Here's the last one for tonight.
This one is difficult for me, as the man pictured here was one of my very long time friends. Vic Macaluso passed away a couple of years ago, and I still cannot fathom that. He was a vital and athletic guy who loved to water ski, build model airplanes and model boats, fly RC gliders, and generally keep himself busy doing all sorts of creative things. He was an author for me when I was the Editor of Flying Models magazine, producing a ton of product review articles, how-to articles, and he authored the model boating column for several years as well. He bailed me out on numerous occasions when I needed to fill a few pages in the magazine. I wondered if he ever slept.
Vic was a fast rising star on the East Coast CL Stunt scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s, producing a number of spectacular semi-scale models, including his original Crusader. Vic's first Crusader was built in just eight weeks, and it featured an anhedral wing with large drop tanks attached, lots of surface relief detailing, and a spectacular finish. And, it flew great, too!
In fact, Vic won a number of East Coast meets in 1970 with the first Crusader against very stiff competition. None of us on that circuit thought that the Crusader would be a success with all the unusual design features. Boy were we wrong. Vic went on the design a very scale-like F-14 Tomcat, and that few well also. It was Vic's influence that made me decided to build my F-105 Thunderchief.
Vic's love of RC Scale took over for many years, and he produced a large number of museum quality models that usually won the static competitions at the major trade shows. Very often he'd win in both the RC Scale Airplane category and the RC Scale Boat category at those shows. He was a dynamo.
Around 1993 he decided to return to Cl competition, and built a beautiful version of Randy Smith's SV-11. He followed that with updated versions of his Crusader and his Tomcat, and both were published in Flying Models magazine.
We traveled together a bit to trade shows (Toledo), and to CL contests out of the area, and then his interests returned to RC Scale, where his heart really was... I thought he'd go on forever.
So this last photo for the day is dedicated to that human dynamo and great guy, Victa'!
Godspeed, Vic, and please do not use up all the good balsa in heaven - Bob