An old magazine ad....

[dale gleason]

Carrier pilots are known to lurk around Stunt Hangar and they all have entered this plane at contests all over the country for many years. The model design was introduced by a well-known Stunt flyer some time back, but I've lost his name....

Anyway, I found this ad in a 1926 magazine that my neighbor gave me.

dg

[Steve Berry]

Looks like the old MO-1.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[Trostle]

Carrier pilots are known to lurk around Stunt Hangar and they all have entered this plane at contests all over the country for many years. The model design was introduced by a well-known Stunt flyer some time back, but I've lost his name....

Anyway, I found this ad in a 1926 magazine that my neighbor gave me.

dg

The guy who first foisted this abomination to the CL Carrier community was Charlie Reeves.  Charlie published the construction article for a Class I version in collaboration with Don Gerber in American Aircraft Modeler (date TBD).  Gerber and his son set records with this design in both Class I and Class II.

Keith

[dale gleason]

Was it a rat racer, too?

[Trostle]

Was it a rat racer, too?

I do not think so.  It just looks like a rat racer with old Navy markings.

Keith

[Dan McEntee]

  I got to tour Charlie's shop when at the Paducah contest one year at the Saturday night bean feed and probably saw the original.. I think Charlie still had every model he ever built! A man after my own heart! A genuine gentleman of the South. I hope he's doing OK. I'll have to dig out the article and see if he tells how he ran across the design.
   Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[bill bischoff]

I don't care what anybody says. The MO-1 is the Nobler of Navy Carrier, and it's got the record to prove it!

Bill Bischoff

[Bob Heywood]

MO-1 launch and recovery aboard the U.S.S. Langley (CV-1).

[Trostle]

  I got to tour Charlie's shop when at the Paducah contest one year at the Saturday night bean feed and probably saw the original.. I think Charlie still had every model he ever built! A man after my own heart! A genuine gentleman of the South. I hope he's doing OK. I'll have to dig out the article and see if he tells how he ran across the design.
   Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

Hi Dan, 

This is what Charlie wrote in his AAM article.  (My copy does not show the date of the magazine.)

"While going through the books in a library 400 miles from home, I hound the first bit of information which led to the design of this model.  The book, "Airplanes of the World -- 1490-1962" by Doug Rolfe and, of all people, Bill Winter showed a small drawing of the plane, and gave the information that the MO-1, designed in 1921 as a shipboard observation plane, was the first all-metal plane designed and built in the United States.  The word "shipboard" was all the incentive that I needed.

"During the summer of 1967 I corresponded with the Martin Marietta Corp. and got a photograph o the real plane and a good three-view drawing.  Invaluable was the letter from Martin Marietta verifying the MO-1 as being carrier-based:  "In response to your request for verification of the use of the early Martin-built MO-1, our records indicate that this plane was carrier-based along with bombing and torpedo squadrons of the U.S. Navy in 1924, but was classed as a light-weight scout monoplane."

Charlie went on to explain that Don Gerber got involved and actually developed plans and built one before Charlie did.  Gerber went on to set records in Class I and Class II at the 1968 Olathe Nats with his design.  So that date will start to zero in when the AAM article appeared, probably after late 1968 and sometime in the next year or so.  I would like to find the date to update my file.

(The AMA plans service does not show the publication date for the magazine either.)
Keith

[Dave Hull]

A bit more.....

[Dave Hull]

Here's my "Nobler of the Sea" from a Walter Umland kit. Lots of nice "stuntwood" in it.

[Bob Heywood]

American Aircraft Modeler August 1969

[Steve Berry]

Didn't there used to be a foam wing version of the MO-1? I seem to remember seeing some, likely in pictures in the Model Aviation.

[dale gleason]

All my MO-1s (5) are foamies designed by Bill Bischoff and kitted by the late Ken Smith. I'm guessing 75% of all MO-1s were these kits.


dg

[Phil Spillman]

Hi All, Don Gerber lived in Reading at the same time my wife and i lived there. He was an all out win at all costs guy who loved Carrier. At the time he created the MO -1 I was really into Combat and really couldn't find the time to gravitate to another competitive event. However he and i and my racing partner were all great friends. He pioneered the use of the K & B .40 RR BB in that event. He had a machine to grind his own reverse running props because that way he could coax the last smidgen of speed out of his planes! My partner mixed his fuels for him which were super sophisticated! We measured barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity at every practice session and kept a detailed log of the results! This was for Goodyear Racing! We tried many different lubricants as well as alcohols. Too bad the modern rules outlaw high school chemistry!

In addition to being an excellent modeler Don was an excellent furniture designer and fabricator. For many years he ran the Reading Scientific company. He retired and moved to Florida and took up flying Stunt. I believe he was a close friend of the late Roy Tranthum. Don has past but many of us remember his intense competitive nature. He was a good man.

Phil spillman

[bill bischoff]

I sold lots of plan sets for the foamy profile MO-1, and no telling how many sets of wings Phil Cartier has sold. I'm not sure that Kenn Smith sold that many kits, though. Most were scratch-built. Our Class I and II models were the same size and outline as the profile, other than the fuselage width. They are all still competitive.

BB

[john e. holliday]

I should have had a recorder when you let me spend an afternoon listening to you tell this old man how to build and set up each one.   My profile came out weighing way too much to even try flying it.  Still have a set of cores in the shop.

[wwwarbird]

Here's my "Nobler of the Sea" from a Walter Umland kit. Lots of nice "stuntwood" in it.

 VERY nice example! 

 Too nice to slam onto the deck.

[Dave Hull]

Thanks, Wayne.

I never really intended to build a carrier ship or fly the event. But there was this Umland kit sitting all alone in the hobby shop....

I crashed this one into the ocean (asphalt) pretty badly and it sat in a shopping bag for a year or so. One day I decided to try to clean up a bit and spread the pieces out over the bench. The entire wing center section was shredded; the fuselage was buckled, the glass delaminated, and it had compression failures under the wing; the horizontal was separated, and so on.

So I cut the pieces back to separate assemblies, cut out the damage, and propped up the good pieces on the bench. The wing started with two wingtips and I "grew" a new center section into them. Similar deal with the fuselage.

Anyway, it's all back together and looks about the same as before except I added some more trim for cockpits and so on. Flew it late last year at our last contest and it flies fine. It does need a different plumbing/tank setup because it starves in slow flight before the tank runs dry. That adds more kelp to the large collection already on my tailhook.....

The Divot