"Backwards"

[peabody]

I had lunch with Rich Giacobone Saturday...
Rich flies "backwards", or clockwise....
Flyers that I know that fly clockwise are: Roy Campanella (SP) on the left coast, Jerry Phelps from Ohio, and Bob Gost from CT. Dave Cook flew backwards, too.
Last I spoke with Bob "Mr. U-Reely", he was not flying much.
Are there any active flyers that I may have missed?

Thanks

[James Holford]

It always blows my mind whwn I see him fly in Windy videos.....id be so lost

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

[peabody]

Judging clockwise flyers is tough....
The first time I judged Cook was an OTS event....
Dave allowed as how you could enter the vertical 8 from the top, center or bottom, and that he was going to enter from the middle and go down, making the bottom loop an outside!

Okay.....

Fortunately Dave flew his Tiger 60 Viking into the middle of the vertical 8 as planned, tipped it down and it went STRAIGHT IN, ending my dilemma.

[Jim Hoffman]

Alan Resinger and Roy DeCamara also fly clockwise

[peabody]

That was the Roy I meant.....I knew he had an Irish name

[Mike Haverly]

and, Leo Mehl.

[Dane Martin]

And Bob Heywood

[mike londke]

Paul Smith flies his Perky Speed backwards.

[Jim Kraft]

Lew Wollard fly's either way. But he also fly's counter clockwise with his handle backwards where down is up and up is down. It is fun and confusing to watch him fly and give the handle down and the plane goes up. Weird.

[Dan McEntee]

   Some where along the line in my model aviation history, I have known at least one or two other people who flew clock wise, and I have seen a common thread amongst a few of them, and that was they were raised in Cleveland. It may have been Jerry Phelps that told me this or maybe someone else, but the when these guys were kids, Cleveland had great youth and hobby programs through their parks department, and the guy in charge of the model airplane portion flew clockwise. If you were in his group, that was the way you learned because that was the way he flew. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I might have even read in in Thornburg's "Do You Speak Model Airplane?"
    Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[Tom Niebuhr]

As Bob Hunt said.. Gene Schaeffer. He is the best flyer to never win the Nats. Gene was as good as any person in the world.

I believe Hal DeBolt also flew "backwards". I have been told (but not confirmed) that in the early days of controline clockwise was the way to go.  When I started flying the convention was lefties flew clockwise (backwards)  and righties flew counterclockwise.

[Wayne J. Buran]

   Some where along the line in my model aviation history, I have known at least one or two other people who flew clock wise, and I have seen a common thread amongst a few of them, and that was they were raised in Cleveland. It may have been Jerry Phelps that told me this or maybe someone else, but the when these guys were kids, Cleveland had great youth and hobby programs through their parks department, and the guy in charge of the model airplane portion flew clockwise. If you were in his group, that was the way you learned because that was the way he flew. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I might have even read in in Thornburg's "Do You Speak Model Airplane?"
    Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

Correct except for location. Jerry grew up in the Toledo, Ohio area.
Thanks
Wayne

[Paul Taylor]

I too was bamboozled the first time I saw Rich fly his Stuka bassakwards. It looked strange to me. I am glad I got to fly with him at Brodaks.
I'm glad to hear he is doing better.

[Frank Imbriaco]

Gene was  THE pilot . When he flew, everyone who could stopped to watch. As we all know , the contests back in the 60s and 70s were huge . Our annual UMAC event was an AAA. And he stopped that one ,too.

[Randy Lewis]

Boys Club of Toledo-Wan? taught many to fly clockwise.I purchased planes from Gerald Phelps in the 60,s.If your still there Jerry I am at  zo6driver@hotmail.com--Randy.

[Gary Dowler]

I've never seen anyone fly backwards, but I knew an old flier in the 80's named Chuck Smoot who once showed me a plane he built for clockwise flying. He said it wasn't a big deal to fly that way, just had to remember which way to exit maneuvers!
Gary

[Joe Ed Pederson]

Curiosity is going to kill the cat.  I'm tempted to build a $15.95 Sig 1/2A Skyray and set it up for clockwise flight. 

It would also give me the chance to try to fly left handed (i'm right handed.)  That's assuming the pieces will be big enough to glue back together after trying to fly clockwise with my right hand.

Should be interesting.

Joe Ed Pederson
Cuba, Missouri

[Randy Cuberly]

Another "Backwards" flier worthy of note is Gerry Phelps.  Gerry always made it look easy!  Also, a Nicer Guy never existed!

Randy Cuberly

[Randy Powell]

I learned to fly clockwise (deosil). I went off to college and didn't fly for 8 or 10 years. When I came back, everyone was flying counter-clockwise (widdershins) so I learned to fly that way. Haven't tried flying clockwise is awhile. Don't know if I could, now.

