The Classic plane of the moment #1

Jim Kostecky and his series of designs:

One of CL Stunt’s most colorful, creative, talented and humorous characters was Jim Kostecky. I first met Jim at the 1969 Nats in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Before I had the pleasure of meeting Jim I had read his articles in Flying Models magazine. Specifically I read the articles on the Talon and the Formula S, with which Jim placed second at the 1968 Nats.

Sometimes when you read a person’s articles you get a sense of who he really is and then when you meet him you are disappointed to find that the actual person is much different than you had expected him to be. Well, this was not the case with Jim. He was just as engaging, warm and friendly as his etchings had suggested he would be. In fact, he was a bit of a nut case… in a good way of course. The instant I first met Jim I felt as if I had known him for years. He became an immediate friend and that friendship became closer over the years until his untimely passing.

Stunt lore is filled with the stories of the more colorful fliers, but there just has to be a special chapter devoted to the wacky antics of one Jim Kostecky. I’d like to invite those of you who are reading this who knew Jim to send in your stories about him. I know that Bob Gialdini, Dave Gierke and Greg Zajak could relate quite a few… There is a story about how Jim thought Bob Gialdini’s Eclipse resembled a large white bird. Every time Bob would set the Eclipse down on in the pit area at the 1965 Nats and leave it unattended for even a few moments, Jim would sneak up and place an egg under the model. Jim had someone distract Bob each time so that he could position the egg without having Bob catch him. Someone finally told Bob who was doing it and then Jim found one of the eggs broken all over the tools in the top of his field box. It was this type of zany behavior that endeared Jim to all.
   
Perhaps the fact that Jim was such a character, keeping everyone on their toes with his insanely bizarre antics around the competition circles, has overshadowed the fact that he was one of the most gifted designers and builders of all time and also one of the very best fliers of his era. Certainly Jim could be added very high on the “Best pilots who never won a Nats” list.

Jim’s Talon design, which was published as a construction feature in the December 1966 issue of FM was a very futuristic looking and rakish design with lots of jet fighter-like styling cues. The wing was an I-Beam type, but made with full depth ribs instead of the more traditional strip ribs. There were lots of focal points on the model. It had a swept-back fin and rudder and the top of the fin and the tips of the stabilizer/elevator assembly were fitted with what can best be described as pitot tubes. They looked great, but Jim confided in me that he was constantly catching his sleeves on them. The model also featured pseudo jet intakes on either side of the fuselage at the wing joint, long, sleek wheel pants, raked-forward wing tips, and a fully detailed cockpit which was covered by a long, sleek canopy. All this was topped off by a subtle pastel mint-green paint job which featured lots of trim detail. Taken in all at once it was a breathtaking thing of beauty. Note that one of Jim's Talons was painted metallic blue. I'm not sure which came first, the green one or the blue one.

One of Jim’s flying buddies was the legendary designer, builder, finisher and flier, Dave Gierke. Dave was working on a design series at that time that incorporated many of the same styling cues as did Jim’s models. (The jury is out on who started the design trend…) Dave’s NOVI series included four distinct models. Most of these also featured the I-Beam wing construction that used full-depth ribs. The notable exception to this was his NOVI Four which was built using a D-tube elliptical wing. I want to save any in-depth discussion of the four NOVI models for a future column just about Dave’s many contributions. Suffice to say that they had great influence on each other’s design work and certainly on the “Stunt World” in general for many years. Even today their models look modern and contemporary when placed next to the current crop of designs.

Jim had some modest success with the Talon, but it was his next design that really put him on the map. His Formula S was an extremely good flying model and one that influenced several other legendary designs as well.

Like the Talon, the Formula S had rakish jet-like styling with a swept fin and rudder (Yes, he kept the little pitot tube-like protrusions on the fin and the stabilizer and elevator), the jet-like intakes on the fuselage sides and the swept forward wing tips. The big changes on the Formula S were the substitution of a D-Tube wing in place of the I-Beam wing construction, tricycle landing gear with a very pronounced forward sweep from its mounting position in the aft third of the wing, and a very aggressive paint job in red, white and black. It was stunning, and it flew great! With this design Jim almost won the whole shooting match at the 1968 Nats, coming up just short of Bob Gieseke. That second would be the highest Nats placing for Jim.

Jim had other designs as well. He flew his Cutlass design at the 1961 Nats in the Senior class, and finished in fifth place. That model was reprised by Jim in the early 1990s, and he even competed with it at one of the early Brodak Fly-Ins. Plans for that model are still available from the PAMPA Plans service. Plans for the Talon and the Formula S are available from the Flying Models Plans service. (https://store.flying-models.com/catalog/). Another Jim Kostecky design was the America, which he flew to a fine third pave finish at the 1969 Nats, placing just behind Al Rabe who was second, and Bob Lampione who won the event that year.

Jim was an art teacher in the Lancaster New York area, and his talent in that area is evident in the color schemes and graphic art pieces on his models. Jim was of Ukrainian decent, and he worked up a great little logo that was on the wings of many of his competition models. It declared Jim as the “Ultimate Ukrainian.”

