My pleasure, Doc!
The text file I sent you was for the book on my Caprice. I also have a book underway on the entire story of the Genesis, one on the somewhat shorter story of the Crossfire series of planes, and one that is essentially an autobiography. The bio text is not even half way written and its already a huge file!
I'd be pleased to send out the Caprice text file to any one who might be interested in reading it. One caution: It is a long read, and I certainly am not going to call those who request the book and quiz them on their reading of the "book." In other words, you won't hurt my feelings if you don't read the entire thing... It might actually be good, however, for those who are experiencing insomnia...
As a teaser for the Caprice read, here is the preface to the book:
The story of a model airplane is oft times more than simply a chronicle of how it was built and how it flew. Sometimes there is a saga involved; a recounting of a significant segment of the journey of life for a particular modeler, and the story of the people, places and experiences that formed his or her path towards becoming a lifelong devotee of the art and sport of model building and flying. This is the case with the story of the Caprice.
I had not planned to revisit this design. It was a defining model from my youth and one that greatly helped in carrying me farther down the road to becoming a successful CL Stunt competitor. Until recently, I just remembered it fondly as one small piece of a very large puzzle that I struggled to put together to achieve an ultimate goal. Now I realize that there is no ultimate goal in the sport of Stunt flying, or in any other sport for that matter. Stunt, like everything else in life, is truly a journey, not a destination. The perfect model will never be designed, and the perfect pattern will never be flown.
I came to realize that the days and years in which the Caprice was the focus of my personal journey through the sport of stunt were among the very best I’d known – or would ever know - in almost every respect. I was the most interested then. My senses were constantly piqued to learn and absorb. The modelers who would become the heroes of my life were performing at their best, giving me far more than adequate inspiration. Whatever it is that makes us choose a path in life had convinced me that this was the one that I would surely follow.
As you will read in this book, the thought to build again the Caprice was not my idea. A new friend I had met along the journey’s path convinced me to revive the memory and place it once again on paper so he could reprise it for competition in the Classic Stunt event. Even then I had no thought to actually build another example of it for myself.
I opened the faded folder that contained the cardboard templates that were used to create the shapes of the original model, and as the familiar lines of the design began to connect on the drawing board, waves of nostalgia hit me. Memories that had been absent from my thoughts for many years came rushing back as each element of the Caprice took shape again. Yes, I would send the plan to my friend who wanted so much to build this design, but I decided also to take a step back into my youth and relive the experiences by constructing one of my own.
Unless you have a prescription for a really wonderful pair of rose-colored glasses, a trip like this one might well be wrought with disappointment, and maybe even a little embarrassment. If the model was not everything that I remembered it to be some thirty-nine or so years ago, then the wonderful memories of the people and the events might also be diminished in my thoughts. This, I reasoned, could be a trip I might well regret.
Fortunately, the airplane was not a disappointment. It was a revelation. I’ve often written and spoken of my belief that the smaller CL stunt models are more fun to fly. The first flight on the new Caprice reinforced that thought mightily. I won’t go so far as to suggest that the smaller models fly better than the larger ones, but I will present the argument that if a model is fun to fly, then you might fly it better, and more often, than one that isn’t. A subject better left to another time and document, I guess…
It became very clear to me as this project progressed that there is no way to tell the entire story of a given model in an average length magazine-type article. There the author is constrained to but 3,000 or so (usually less) words. He or she can focus on one or two aspects of the project in detail, or give a general - but extremely abbreviated - overview of the whole project. A telling of the entire story in detail is just not possible. When you throw in the components of how the model came into being in the first place and how it fit into the fabric of the time in which it was originally produced, it’s easy to see that we never really understand or know the whole story of a published model airplane.
I decided to take a new path with the telling of the story of the Caprice. I wanted this document to include every construction detail, certainly, but I also wanted it to capture the feel of an era and convey a large portion of the history of the sport in my local region in a specific timeframe. I needed to fill in the fabric of the history that I knew about, if only to finally fully understand where I came from, and how I got to the place I am now. Yes, writing this book was something I had to do, even if it would never be read by anyone other than me.
It is my sincere hope that you will find the story of the Caprice worthy of the time it takes to read. I further hope that you will gain an insight to the dedication and genius of those who inspired me to build and fly CL stunt models in the first place. More than anything else I wanted to pay great and humble tribute to a few of the greats of our sport and let you see them through the wide eyes of a young man who desperately wanted to become part of this amazing fraternity.
My final hope in writing about a particular model design, in this somewhat different format, is to inspire others who have similar stories to take up the loom and add to the fabric from their own unique perspective. If enough choose to do this, then we will eventually have a rich and complete blanket of stunt history that will live on and inspire others for years to come. – Bob Hunt
Topic: Story by one of my Heroes (Read 724 times)
