Carl Goldberg Radio Controlled Model Airplane Kits

My recent surgery was much more extreme than I was expecting it to be and has made it very difficult for me to try to write posts to the blog.  For the next few weeks I will be unable to maintain a new post every day as I had originally began.  The surgery on my neck was so extreme that I have been unable to sit in a chair by the computer and type.  This has continued far longer than I had anticipated because of severe nerve irritation in the ring finger and little finger on both hands.  This makes it almost impossible for me to type and therefore for the next few weeks don’t expect a new post every day.  I will do the best that I can, however I must have someone else do the typing for me.  Thanks for your patience and understanding.

My very first successful radio controlled model airplane was the famous “Carl Goldberg Falcon 56″.  I’m not sure when this kit  first became available, but I believe it to be somewhere in the 1960’s.  It had several characteristics that made it a very ideal beginners first airplane.  In it’s original design, it was built to be flown as a three channel airplane.  This means that there were three control functions required to control the aircraft.  Throttle, rudder, and elevator control functions were all that was needed to fly this radio controlled model airplane.  Some fliers modified the design by lessening the dihedral and adding strip ailerons to give it four channel performance.  This worked fairly well in some cases because the pilot had the foresight to modify some of the other flight characteristics needed to enhance performance when being used as a four channel aircraft.

    First there was the Junior Falcon, a smaller plane probably around the 36 or 37 inch wingspan. Next came the falcon 56 indeed the most popular trainer of all time which is still being made.   Next in line came  the skylark which was the same size as the Falcon 56,however it was a low wing aircraft designed to fly faster and be more aerobatic.

The last and largest of the Falcons was the Senior Falcon a 60 sized aircraft with about a 73 inch wingspan.  Also an excellent aircraft that was used in a cross country flight from California to South Carolina sometime in the mid 1970s.  That famous radio controlled model airplane now resides in the Smithsonian Institute.  All said and done, the Goldberg  Falcon series of trainers are all excellent, easy to build, and will give you years of flying enjoyment.

If I were going to build my own trainer today, I would build the Falcon Mark III which has several improvements over the original Falcon 56.  It is an excellent flying aircraft, very ruggedly built and slightly smaller than most of the trainers that you see today.  I start thinking about building one and now I’m thinking of doing just that and featuring it in a series of blog entries.  The OldManFlier is back and I hope I am up to more regular posting.  See you next time.