Model Pilots Have the Light Stuff : Even a Whisper of Wind Could Wipe Out Gossamer Air Fleet

The model airplanes, so light that they can stick to walls like pieces of dust or fall apart in a gust of wind, are launched with the gentlest touch. They climb in lazy circles at speeds of between 1 and 2 m.p.h., watched from below by people who move with utmost deliberation so as to not disturb the still air.

When one of the models becomes snagged in the overhead lights, two helium-filled balloons are sent up on a fishing line to nudge it back into the air.

The scene, which resembles a slow-motion segment of a movie, is repeated on the second Thursday of each month as members of the Black Sheep Exhibition Squadron gather in the Luther Burbank Junior High School gymnasium to fly their ultra-light model planes.

“They would be too fragile to fly outside,” explains Tony Naccarato, a member of the Burbank-based club. “They would just blow away like a piece of paper.”

Weight of a Penny

“The planes are flying slow, the people are moving slow because they don’t want to disturb the air,” Naccarato says. “If one person did a jumping-jack maneuver, that would probably cause planes to fall out of the sky.”

Many of the models are about the weight of a penny. But the lightest ones, minus the rubber band, would balance the scales against two postage stamps or a match from a matchbook, according to Naccarato, who runs a Burbank hobby shop specializing in model planes. In contrast, the “Penny Plane,” which weighs 3.1 grams, has a wingspan of 18 inches and is 18 inches long, is considered heavy.

The models are usually powered by rubber band-driven propellers, although winged insects, including the common housefly, have successfully motored the craft in flight.

The flies are trapped and kept in refrigerators until they become lethargic. Then their bodies are glued to the models. The craft “will fly around for a minute or two, then you have to go into your ice box to get a new motor,” says Carlo Godel, a club member from North Hollywood.

2 to 24 Hours to Build

Organizers say the event draws 30 to 100 club members ranging in age from 7 to 90, who come to the gym from as far away as Mojave. The hobbyists spend anywhere from two to 24 hours building a model.

The skin for some of the ultra-light planes is made from liquid chemicals, which are spread across water, then lifted up and dried to form a film 15 millionths of an inch thick. Hobbyists then use saliva to glue the film to balsa wood, which serves as the frame, wings and propeller. Some of the models use a heavier skin made of paper.

The models include the Easy B, which has no landing gear and is hand launched; the ROG Stick, which has landing gear; the Manhattan Cabin, a model with an enclosed fuselage, and the Penny Plane.

The Burbank gym is 26 feet high, and some of the “indoor free-flight” models have stayed aloft there for 19 minutes, although that time is still about four minutes short of the record of 23 minutes, 49 seconds for ceilings of that height. The indoor free-flight record is 52 minutes, 14 seconds for rooms with ceilings of 100 feet or more.

When the day’s flying is done, protective boxes are opened to store and transport the craft, “like a delicate soap bubble,” Naccarato says.