Page 20 - MFW June 2025

sharing among a group
of modellers evolved
so that no one member
needed to splash the
cash for them all,
anything that was
worthwhile was copied
any shared freely.

My work colleague and
I utilized considerably Rx’s, testing equipment etc., the downside was that at the
more employer time time our money was worth more than the American dollar
and resources in R/C however Ace R/C screwed us blind on the exchange rate
r e l a t e d a c t i v i t y, however they were a very reliable company & we dealt
copying publications with them for a large number of years.
etc. than was wise and certainly should not be
encouraged but times were simpler & tasks were Having Built an Ace
accomplished without todays huge budgets & the Silver Seven Tx, a
requisite management structure, targets were achieved number of Ace silver
and everybody seemed to be largely in step. seven Rx’s, a Microtrol
system, a Micron Tx
One of the benefits of our place of employment was a assisted with the build
surplus of land & without a great deal of effort we were & setup of an RCM
able to fly a small model in the then undeveloped areas of Royal Classic & various
land after work without disturbing anybody of note. o t h e r m a g a z i n e
Moving on I was eager to both increase my R/C derived R/C related
knowledge & build up resources, at that time it was quite projects I was now
common to have one set of gear and transfer your definitely an “expert”
airborne pack between models so that an obvious goal and started tuning and
was another airborne pack or two, judging from where we repairing equipment for
are today these do seem quite modest goals but at the others.
time were seen as a major advancement.
At that time there was a significant movement in the
Once again perusing the States toward 1/2A modelling, possibly driven by the
modelling press bought to emergence of for the day lightweight and small airborne
l i g h t a c o m p a n y i n equipment, 1/2A for those unaware was small models
M i s s o u r i U S A t h a t powered generally by Cox 049 glow motors, as well as
specialised in kitset s of being a kit builders mecca Ace also championed 1/2A
almost anything one aircraft kits of all descriptions designed by many well
could possibly imagine in respected names of the time.
the R/C world, a request
f o r t h e i r e x t e n s i v e With a Cox 049 and two channel control a small but lively
catalogue along with the pattern ship, trainer, scale model or powered glider could
requisite payment meant be cheaply built and flown, generally any copies of larger
weeks of careful study craft had enhanced wing area and increased moments to
when it finally arrived, as aid in carrying the weight of equipment needed, my flying
mentioned throughout buddy flew with great success a small pattern ship with a
this article our country dieselised cox 049 for a number of years in this way even
had very strict currency managing to lose it for a
rules & required the use number of months in a
of postal notes and this b e l t o f t r e e s t h a t
did tend to frustrate the bordered our workplace.
more adventurous , being
somewhat young & brave Faltering Steps
we carefully wrapped our Around this time it was
local money in carbon discovered that the
paper which was at the Futaba brand of now
t i m e t o u t e d a s t h e r e s p e c t e d R / C
guaranteed method used equipment was imported
to avoid detection by the by a quite well known
authorities, whether this firm called AWA or
worked or nobody was amalgamated wireless
actually checking one would never know but over a Australasia Ltd and by a
period of time we did bring in quite an array of servo’s happy coincidence they
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