[Brett Buck]

Curiosity is going to kill the cat.  I'm tempted to build a $15.95 Sig 1/2A Skyray and set it up for clockwise flight. 

It would also give me the chance to try to fly left handed (i'm right handed.)  That's assuming the pieces will be big enough to glue back together after trying to fly clockwise with my right hand.

Should be interesting

      I have witnessed such an activity. It didn't end well.

    Brett

[Joe Ed Pederson]

      I have witnessed such an activity. It didn't end well.

    Brett

Brett:
You're probably right.  I commit enough folly as it is.   But it is tempting and if the Skyray survived to be converted back to counterclockwise flight, we've got 8 grandsons and one granddaughter to give it to.     

None of them fly CL yet, but I have finished a 1/2 A Skyray and will start teaching the ones old enough to fly as soon as possible. 
Joe Ed

[richardm]

I fly everything the right way except a Mc Coy 60 vintage speed ship I have flown for giggles at our National Champs a few years ago, handle upside down, no issues ( well with the flying that is)

Great fun

[Larry Renger]

I fly stunt counterclockwise, but set up a Torquette clockwise so that I didn’t need a left hand engine and prop.  To avoid confusion, that model is flown left handed. Since it only requires altitude correction, not stunts, it has worked out well so far. No muscle memory overrides!

You want to see strange hand motion, watch Warren Walker, he flies with up and down reversed. And does a great job of it too!

[L0U CRANE]

 I was a kid (about 17) when the Aldrich pattern happened. Of course, I flew  CCW. For yucks, I decided to try the look and feel of going clockwise. Took off, flipped inverted and tried the pattern. Kept enough sky under the model for a one-mistake-high-glitch to get corrected. Flipped back upright before end of tank. Many flights this way. Sorta got the hang of it shortly, but it wasn't pretty. At that time neither was my CCW-upright pattern.

Maybe I just didn't have to unlearn so many deeply trained reflexes? It was fun, more so when a wrong one-mistake-high-move almost started, but got corrected.

I have judged clockwise fliers. It feels different until about until the turn to inverted in the Rev W/O... Then on, it seemed routine...

When we took a leave from Germany to visit England (for the 1978 CL World Champs at RAF Woodvale. Oh, yeah, and some tourism.) My mind "flipped over" coming down the ramp from the car ferry, to start driving on the left. It was easy, but felt odd. The one time I got confused was when Penny and both kids kept asking how I did it. Distracted me. Local Brits saw our US Forces, Germany, license plates and gave us lots of room...

Back to topic... Anyone mention Hal deBolt as a CW flier? Check the All Americans plans. (Don't recall if his Continental and Lethal Lucy also went that way... (Principle may have been that basic engine torque load would lift the inboard wing; CCW rotation would lift the outboard wing. Not good for the AA-series much longer inboard wings.) I did fly an AA, Sr. with a reverse rotation shaft Fox 35. Engine ran identically to a stock CCW rig. Noted difference - it did NOT need outboard tipweight! Easy takeoffs!

Hal DeB had some ingenious ideas, but overdid many of them. He curved the fuse of his Speedwagon to "match" the curve of the flight circle. It was way too much, but since speed models have NO LACK of pull, it may have reduced the load on the pilot some. His 3" longer inboard panel on the AA, Sr. was about 2.5" too much...

But, they did work...

[Mike Haverly]

Larry Renger wrote,
"You want to see strange hand motion, watch Warren Walker, he flies with up and down reversed. And does a great job of it too!"

There are more, me, Doug Bennedetti and James Johnson.  Those are the only the ones that I know of.  Not a big deal if that's the way you learned.

[frank williams]

Jim Tommerson would fly with up on the bottom and down on the top.  It would make you sea sick to watch his hand while he flew.  Somehow I think he flew backwards also, but I'm not sure I remember that correctly.

[bob whitney]

Bob Palmer also flew  up for down and down for up

[John Watson]

I would assume it's a "left handed" thing...………

[Joe Bowman]

Frank, you remember correctly.  Jim Thommerson did fly CW.  He told me judges complained abut it so he switched the up and down lines and flew CCW.  It was weird watching his hand when he flew.  Boy he sure did fly fast too.

[peabody]

I had one of Phil C's combat planes and tried a Magnum 30 4 stroke on it (pathetic). It had a single wheel
Rich Giacobone was there and said that he would like to fly it.....
I suggested that he turn the handle upside down. He would have none of that "sissy stuff". I said "okay", fired it up. He waved for launch.....the plane hit the pavement about a foot from where I let it go.
Rich allowed as how he would flip the handle....we tried again and this time it must have gone 15-20 feet!

We got him airborn with a hand launch in the clockwise direction.


I do find it difficult to judge clockwise flight

[Doug Stout]

Bob,

Thanks for remembering me and that I would fly with the up line opposite from others.  It worked for me and provided some advantage for certain maneuvers, like the beginning of the reverse wing over, overhead eight, and the beginning and end of the clover leaf.  Disadvantage was the top of the vertical eight and hourglass. 

