Editor's Notebook

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
­ Mark Twain

Keep the fires burning in hot stove season

By John Thompson

November 2007

There is one good thing about winter. Sometimes the weather is so lousy we can't fly. That means we have more time to build.

It seems that during the nice weather, we're so busy flying -- and doing maintenance on the planes we're flying -- that we don't get much chance to work on real building. This may be even worse for us in the Northwest, where we actually can fly all year round ... it's just a matter of adding a layer or two of clothing!

But even here, the winter means more time in the shop. Here at FL HQ, we've sort of taken the year off from "serious" building projects, having devoted our time more to goofball sport flying projects (the Evil Twin), and maintenance of planes that have had hard use (two racers, combat planes, etc.) Pretty soon I will grind the paint off the bubbly Ares fillets and redo those. Right now I am finishing up a little Musciano 1/2-A plane I built as as a "finishing practice" subject. (What I have learned so far: Gold paint does not cover, once you thin it enough to spray. I probably won't use that on my next stunter. I had planned UW Husky colors. Well, it will have to be purple and yellow, not purple and gold.)

In baseball, they call this time of the year the "hot stove season." You sit around the stove and talk about baseball, because you can't go out and play it. Same for us in CL modeling, to an extent. And the hot stove season also has an implication for the Flying Lines web site.

We try to operate FL as a year-round news service. April through October, the "news" is heavy on contest reports and related matters. Now it's winter, and the "news" is more about building and planning for the coming year.

Our goal is to add something to the FL web site several times a week, so that every time a reader calls up flyinglines.org, he or she finds something new. This time of year, what we try to offer is a steady menu of new technical articles: Building and flying how-to tips.

That's where you come in. As stated in previous columns, FL belongs to all Northwest CL enthusiasts. I gather up the information and put it on the web, but the FL "staff" is all of us.

Everyone, whether beginner or expert, has something to contribute to the general CL knowledge. If you keep it in mind as you're at work in the shop, ideas for articles will leap to mind.

If you're an expert builder, you do things routinely that many of us haven't even thought of. As you're building, be on the lookout for clever techniques you like to use. Think about the things you've seen the rest of us have problems with. These are the subjects of articles you can write for FL that will enhance everyone's general enjoyment of the hobby. Same goes for flying: Share your knowledge of how to improve your stunt pattern, sharpen your combat moves, take seconds off a racing heat, make a better carrier landing, get in the speed pylon more smoothly -- see how the ideas generate?

If you're newer to the hobby, you also have something to contribute. You're learning all the time and trying new things. Some of these will be useful for other novices, and you can even teach the experts a trick or two. It can be a small detail or a big thing. Send it to the FL editor, and we'll make an article about it.

The options are almost limitless. You can write a technical article, complete with photos (See Buzz Wilson's article on how to convert an O.S. Max 25 FP for CL use). You can contribute small items for Shop Tips or Field Tips. You can start a regular column. See some examples in the Regular Columns section. Or maybe you can think up a new feature that nobody else has conceived yet. It all adds to the general CL knowledge base.

One of the great things about the Web format, as opposed to the newsletter of old, is that every article remains online and available for viewing by new visitors to the web site, or longtime readers just browsing, or checking back to review what they've read before.

OK, have we convinced you to join in and contribute some of your knowledge to Flying Lines? I hope so! If so, read on for some additional information that will make your contributions look good on the web site -- and will make the editor's job a little easier.

Guidelines for submission of articles to Flying Lines

• Submit your article to the editor via e-mail. We can also accept material on CD.
• Text: The written part of the article can be simply the text of an e-mail, or as an attached document. If you send an attached document, first choice is an AppleWorks file. We can also accept a Word document and some other formats.
• Formatting: Since your article will be converted into html for posting on the web, the formatting you use in your text will be mainly advisory; we will make it as close to what you submitted as possible, but it may not look exactly the same. Less complicated is easier!
• Photos and graphics: Send photos and graphics (drawings, etc.) as jpg or gif files. Attach these to your e-mail. Do not embed graphics and photos in your text. Just put in a line saying "Photo of xxx goes here" where the item should go.
• Tabular material: The antiquated software used by your editor to create FL web pages does not handle tab stops and tables very well. Avoid using these if possible.
• Flyers and other downloads: If you are including a document that you intend to be linked for download, such as a contest flyer, send it in PDF form. If you are using a Windows computer, there is a "save as" option for converting documents to pdf. If you are a Mac user, it's a button option in the print dialog box.
• Style: Every publication has its own "style." This is the general look of articles, as well as details of writing. Style is a publication's effort to be consistent and predictable for readers. FL's style is pretty loose, but we do try to make the articles look roughly the same, and we try to prevent a semi-professional image to the world. Please take a look at the articles already on the web site and try to follow the general format. For example, you will see that we refer to Control-Line and CL, not U-control or UC. You'll see that we have a certain way of listing contest results. Certain words are spelled a certain way. "Bellcrank," not "bel-crank." An ellipsis is three dots (...) not 10 (..........). You get the idea.
• Pre-editing: Once you've written an article, please go back and read it. Run your spell-checker. Correct your punctuation. Take out random line breaks, odd capitalizations, extra spaces, etc. Send it to FL as clean as possible. All of this saves your unpaid editor a lot of time he'd rather spend in the workshop.
• Taste: Bear in mind that FL articles are posted on the world wide web, and that is literally true. Anyone in the world with a computer, including children, can read your article. Keep it clean, try to be fair and accurate, and do not include personal attacks or insults. Of course, humor is welcome; just use some good judgment.
• Relevance: Please keep all articles on the subject of control-line model aviation.

--jt

Back to Editor's Notebook main page

Flying Lines home page

This page was updated Nov. 17, 2007