Ted's Aircraft Shop
It All Starts with Modeling, page 2
battery powered models a few inches across to substantial models several feet in dimension. The models and a research paper
won a top prize in the Illinois Science Fair in 1962. The models were so much fun and successful that I decided to build one
big enough to carry me. I was about 15 at the time. Building materials are everywhere on a farm. I only had to make
a design. The first one was made of 2 x 6 lumber and plywood. I bought a 36 inch airboat/iceboat propeller by mail order. I mated the propeller to a McCulloch go-kart engine, 12 horsepower, with two carburetors burning methanol. I built the engine
mount out of metal conduit and plywood. On the very first start of the engine
with propeller attached, my father goaded me into powering up. At first the air cushion vehicle rose off the ground with me
on top. Then everything started to shake and come apart. Within a minute, the machine shook itself to death, the propeller
came off and hit me in the leg, and pieces flew everywhere. I ended up in the emergency room digging jeans and propeller out
of my leg. My father, so supportive before, ordered the whole thing junked and forbid me from building another. But I
am not that timid. Keeping my head down for a few months, I secretly ordered another airboat propeller from Texas
and swore my mother to secrecy. Working in the barn, I redesigned and rebuilt the hovercraft with the engine held much more securely—too securely for good flight characteristics. It flew and held together in one piece. It too won one of the top five awards in the State of Illinois in 1963 and drew much press coverage at the time.
Education, service in the Air Force, starting a career, and building a family kept me away from these pursuits for almost 15 years. Then my brother gave me a complex balsa model of a sailplane. That was all it took. My youngest son, Bradford, age