My Dad taught me to fly CL when I was 8 years old, where he was flying only 1/2As at that time.  We use to fly in the parking lot of a church across the street from our home.  He wanted to keep the fabric lines from getting twisted, so he would picked up the handle to match the lead outs, with up in the back.  Made sense to us.  We flew with the handle parallel to the ground for many years until we progress into the larger models and precision aerobatics.  Once we started to perform aerobatics, we rotated our hand to what felt as a natural position for us at a 45 degree angle.  As a side note, I am a lefty and I tried to initially fly with this hand, but it was a total disaster.  We rebuilt his Baby Flight Streak a few times because of it.  I switched to the right hand and had no problems after that.  Even flew some of my Dad's more challenging 1/2 A models at that time without a problem, such as the full body SE5A biplane that was tail heavy, which we didn't understand at that time.

Doug

[Steve Helmick]

In the NW, Mike Haverly and Jim Johnson both fly with the handle horizontal and essentially have the controls reversed if you pick it up and consider flying their planes. I'm pretty sure that both Mike and Jim are right handed, and I know that Mike got his "style" directly from flying a Firebaby. My Dad flew some sport stunt in the early 50's, but I had to teach myself to fly on 1/2a's in the late 50's. All three of us boys learned to fly CL CCW. No Firebabys were used! Steve

[FLOYD CARTER]

I am a "leftie", but I fly counter-clockwise (upright) .  In the bad old days, many of our planes were underpowered by weak engines. My leftie configuration helped when I had to "whip" a plane when lines got slack, or sometimes, just to get the beast into the air from tall grass!

[john e. holliday]

How many remember the late and great Lew Woolard.   It was fun watching his hand go the opposite direction of the plane as far as control input.  At VSC he flew a replica of an Aldrich Nobler that was set up for CW flight.  He also flew Old Time CCW flight.  He made it look easy.  I think him and the late Mike Tallman could wind fly no matter the plane.  Have the plans for their Slow Combat plane and need to get it built.

[Doug Stout]

Bob,

Thank you for the invite, but I developed a bad allergy to balsa dust when I took up RC Sailplanes in the 1980s.  I do miss you guys and CLPA.  Still have my Apparition (Fox 35, 53 in. 41.5 oz., 1974-1975) and Apparition 2 (ST 46 with Adamisin Muffler, 57 in., 56 oz., 1978-1979) hanging in my workshop.  I flew both of this stunt ships with a rearward CG and 5 in. handle spacing.  My current fun is performing indoors on a national level with my swept forward wing ultra-light single line glider kites of my own design.

Doug

[M Spencer]

Got the leadouts at the wrong end . Focuses the mind marvelously. Like flying over concrete .

[Warren Walker]

The reason I fly upside down is, when I was 10 years old and I got my first PT-19, I had flown a lot with my Dad
in his Navion. I looked at the handle like the yoke, I pulled back and it went up pushed in it went down, the only thing
was, I did it with the bottom end of the handle.

W.W.

[Jim Carter]

Lew Wollard fly's either way. But he also fly's counter clockwise with his handle backwards where down is up and up is down. It is fun and confusing to watch him fly and give the handle down and the plane goes up. Weird.

HEY!!  HEY!!    Don't be no hater!!    Ya' see, I fly with the handle that way .... so it ain't weird .... we're "Gifted"!!   

[Steve Helmick]

Last night had a telecom with a friend who sometimes flies CL on his property, and he divulged that he learned to fly (late '50's) clockwise (Ringmaster Junior with an early Fox .29 stunt), but then took up some interest in Navy Carrier (as well as speed and stunt). So, he had to learn to fly CCW. We figured that it was easy enough for him because he had not yet learned to fly inverted. I happen to think that's the key factor.  Steve 

[Tim Wescott]

Why no picture of canard stunters?  Isn't that at least as much backwards as flying clockwise?

I mean -- there's precedent for them being warbirds and all.

[M Spencer]

One good thing , is you dont need a mower . As the plane leaps AWAY from you as you haul it out of the grass . Not Toward You . 

[john e. holliday]

Here's mine. 

[L0U CRANE]

Not really a 'bump' - topic is still going...

Correction: In my post #24, I accused Hal DeB of designing the Lethal Lucy. Wrong. It was Leon Shulman. As I recall, it had a smallish, thin wing and a long shaft Fox 59.

Guess it flew pretty fast...

By John Miske's "kitted or published" criterion, Lethal Lucy was one of the last to meet the OTS rule - Published December issue, 1952.

[M Spencer]

Either a twin pusher canard , or its flying clockwise . Once it got the 10 x 4 3 blades on the OS 35-Ses , it worked pretty good . Till I left it out in the rain .