The Judge is indeed Gene's machine. Take a look at the AMA number: 30880. That's Gene's number. There was one other Judge built, and it was owned by Robbie Feinstein. I flew Gene's Judge a lot. I attached the down line on the plane to the up line on my handle and the up line on the plane to the down line on the handle and flew it as if I were flying my own model inverted. Worked great! Years later Billy Eybers convinced Gene to let him fly the Judge, but he tried to do it the way Gene did. The ship was gone a half lap later. I'm attaching a photo of the remains of Robbie Feinstein's ship. It has a broken stab and the cool wheel spats are gone, but it could be repaired and flown in a pinch. Better yet, Robbie has consented to let me borrow the Judge and measure and draw it up accurately. It is a legal Classic design. It was built in 1967 around a Mike Stott foam Chipmunk wing.
I'm also attaching Chapter One of the Genesis book that I'm writing because there is reference to the Judge in the opening chapter. The story of the Judge is a short piece at the beginning of that chapter, but I thought that some of you might enjoy the rest of the chapter as well. There is also a reference to Vic's Crusader in this chapter. Please do not feel compelled to read it... there will not be a quiz...
Ah, memories! - Bob Hunt
Excerpt from Story of the Genesis:
Genesis
Chapter One
The Search for Individuality
The end for my original Caprice model came on a wind swept Mitchell Field on Long Island in the spring of 1969. Gene Schaffer, Bill Simons and I had traveled there to compete in an early contest. It was March as I recall, and the wind was so strong that virtually everyone either declined to even make the trip to the contest site, or those who did promptly turned around and left after they arrived. Gene, Bill and I stayed on for a while, hoping that the wind would die down enough to allow for some practice flights at least.
Instead, the wind just got stronger and we soon realized that there would be no hope for any meaningful flying that day. Gene decided to do some wind-flying. He was quite famous for his skills at that. Bill and I watched in amazement as Gene performed literally dozens of dead-stick lazy eights, loops and square loops with his Blackbird. He could sure put on a show!
I decided that I wanted to try my hand at dead-stick wind-flying, and despite Bill’s objections (He always was the logical and practical one…) I gave it a try. Things actually went pretty well and it was easy to use the power of the wind to push the model up and over the top in maneuvers. So long as I kept things fairly big and kept the proper timing by allowing the model to penetrate into the wind far enough on the sides of the maneuvers to allow the wind to push it back over with force, wind-flying was easy; right up to the point where I tried to do some square loops and lost my timing.
The result was a splattered Caprice, with bits of balsa and foam blowing down the runway seemingly into oblivion. Poignant it was, and just as the parts disappeared I realized that I didn’t have a new ship on the building board. I had been mustered out of the Army in late 1968 and didn’t even try to get a new plane going over that winter. I figured that the Caprice would take me through the 1969 contest season and then I would build a new ship over the next winter for the 1970 season.
Gene offered me one of his models as a practice ship until I could build a new one of my own, but his models were set up to fly clockwise while mine were rigged in the more normal manner to fly counterclockwise.
Gene suggested that I should try attaching the up line from my handle to the down line of one of his models and the down line from the handle to the up line of the model. He said that if I concentrated on the spinner I should be able to fly as if I were doing the pattern from the inverted position and at least get in some practice. I thought it sounded reasonable. Bill Simons was sure that with this plan we were about to plant two models in the same day!
Well, it worked! I was able to fly Gene’s Judge with no problems, just so long as I didn’t think too much. And, in fact, I used that model in some local competitions (Sans appearance points of course). I even placed third flying it in one local meet! I was able to keep my hand in on the flying while I worked on a new model.
In those days I was torn between several different “looks” for a stunt model. I really liked Gene’s low-slung type of styling, but I also liked the jet style that was becoming popular. I designed two models that spring of 1969. One was a jet styled ship with almost F-86 Sabre Jet looks that I dubbed the Tangent. The other one was a low-slung fuselage model that featured tricycle landing gear with wheel pants. That one was called the Avanti. I decided to go the “jet” route and quickly built the Tangent.
The Tangent was the second model that I built using one of Arnie and Mike Stott’s Foam Flite foam cored wings. I had also used one of their wings in the Caprice. In those days the foam wings did not have any internal coring, and they were prone to be a bit on the heavy side. But, they were very accurate and strong and allowed a model to be built very quickly.
The Tangent went together without any problems and I was sure that this one would be the model that would put me in the spotlight on the eastern stunt scene. It was finished in metallic blue with orange and white trim, and I thought it was really beautiful. I kept that thought right up to the point when the clear topcoat was sprayed on.
It seems that the auto primer that I used as a fillercoat reacted with the clear and it bled through the color coats. It was a mess! And the 1969 Nats was only a couple of weeks away. I was disheartened but decided to mount the engine in it and finish up the detail work to get it ready to fly anyway.