Free Flight, and especially Free Flight Scale, were also passions for Jim. I published several of his Free Flight designs when I was the Editor of Flying Models magazine in the 1980s.
Walter J. “Jim” Kostecky passed away on October 7, 2001. I was honored to have been asked to be one of the speakers at Jim’s memorial service. There were more than a hundred people in attendance that day, a tribute to Jim’s character. He was loved and admired so many from so many different walks of life. I’ll always think of Jim as both a friend and a mentor.
- Bob Hunt

 

And here are some drawings that Jim gave me that depict some of the trim schemes he was developing.

Bob

Thanks Bob for sharing.  Please continue.  Can't wait until the next installment.

Hi Mike:

Yes, you are correct; Jim's planes were in the 600 to 620 square inch range. I know that the Formula S and the America were powered by McCoy 40 engines. I'm not certain of the engine used in the Talon, but I suspect that it also was a McCoy 40. I'll check with Dave Gierke about that.

Later - Bob

Classic plane of the moment #2 - Gene Schaffer’s pre-1970 designs


It is no secret that Gene Schaffer is one of my all time heroes, and it is also no secret that I strived early on (and to a degree even now) to emulate Gene’s taste in airplane styling. But, even though Gene designed and built a lot of models in the Classic era, he didn’t actually draw them up into plans from which others could build his designs. Back in those days on the East Coast it was accepted practice to just “build on the wood.” In other words we just measured out the positions of the wing and tail and the engine mounts on the fuse sides and began building. The styling of our models came from the shaping of the top and bottom blocks and the shaping of the wing tips, tail and rudder tips, and the shaping of the wheel spats or wheel pants.  We all used basically the same wing design. It was a wing that was just slightly thicker than the stock Nobler, and just a bit wider in chord as well. It became known as the “Super Wing,” and many East Coast models featured it, including my Caprice design and later on my Genesis 35 design.

Gene liked the low-slug look of the Charles Mackey-designed Lark, and so most of his early models featured a Lark-like fuselage shape. Even before the Super Wing came into being, Gene would stretch Lark looks onto a Nobler wing to achieve that look he was after.

By the late 1960s, Gene had honed his designing skills to produce models that were distinctively his. The one that really caught my eye was a model he built in 1966 for the 1967 season. It had the low slung look he was famous for, and it was painted black with minimal red and gold trim. In those days Gene rarely named his models, although he did have one that he called the Genie. Gene’s all business design for 1967 did not have a name, but those of us who flew with Gene decided to call it the Blackbird, and it stuck, even though Gene never did call it that himself.

Gene flew the Blackbird throughout the 1967 and 1968 seasons and then designed a new model for the 1969 season. That model did not pan out for Gene, and he decided at the eleventh hour to refinish the aging “Blackbird” for use at the 1969 Nats. He decided to make it a very flamboyant candy orange. He used some orange dye in the clear that went over the gold base for the candy paint job, but when he took it out into the sun he found that there was some sort of reaction and at certain angles the plane appeared a sickly green! (Note: I had the same problem with my candy red Nobler!)

The Nats was only a few days away, and Gene went into panic mode with yet another refinish. This time he painted the plane black again, and then painted a white band around the perimeter of the wing and the tail assembly. He masked off the white from the black, and then dipped a piece of course steel wool into orange paint and dabbed the orange onto the black. Then he taped off the black area of the model and dipped a piece of steel wool into black paint and dabbed it onto the white bands on the wing and tail. After the plane was cleared and polished it looked like a piece of marble! (The famed Boeing artist and cartoonist, Don Shultz suggested that it looked like a bus depot floor…) Some loved the effect (I know I did), and some hated it, but the result was that Gene got the plane refinished in time for the Nats. The appearance judge at that Nats apparently agreed with Don Shultz about the look of the model because it did not receive a lot of “pretty points.” And, Gene failed to qualify that year for the finals.

The Blackbird was the template from which I designed the Caprice. In fact, the Caprice is nothing more than a Blackbird with different tip, cowl and spat shapes. I wrote that entire story in my Caprice book that is on the Library section of this forum.

Even though there were no formal plans drawn for the Blackbird, we do know all the vital dimensions, so I feel very confident in saying that a Blackbird that is in all respects Classic Legal can be built now using the Caprice plans with just modifications to the tip shapes. And, in fact several have done just that, with the most notable examples being the ones built by Warren Tiahrt and our departed friend, Don McClave.

The only other Gene Schaffer design that is Classic Legal and fully verifiable is the Oosa Amma. At the 1969 Nats Gene saw, and was very impressed by Dave Gierke’s Novi Four design. Upon returning home from that Nats Gene started building what is essentially the first Stunt Machine. This one was rather large for a .35 powered model at 620 square inches of wing area, but Gene put in an OS Max 35 anyway. The ship weighed in at 52 ounces, and that was fairly light for its size. The Max 35 proved to be plenty of power for the sleek ship. This was Gene’s first twin rudder model, and it featured rakishly canted in wing gear, a very thin aft fuselage profile - just like Dave Gierke’s Novi Four - and a forward placed cockpit, also like the Novi Four. Even the paint scheme seemed to be “borrowed” from the Novi.

