Here is MY FAVORITE TED FANCHER AIRPLANE...THIS MODEL RULES MY STUNT-GRUNT-DEMENTED MIND!

Shultzie,

Those first pictures must be a mistake!

Ted is much older than that!!!! Ha, Ha, Heee, Heee!

I remember flying with ted in the 60's. The first time I saw him he was flying a Are's with the wings painted with feathers on the wings. The same kind that were painted on the firebirds. It was georgeous. Ted is one of the icons of this hobby and a real gentleman. One of my favorite people in this hobby and another person who gets the most out of what he has to work with. Not much more you can say about him except he has been a dedicated stunt grunt for a lot of years because when I met him he was flyin Junior.

I wonder if Ted has a photo of that beautiful old "featha'd stunter?

Don,

I think Leo's memory is a bit akilter on that one.  I don't recall ever having a "feathered" paint job back in those days although I do seem to recall somebody in the area did have a T-Bird painted that way.

I did, indeed, fly a hand painted (brushed) Ares as a Junior in the Seattle area.  In fact, I was painting it in the back of "Paulsen Office and Hobby Supply"  (on Park Street in Renton) when I first met Shareen.  It was "candy apple red (put some gold AeroGloss in red AeroGloss and brushed on about a zillion coats) and trimmed in a more or less classic Billy Werwage type of scheme in Black, white and gold with those good old black outlined gold letters and numbers on the wing. 

For years I had one small colored picture of that airplane with Shareen and I standing in her mom's living room.  It was on the first page of an album that I can no longer find.  Somebody several years ago was good enough to send me a black and white picture of the airplane taken at (probably) an old Sand Point NAS meet.  I've got it framed right beside me in my den. 

I built the airplane when I was sixteen, right after coming back from the 1959 Nats at Los Alimitos where Billy kicked everybody's butt with his dark blue with light blue trim Ares that won the Walker Trophy that year.  I went to see Bob Palmer (my hero via MAN, AAM, FM, etc. ads and articles) and came home wanting to be just like Billy.  Made modest progress in that direction many years later.  I still have the plans (from the AAM article) that I built that airplane from and built a second straight off of them for the first VSC. It was covered in lime green silkspan, trimmed with blue/orange/red/brown and black colored tissue.  Billy autographed it for me.  It's hanging on the wall of my den here with all the trim colors faded almost totally away and Billy's autograph just visible.

The engine used in my original (a Johnson small case "s") saw the light of day again at a later VSC in a Veco Chief.  It still had some of the red paint from the Ares on the head around the glow plug.  I didn't have any tools for cutting plywood or the skills for making a removable cowl so I simply glued the cowl on over the tank and engine and painted away.  That airplane flew for several years with the engine glued in and I don't recall ever having an engine problem.  Ultimately, the wing folded when the glue joints on the main spar gave way during a contest. 

Good memories.

Ted

Quite a history about this beautiful old light stunt model called TED'S with that light high aspect  Wing and sweeeeeeeeet hummin SWEET TALKIN ST-46. up front.

Ted arrived in Seattle with that BIG BLACK MODEL OF HIS,  Bob Emmett and Ted joined us for our annual BMA contest (76???)In those days...Ted and I were not the only ones that  were into researching those long high aspect wings.
 Here is his beautiful Black model that he won with that day...and maybe in a weak moment allowed  a bunch of us fellow grunts TEST FLY that beautiful model of his...

GADS! HOW GIVING IS THAT? The air that afternoon was really light and out of the north. Just right for letting a bunch of us addicted get a chance at the handle of that beautiful stunter named "TED'S." I was NOT ALONE...who thought that model was one EXCEPTIONAL FLYING STUNT MODEL, so jump in here and keep this post "grounded" because as most modelers know the old stunt stories grow bigga' n' better as the years go bye n' bye.
ANYHOOO!
At that time I was running a modifed Bob Wilder OS 40 stunt engine in my 59 inch span enlarged 59.5 winged modifed Sig Chipmunk (utilized just the canopy-n'-plastic cowling) and used up all my beautiful super light contest balsa on both the fattened up ribs and lengthened body-stab and elevators..etc.

I WAS SO IMPRESSED BY THE WAY TED'S BIG BLACK STUNTER FLEW WITH THAT LOOOONG HIGH ASPECT WING...AND MOST OF ALL...I WAS REALLY HOOKED ON THE AMAZINGLY SMOOOOOOOOTH CONSISTANT ENGINE RUNS ON THAT BEAUTIFUL ST 46. UP FRONT. After that moment...in flying Ted's ST 46!!! I felt like throwin stones and using that OS for a fishin lead weight. I JUST HAD TO HAVE ONE OF DEM'DARE MOTORS..S.A.P.

(I was so blown away by the way Ted's 46 ran...I couldn't sleep that night and the very next  next morn. ....I called my mentor at Great Plains Distrib. Co. and begged him to smoooooze Bob Wilder to doctor up a stock ST.46 like the one Ted was running.)
Bob W was really backed up on his custom engine work but later Great Plains found a brand new stock ST 46 and airmailed it out the next day.
 
