In 2007 a lady showed up at our contest with her father, William Schwab. This is the only picture in my file, but I KNOW I took others. Mr. Schwab may actually have predated the walker publications and kits with his own CL model and system. He published it in one of the three major American publications, and I read it at the field. He also set a national (Edit) FF record one year. He brought one of his historic models to the field. I will try to find my other material - like photos. This is a scan made of one of the photos I took. Mr. Schwab built some very nice models, and when he died, we received some of them to support the club - 'had them at the field for our annual contest. For now, here is a picture of a real CL pioneer.
Edit: I found the October/2007 NCCL club newsletter. This is what I said then in my editor's column:
"One of the real highlights of any contest for me came off the flying circles. During the morning flights, a nice lady and her father placed two seats in the shade at the edge of our scoring tent. I noted that she was quite enthusiastic and, in addition to reminiscing, asked him many questions, keeping up a lively discussion. When I had a break in scoring, I walked over, took a couple pictures, and introduced myself. As Phil has noted elsewhere in this newsletter, I learned that he is Mr. William Schwab and is 90 years old. I forget how his daughter learned of our contest, but she said that she just knew that he would love to attend and arranged this outing.
"It turned out that Mr. Schwab, a charming and personable man, is a true pioneer of U-Control modeling and flight. He and his daughter showed me a 1941 M.A.N. article he authored entitled "Controlled Lightning", detailing his U-control plane of that name and his methods of
construction and flying it. Diagrams showed a vertical beam pivoted on a horizontal one, functioning as our modern 2-line handles, and a
second lever for a third-line (spring loaded) throttle control that retarded the spark. He still owns his original Class-C model, although the article was about a later Class-A plane ('hope I don't have these reversed). He told me that he used to fly "at the Clark Ave. bridge in the
flats." He had worked for 36 years for NASA (and presumably NACA) on nuclear-power devices (incl. reactor cores) at Lewis Research Center and Plumb Brook (Sandusky). I learned further that Mr. Schwab had owned the class C FF world record, which he set with a Playboy Sr.
"Looking through Charles Mackey's book, Pioneers of Control Line Flying, I don't see him mentioned. There was apparently some controlled tethered flying as early as 1925, but Mr. Mackey seems to feel that Oba St. Clair deserves status as the originator in 1937, and that Jim Walker talked to him in 1938. Mr. Schwab said that he knew Jim Walker, first having met him when Mr. Walker demonstrated UC at the stadium. He remarked that Jim Walker asked him whether he wanted to try flying UC, and he accepted the opportunity, not telling Jim that he'd been doing it for a couple years already. I didn't think to ask him when he first flew UC and whether he thought of it independently. I suspect that he did." - SK
Topic: Vintage Control Line (Read 2371 times)