Gene showed up with his new design at the early 1970 Garden State Circle Burners stunt meet and set it on the ground. It drew a crowd… Then Bill Simons asked Gene what the name “Oosa Amma” meant. Gene, looking a bit perplexed, said that the model didn’t have a name. Bill Simons pointed out the large USA emblazoned on the left wing, and the equally large AMA painted on the right wing and said, “Sure it does; USA AMA, Oosa Amma!” Well that drew a big laugh from the guys, but not Gene. He didn’t like that name, but it was too late; the name stuck and it would be known forevermore on the East Coast Stunt scene as the Oosa Amma. Eventually even Gene began calling it the Oosa Amma.

You might be wondering why I refer to this model as the “first Stunt Machine.” When Gene designed his next model, the famed Flying Models Editor, Don McGovern asked Gene if he could publish it. Gene was all in on that, but Don said that the model had to have a name in order to appear in the magazine. Gene didn’t have a name for it, so Don suggested “Stunt Machine.” That was fine by Gene. In fact, that model had a large USA on the left wing and a large FAI on the right wing. Predictably, Bill Simons nicknamed that one Oosa Fai… Gene liked the way the Oosa Amma flew, and credited the twin rudders with much of that performance, so he used the twin rudders on the new plane (which was quite a bit smaller than the Oosa Amma). The thought to refer to the Oosa Amma as the Stunt Machine I was my idea, but it does serve to distinguish between the two models.

Interesting note: The Oosa Amma was first flown in 1970, and Gene used it at the 1970 Nats in Glenview. Some might argue that the Oosa Amma does not qualify for Classic competition because it was not flown prior to the end of 1969. And that would have been true if the original proposal for the cutoff date for Classic models (Midnight December 31, 1969) had been voted on by PAMPA in its actual original form which read “…designed, built, and flown” prior to the deadline. And I should know because I was the one who submitted that proposal. But, somewhere in translation from my proposal to what was presented for a vote the wording was slightly changed to read, “…designed, built, OR flown.” It was the change from “and” to “or” that made the Oosa Amma legal for Classic competition, and I guess also legal for Nostalgia 30. It was what I like to call a “cusp” airplane. Gene had designed, and started to build the Oosa Amma in 1969, and according to the rule that was put in place, it was - and is -  indeed legal for Classic events.

Several years ago I decided to build an Oosa Amma for use at the Vintage Stunt Championships. No plan existed for that model, but Gene had given that ship to Ray Moore - one of the Flushing Meadows field gang. Ray passed away, but his wife, Andrea Moore had kept the plane. Bob Lampione and Jose Modesto arranged for me to borrow the Oosa Amma from Andrea, with a solemn promise to be careful with it and return it when I was finished measuring it and drawing plans for it.

I spent a lot of time doing very careful measurements of the Oosa Amma, and I’m confident that the plans I drew up - and were eventually published along with a construction article in Stunt News - were extremely accurate to the original plane. And, yes, I did faithfully return the plane to Andrea.

My Oosa Amma proved to be an excellent flying plane and I flew it in both Classic and Expert Stunt events at contests. I converted mine from glow to electric power.

The photos that are attached here and in the next couple of posts show the progression of Gene’s designs. The first - and earliest - of these photos show Gene and a group of notable East Coast fliers at a GSCB Snow Bird contest in the early 1960s. In that photo are (left to right) Bill Simons, Gene Schaffer, Moses Quintana, John D’Ottavio, Eddie Elasic, and Tom Niebuhr. Note the similarities of Gene’s Genie to Charles Mackey’s Lark.

The second photo is of Gene and the Genie at that same Snow Bird meet.

The third and fourth photos show the Blackbird in its original trim scheme and also at the 1969 Nats with the “marble”paint scheme.

Later - Bob Hunt

Here are a couple of photos of the Oosa Amma that I built as a tribute to Gene.

Later - Bob

Great series Bob!  Thanks for taking the time to share the history.

Tim

For no reason other than I think it's cool.  It's probably too small, if you built it with 1959 methods it'd be too flexible, and there's just not enough room behind the wing trailing edge to make working on the control system easy.  But -- it's cool.

No, I haven't built one -- I just want to.

Temco TT-1 by JE Wells, May 1959 FM.  Looks like it should be OK aerodynamically (the tail's a bit short), but you'd probably want that tail boom to have some strategically-placed carbon fiber, and you'd want to think hard about how to make a strong, rigid fuselage.  Or just build it with 1959 sensibilities and accept that it'll wiggle and crack.

Hi Tim:

I think that a lot of us looked at that Temco TT-1 and wanted to build one. It was certainly one of those character-filled designs from that amazing era. It probably wasn't one of the best flying models ever built in that era, but who knows...

Later - Bob 

Ah yes, balsa life rafts.  I got hold of one while stationed in San Diego circa 1976 or so. Terrible balsa, mostly glued together blocks. Had to toss it all. 

What you tossed is probably better than anything you can find in today's LHS, assuming you have one!

Ken