In less than a week I had dumped the OS 40 and had that larger ST. 46 up front and hummin.
The season was over before my modified Wilder ST 46 arrived...but in truth, both the stock and the lovingly tweaked .46 ran pretty much alike except that the softer Wilder motor with a smaller restrictor..etc seemed to give me a less "squirleee'-peakey' motor run plus it was less thirsty and gave me a tad longer and needed engine run time.

Enough Sweet talk drivel about the merits of those old ST 46's

As many know...Ted Fancher was a long time friend of Bob Emmett and so many of us here in the NW! Ted was not only built beautiful and exacting stunt models...best of all...he had a natural gift to fly beautifully, just about any kind of stunt model or full sized airplane. He came from a airplane addicted pilots and instructors. FANCHERS FLYING SERVICE, in Renton Wa.

Ted was on a tight flying schedule out of Seattle...and left that beautiful BLACK "TED'S" in the trusting hands of our mentor...BOB EMMETT!  As good fortune and foolery followed. I was not the only local flyer who later had the opportunity to take that trusted model of Ted's off Bob Emmetts wall...and fly it again...and again...and again!
HEY BOB!
Did TED EVER GET THAT MODEL BACK IN ONE PIECE?

Wow, Donnie.  Awesome pix from way, way back.  

That was a very cool airplane.  My first real foray into designing my own stuff.  It was a Bob Hunt foam core wing that included the flaps (as I recall, this was the first one he ever did with flaps. That wasn't a total success because the trailing edge joint wasn't secure and had to be reglued a couple of times over the time I had the airplane.

The last I heard, the ship was still kicking around somewhere up there.  Can you confirm this?

It was a very early high aspect ratio ship with a longer than the norm tail.  It was quite light at 48 oz (painted fuse and monocoated wing and tail covering).  The combination of low wing loading and high aspect ratio made for an airplane that took very little power to fly well (low induced drag).  It was about 720 or so square inches on somewhere around 64-66 inches of span.  I'm convinced it could have flown well on a good max .35.

In good air, as you suggested, it was a dream to fly.  When the wind picked up it tended to open up in corners pretty dramatically.  This was mostly the result of the small tail that was way too flexible.  Built-up from light contest balsa and covered only with monokote, it would flex and twist under load.  It was the harbinger of design changes that I've more or less standardized in the years since.  Larger area, stiffer tails, smaller elevator chords and larger arm control bellcranks and horns that are pretty much ubiquitos nowadays.

It's also one of the first airplanes on which I experimented very successfully with sealed hingelines.  After a lunch on a layover in the Detroit area with Denny Adamisin whereat he informed me that the Adamisin clan pretty much sealed hingelines as a standard matter of course.  It was like a slap in the face it was so obvious.

The black airplane had had some trim work done to equalize inside outside turns.  As I recall it actually took some up elevator bias to equalize turn rates inside versus outside.  I recall we actually performed the sealing at a contest (probably at Eugene) in a hotel room and went out to try it the morning of the contest.  Holy you know what!  Not only did the thing turn like a scalded cat, but all of the up-elevator had to be taken out to return the turn rates to equal.

Talk about an enlightening day's work!  That Denny boy knew what he was talking about ... and now all you guys that have rolled your eyes when my first question regarding trim problems always seems to be "are the hingelines sealed?" know why I ask the question.  No brainer, no reason in the world not to do it.  Everything we do with these things is a function of producing lift in the right way.  Why would we ever consider throwing some of it away?

By the way, Don.  I think your chronology might be a bit out of whack.  The name on the wing -- "Ted's" -- also has right above it a small graphic '77 designed into the scheme.  That was the year it (and a sister ship) were built.  This one was finished first.  I believe the pictures were probably taken a few years after that if that was the year I left it up in the Northwest.  I flew it competitively for a couple years down here and remember sort of taking it off the wall to take up north for that contest.

It's sister ship, by the way, was painted red, white and blue in the second or third version of my "standard" patriotic color scheme I used for many years.  That ship had a slightly shorter wingspan (cut a bay off of each wing tip) and was covered in paper and painted.  A little heavier but a lot stiffer.  It won the first ever Concours e'Elegance at the Riverside Nats in (I think) 1977.  It was also my first "top five" finish, tying Bob Baron for third place behind Al Rabe and Bob Gieseke.

Speaking historically, that was the first ever version of the multi-day nats format that exists to this day.  Arlie Preszler was the Event Director and he not only was the "inventor" of the multi-day format but also of the "line 'em up on the floor in rows" way of doing appearance judging.  Both were huge successes.

The only really significant change to the multi day format occurred the following year.  In '77 the top qualifying scores were taken into the top five flyoff.  It was quickly obvious that Al's lead was so great that the flyoff itself was almost anti-climatic.  From 1978 (Bob Whitely's year down in the Lone Star state) on the top five started with a clean slate.

Thanks for the memories, Don.

Ted Fancher

Ted,

That is a great look back. I am proud to call you friend!