As providence would have it, the Tangent flew incredibly well! It turned equally upright and inverted and was light enough so that there was no stall in even extremely tight turns. I was able to begin flying patterns with it right away and felt that this one was a winner – except for the very flawed finish.
Pride kept me from entering that model in the 1969 Nats, but I went to the meet in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania with Bill anyway to launch for him and coach him. He was flying his original design Shoestring that would be published a few years later in Flying Models magazine. Bill and I stayed with the legendary Red Reinhardt at his home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania that week, and I had a great time in spite of the disappointment of not being able to fly. Red, Bill and I stayed up until the wee hours each night during our stay playing killer games of Ping-Pong.
For the record, Bob Lampione won that Nats flying his semi-scale F-86 Sabre Jet. His ship was far better looking than mine would have been even if the finish hadn’t gone awry.
Upon return from that Nats I decided to refinish the Tangent and used auto paints for the color coats and an auto lacquer as a clear topcoat to avoid any further incompatibility with the primer. Predictably the model came out very heavy and it never did fly well again. That’s too bad, because that was a good design. It was built around the same moment arms that the Caprice was, and those were the “Secret Moments” that Gene had developed a few years earlier (9 3/8-inch nose moment and 14 ¾-inch tail moment). Those numbers were used to build a very large number of east coast stunt models in those years.
With the failure of the Tangent project, the Avanti design was brought out of mothballs and started in the fall of 1969. This time I used an extended Chipmunk wing and somewhat longer moments than I had used on my previous two models. In fact, that was the first foam core wing that I cut myself and used in a contest model. Up to that point I used the Foam-Flite wings. I chose that wing design because Gene had used it in his Judge, and I really liked the way that flew when I borrowed it after the Ill-fated wind-flying episode.
The Avanti featured a forward cockpit on a long, thin fuselage and it had a very low-slung, Gene Schaffer-type rudder on the aft end. Stylish it was, and both Gene and Bill really liked the look of it. We all went out together for the maiden flight. The very first flight proved that the ship was a real winner in all respects. I had installed half span flaps on that one, and the result was a model that had a very tight but smooth corner. Again I knew that I had the model with which to make a name for myself.
Before the third flight, while preparing to start the model upside down, Gene, who was holding it, said that his hand was wet. That could only mean one thing. The tank had sprung a leak and it had dumped the entire load of fuel into the fuselage and onto the raw internal balsa. Almost immediately the finish started to curdle. Two really good models in a row were ruined almost right from the start! Yes, the thought to quit this hobby/sport did cross my mind for more than a moment at that time!
Fortunately I’m stubborn, and decided to design yet another new model. In retrospect I really should have built another Avanti or Tangent as each of them had proven to be great flyers. I guess I just had too many new ideas in my head at that time, and besides, designing is fun! It is truly a search for individuality.
I jumped back to the jet camp again, and designed a stunter around the lines of the Republic F-105 Thunderchief in early 1970. I didn’t build that model right away, however. I thought that the large drop tanks I had drawn would induce too much drag, and so I shelved the design for a while.
Vic Macaluso had designed a very striking semi-scale version of the Crusader around that time that featured anhedral in the wing. None of us thought that it would fly like that, but Vic had the last laugh by coming up with a model that eventually won almost every contest on the East Coast in 1970.
Vic’s jet had many relief details on the fuselage in the form of fairings and scoops. It also had a set of very realistic drop tanks that were fitted to pylons that were attached to the wing. Very original and very impressive was the Crusader. Even more amazing was the fact that Vic built and finished this gorgeous model in but eight weeks!
I had always liked the side-view shape of the F-105 Thunderchief, but initially discarded it because the head of the model engine would stick down from the slim nose and spoil the jet look. The Sabre Jet configuration was a natural for hiding the engine and I suppose that is why so many of them have been designed as semi-scale stunters over the years.
The Thunderchief would also have to be built as an in-line design. The engine thrustline, wing centerline and tail centerline were all on the same line! I had heard that this configuration might cause problems, especially with the vertical center of gravity. Add to that the fact that this model would have tricycle landing gear and simulated drop tanks, and the potential vertical CG problem loomed even larger.
Naturally with all those negatives going for this design, I decided to go ahead and build it! Hey, sometimes a good-looking design just has to be tried in spite of the logic of physics… Did it work? You bet! The “Thud” turned out to be a really great flying model that turned equally upright and inverted. In fact, the model flew decidedly better with the removable drop tanks attached! I think the extra drag allowed me to power-up the OS Max H40S a bit more than normal and have something to “pull” against. Whatever the reasons, that model flew very nicely indeed and it carried me to that elusive first win in the Open class, against worthy competition.
