this plane, when it was designed and how it flew? I've heard that Lester was confined to a wheel chair. Did someone else fly his design? I've also heard that this ship was protested by a competitor for having streamer catching devices on the wing (the wing fences). The story I've heard indicates that when the fences were directed by AMA to be removed, the plane lost a lot of its performance. Is any of this true? I'm building one (albeit electric...) and would like to know more about the ship and its designer.
Thank you for taking the time to write about your life in Combat. It's important that we all chronicle those days to fill in the fabric of history of our sport. Kudos on doing this extremely well here!
As a side note, I flew nothing but Quickers back in the day, and even flew one that had a flame paint job designed by Red Rinehardt! Red hand sketched the flames onto the wing of my freshly covered, red quicker using a soft pencil, and then I filled in the flames with a brush and yellow dope. The red was made from a dye that I put into clear dope. When I brushed on the yellow, some of the underlying red came through the yellow and augmented the flame look very nicely! Happy mistake. Then Red did some more detailing to the edges of the flames.
Since I lived only a few miles north of Willow Grove in 1961, I naturally flew in that year's Nats that were contested at the Navel station there. One of my school friend's father was a high ranking officer who was put in charge of Nats promotion for the Navy. He asked my father if I could be used for promotion of the Nats in our Philly area. One of the things that I was asked to do was to pose with my flamed Quicker for newspaper photos. I still have that "Official Navy Photograph" somewhere and I'll try to dig it up and post it on this thread.
Another promotion was to have me appear on the "Morgan in the Morning show on Philly TV. I've written a piece about that day in an autobiography that I'm working on. I'll post that section here now...
We were still living in the Doylestown area in 1961 when the AMA Nats returned to Willow Grove, as they had every four years since 1953. One of my schoolmates was the son of one of the base big wigs, and he also had an interest in model airplanes. His father was apparently put in charge of helping to promote the Nats in the region, and he asked me if I would consider appearing – along with a couple of other local youths – on the “Morgan in the Morning” television show that originated in Philadelphia. Wow! A chance to be on TV! That was pretty impressive to a young man in those days.
The big day arrived and we were driven to the television station in an official Navy staff car. I was asked to bring along an airplane and all the necessary items I would need to start the engine on the sound stage. Remember, there were no mufflers in those days. I chose to bring my prized Quicker (described earlier) with the flame paint job. It was fitted with a Johnson .35 engine, and those of you who have run them know that it is by far not the quietest engine on the planet. I remember mentioning that to the person who was assigned to direct us, but he said not to worry.
The big moment was nearing. The Morgan in the Morning show was what everyone in the entire area watched when they got up in the morning. I was about to have my few minutes of everlasting fame. Everyone would see me on TV, and I’d be the envy of all my friends. I was told to fuel the model and be ready to crank it up when the program returned from commercial. I remember being cued to be ready to flip the prop. I had the battery leads connected to the engine, and got a bump on the prop. And then . . . Well, you probably won’t believe this next part, but I swear it’s true. At just the moment that we were supposed to come back on air, the program was preempted for coverage of Gus Grissom’s Mercury space flight!
The host (I forgot his first name) Mr. Morgan personally apologized to us for not being able to get us on air. We were not re-scheduled, and that was that.
I had many Quickers in that era, Riley, but that flamed paint job version was by far my favorite. Great design and one that will live on in my heart for the span of my life.
Bob Hunt
Topic: 50's-60's combat history (Read 42622 times)
