Hi Chuck:
What you are looking at there is Dave Rees' F-5 Freedom Fighter. It was painted up in the "Demonstrator" scheme. The Northrop Aircraft Company sent an F-5 around the world as a demonstrator ship to woo potential buyers. There is a flag painted on each side of the fuselage to indicate each country it visited. Dave HAND PAINTED each and every one of those flags on each side of his F-5 stunters fuse as well!
Here’s the story, and it’s a sad one…
Dave’s T-38 Talon was published in Flying Models. It appeared there in the April issue of 1974 (Plan number CF-329). I was fortunate to be perhaps the only person to fly that T-38 other than Dave. It flew very well, as Dave was an excellent builder (Sadly, Dave passed away a short while back…). He followed up this success with an F-5 variant on that basic fuselage and wing theme. It was finished and ready for the Nats in Lake Charles, but I’m very sure it was the 1975 Nats, not the 1974 contest.
He drove down to the Nats that year with Fred Miles (Freddy also passed away about two years ago. Another great loss…). When they arrived they were exhausted from driving, but decided to go straight to the field and practice fly anyway. When Dave placed his spectacular ship on the tarmac, we all gathered around to admire it. Trust me when I tell you that this ship would have easily walked away with top appearance points that year but for what happened next.
Dave started to practice fly and just simply got behind the ship in a maneuver and crashed it hard into the pavement. It was totaled! Dave was devastated. He cleaned up the pieces and then just started to walk off by himself. He was heading down the huge concrete tie-down pad that we were flying on, and he just kept going. We didn’t see Dave for several hours after that and were starting to get a bit concerned about him. He showed up later that afternoon at the stunt practice circles and looked almost, well, happy!
We asked him where he had been and that we were worried about him. He said that he just needed some time to himself and took a walk. He told us that he walked to the end of the tie down pad and there in a field adjacent to the pad there were a bunch of free flight guys flying Peanut Scale models in competition. Dave became enthralled by the diminutive gems and started asking questions about how to get involved with that area of the hobby/sport.
Well, the rest is history, as they say. Dave went on to become one of the most successful Free Flight Scale modelers of all time. He won several Nats crowns in various FF scale events and was the Grand Champion of the Flying Aces Nats on several occasions as well. He had a large number of FF Scale models published in modeling magazines and even bought out Don Srull’s HiLine Models company and began producing a myriad of products for that community.
Dave did return to the Nats to fly CL Stunt one more time. In 1976 he flew his original design Dazzler 40 in Dayton at the Nats, and made it through the contest successfully. Dave was never a threat for the win in CL Stunt, but he was one fabulous gentleman and a craftsman supreme. He always kept a love for the CL models, but his main focus was FF Scale after the 1975 Nats experience.
Dave was a very close friend and I was honored to have been invited to go to his home some years later (around 1997) and video tape a program about Small Electric Flying Models. I still offer that DVD program for anyone who might be interested in seeing some of the magnificent models that Dave built. There’s a lot of flight footage on that DVD, and you can see the joy in Dave’s face when he launches his handiwork into the sky.
I am posting a couple of photos of Dave’s Dazzler, his T-38, and his F-5 here. Fair skies, light wind and thermals, Dave…
Bob Hunt
Topic: Identify This Ship Circa 1974 (Read 3271 times)
