During some emailing last night with Wynn I mentioned this thread and this was his reply about John.

"John Peck was an engineer at IBM as far as I can remember.  I never heard he or Lew McF talk
about him being in the military.  I visited him a couple of times at his home after I really got into the
hobby (probably sometime '64-'67 maybe) and watched him do some work on a plane - very meticulous as you might expect looking at the Barracuda and some others.
        He talked me through my first full stunt pattern at the back of Bluegrass Field Airport in Lex.
when we had two circles there.  I was flying a Magician with an upright Fox 35 (he recommended
that I covert to that for ease in starting, etc.).  Later, he gave me the Barracuda so I would have something good to fly, as at that time I was conducting two swim practices a day in the summer and
going to meets often.
          I think he got into RC toward the end of the '60s.  I always got the feeling that while he was a
better builder than Lew, he could not out fly him and this bugged him."

I met him several times at EAA Airventure as well.  One time working at Kidevenure when I was hot and needed to get out of the sun,  I walked into the museum. and the AC fogged my glasses.  I bumped into him.  I apologized and he made some comments about the Wisconsin heat and humidity and the dry heat of Mojave.  He as at a book signing event.   

He was a complex guy.  Read his books they are interesting. 

Rutan was truly one of my heroes when I was a kid. I built several models of the Voyager. This is a screen capture from a vhs vid of me flying one.

Do you need the most expensive ones? Are you using it every day?
I bought the best one from here and I’m happy with it. Capable of more than my skills.

https://chuckbauman.com/airbrushes-free-airbrush-reviews.htm

Frank,
I think for the MVVS 1.5 would start with a 7x6 wide blade, for the 2.0 something like an 8 1/2x6. For the Irving 20 like a 9x6, the 40's can turn a good prop, wide blade 11x7. The same for the FP convert.

Make sure you have fuel with enough ether in the fuel, the FP Davis Convert can be very sensitive to the  amount of ether. You want to have at least 33% ether to keep temperature control (I have one and with low ether I could not back off the compression to keep steady running).

Best,    DennisT