Indoor News and Views

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Immediate Stick (an Intermediate Stick by John Kagan)

I built the first two instances of Immediate Stick in the week before the 1996 USIC.  I’m usually a very slow builder, so getting two done in such a short time was quite a feat.  The term “Immediate Stick” popped into my head during one of the construction sessions, and quickly became the permanent name.

The models performed well, but met an untimely demise shortly after the meet.  Some well-meaning folk assisted with packing model boxes into my car, but the change in routine helped me miss the fact that the Immediate Stick box top was not properly secured.  About two blocks down the street from the minidome, I opened my windows to the warm Johnson City air, and was suddenly surrounded by a vortex of model airplane bits.  Moral: politely decline anything that breaks your process, lest you break your airplanes!

I brought a new instance of Immediate Stick to Lakehurst in July to play with while my other models were getting built.  One nice feature is that it uses the same gm/m motors as my F1Ds.  In fact, the initial half-motor flights used an old F1D motor, and the record flight used two old F1D motors tied together.  Immediate Stick is green as well as efficient.

Initial half motor tests of about 22 minutes showed that the record was within reach, and the full motor flight of 47:37 put a healthy margin on Larry Coslick’s old record of 43:47.  The record flight itself was pretty uneventful:  two 7″ F1D motors, 2680 turns in, 35 turns backoff, 7.5 launch torque (Geauga meter), deadstick at 0′, 50.5 yard max altitude.