The Chipmunk wing had proven to be a great choice for the slightly larger models that we were all starting to build to accept the more powerful .40 size engines that were beginning to become available. Instead of making the whole wing larger in span and chord for the F-105, I decided to go for a more high-aspect ratio look and simply extend the span while keeping the stock chord dimension. I really liked the high-aspect look, and I fully intend to revisit it very soon with a new model design.
The Thunderchief was my first published design. I was invited to fly it in a modeling demonstration in Nyack, New York in the fall of 1971, and the legendary model magazine editor, Don McGovern was in attendance. He just loved that model and asked if I would like to have it appear in Flying Models magazine. I quickly accepted his offer, and spent the rest of that fall preparing the article and inking the plans.
Around Christmas in 1971 the article package was ready for Don’s perusal and he invited me to his home in Centereach Long Island just two days before I was scheduled to leave for the 1972 King Orange Internationals meet in Florida. I was really nervous about meeting with this modeling legend in his home one-on-one. I was even more nervous that he would say my work was not up to magazine standards. I was just a wreck as I made the long trek out onto the “Island.”
As it turned out, Don really liked the article package and we went out to a local field to get a few photos of the model. Don had told me when he purchased the article that I could not depict a foam wing on the plan. At that time there were not too many foam wing stunt models being built, and there were really only two commercial foam wing cutters that specialized in cutting CL Stunt wings (Foam-Flite and my newly formed Control Line Specialties Company). Don wanted to be certain that this model could be constructed in the normal manner as well as with a foam core wing. I wasn’t even sure that the built-up wing I drew on the plans would go together correctly!
I had thought up a really neat fixture that incorporated two pieces of ¼ inch thick balsa that would serve as the actual leading and trailing edges. They were to have a piece of 1/8 inch square balsa glued at a point that would pickup the center of the ribs, which in turn were to have 1/8 inch notches cut accurately at the front and rear. The ¼ inch balsa pieces extended down to the bench top and when assembled the wing was suspended between them. Sort of like the Lincoln-Log method that Tom Morris came up with years later, only the fixture pieces were trimmed to be the actual leading and trailing edges after the wing was constructed.
Fortunately I found out that the wing depicted on the plans was easy to build and turned out warp free. Several modelers have built that design with that wing. Today I’d opt for the Lost-Foam system to build this wing, and I recently received a photo of a Thunderchief that Ed Capitainelli built that way. It’s gorgeous - just like all of Ed’s work!
The Thud placed in or won many contests over its two-year life span, and then it bit the dust in a most embarrassing way.
In March of 1973 I attended the annual spring meet in Warminster, Pennsylvania at the Johnstown Naval Research Facility (That’s where the centrifuge that was used for Astronaut training was located!). That contest had become known for very bad weather conditions, but I wanted to go anyway. Billy Simons tagged along, but he warned me that it was going to be very windy at the contest site. To say that he was correct in that assumption would be a monumental understatement! But, hey, we were there and there was a contest.
Billy opted to leave his brand new “Gambit” (A ship also built around those “Secret Moments” that Gene had pioneered) safely in the car. I wasn’t that smart. I decided to enter and fly. Bill tried very hard to talk me out of this decision. As I wrote earlier, Bill Simons was always the voice of reason…
The wind was a constant 18 to 20 mph. And it was a cold wind; the type that has real “push” to it. I fired up the OS .40H and took off on what would quickly become the farewell journey for the Thunderchief.
It was so windy that the increased line tension downwind forced me to use both hands on the handle through maneuvers. Try that sometime. Anyway, I managed to make it safely all the way to the inside square loops. The Thunderchief was rocketing through the maneuver and was pulling like a freight train at the pull out point. On the downward portion of the second inside square the up line snapped. With such incredible line pull the model was fed full down control instantly, as the model was now being tethered by only one line. The result was the most amazing outside corner you ever saw, but, albeit, at only five foot altitude. The result was predictable; the model hit the ground hard at about a 45 degree angle. Did I mention that it hit hard?
As I think back on it now, like during any catastrophe, time went into a sort of warp and all of it seemed to be happening in ultra slow motion. Just after the airplane hit the asphalt and disintegrated, all the pieces “bounced” up into the air as if straining to erase what had just happened. I vividly remember that all the pieces were in relatively the right orientation, only they were several feet apart. The result was a momentary image of this surreal model that was flying but not connected part-to-part. It was one of the most eerie moments in my life. Still is to this day.
As if the crash and loss of my best model (my only model really…) was not bad enough, I now had to face one Bill Simons who was in full “I told you so, Dummy” mode. I was scolded good and proper, and he really never did let me forget that day.
Alas, I reconciled that I would have to go home and get to work on a new ship right away. I was heading for my car when a youngster ran up to me and asked if I was the flier who crashed the model. “Yes, that was me,” I answered, and then he held out his hand which held the badly bent remains of the rear cone section of the 2-inch diameter Veco Needle Nose spinner and asked, “Do you know where the front part of this is?” At that point I wanted to cry.
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