[RCSE] First Plane

[Tom H. Nagel]

About ten years ago my wife knoew I was interested in RC planes, but had never tried it.  So she got me a .40 size RC trainer for Christmas, some sort of Goldberg kit.   No engine, no radio, no monokote--just a box of balsa.      I never really wanted to fly gas power, so I took the kit back to the hobby shop and swapped it for the only glider they had in stock, a Goldberg Sophisticated Lady, and used the money left over toward some Monokote.       The SL was what I learned to build and fly with.   That may explain some things about my building and flying.   The plane acquired its own name, too:   The Crunchbird.       (Crunchbird, my ass!   ---for those of you who remember that joke.)       After I met Chuck Anderson at the NATS early on, I added winglets.    After I met a winch, I started added shear webs to the wing structure.       I still have it, and have been using the 2M wings, complete with winglets, on my Miss 2 fuselage for long, gawky thermal flights.