{"id":3992,"date":"2019-12-30T09:32:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T14:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/blog\/?p=3992"},"modified":"2019-12-30T09:32:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T14:32:56","slug":"can-you-see-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/can-you-see-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You See 2020?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a day or two early, but I think I’ll write about the past year, the past eight years, and the past decade, in general – today.\u00a0 Good-bye to the 2010 decade, and hello to the 2020 decade.<\/p>\n

This year started out like a steamroller that disorganized everything.\u00a0 My business saw record-setting activity – in January through June, five of the six months had their highest monthly totals in both orders and dollars and I actually saw daily averages over four orders per day.\u00a0 Now that might sound wonderful – until you have to fill four orders a day.\u00a0 This is really just a hobby for me – it is not (and will not be) a Hobby Shop in the traditional sense – and a flood of orders set me on my heels for a time – and I am still a bit behind.<\/p>\n

In addition, the weather was really uncooperative and before we knew it, Geneseo in July was upon us, and we had had little outdoor events up until that time.\u00a0 Then it just seemed like contest upon contest until we closed out September in Muncie – before we knew it, the year was over.\u00a0 It seemed like we got little flying done, but that’s just the way it went; and that is the way the decade went, too.\u00a0 I returned to the hobby and started “Volare Products – the Parts Biz” in 2012.\u00a0 It now fills my daily life – more like an obsession than a hobby, I guess.\u00a0 But I like it.<\/p>\n

I bought Superior Props in 2013 (with the generous help of many supporters<\/a>) and it continues to be a success.\u00a0 It has taught me a lot about propellers and, importantly, it has reinvigorated my dad as he really enjoys being back in the machining world.\u00a0 It has kept him active in his later years (he will be 81 next month).\u00a0 Unfortunately, I have had to disable the sales of the Superior Props line again, as he has taken up a new role.\u00a0 It is one that he struggles with physically and emotionally, and while temporary, it will have a permanent impact on our lives.\u00a0 He has had to become full-time caretaker for my mom.\u00a0 She has struggled with severe rheumatoid arthritis all of her adult life and now she is in the late stages of renal cancer that has spread through her body.\u00a0 This was discovered in November and we do not think she will be observing her 81st birthday in May.\u00a0 It will be a trying time for all of us.<\/p>\n

Looking at my records, I have only release eight new kits this year – that is a bit below average, but they have two NoCals, two Embryos, and FOUR Peanuts.\u00a0 I don’t mind saying that the Peanuts are pretty good kits, especially the Corsair and SRE.\u00a0 I do have two large Scale models that could\/should be kitted (24″ Caudron C.460 and Jumbo Aircraft Designs Stallion), but they are complex and the plans need much editing and many annotations.\u00a0 The Caudron is closest to being finished – really, it is ready to package, but I’ve been busy.\u00a0 I also have two Old Timers (2-Bits) that need to be built and flown, then they could be kitted.<\/p>\n

My “to-do” list for 2020 has 16 projects on it.\u00a0 After a flurry of late autumn activity, four of those are finished (and already kitted).\u00a0 But, as I like to say, I “bumped my head” and one project has become an obsession within my greater obsession.\u00a0 A month or so ago, I was talking to Vance Gilbert about my desire to build a “Mega” (54″ span or greater).\u00a0 This is a strictly unofficial FAC event, although any planes can and do qualify for the official events of Giant (48″ span), Jumbo (36″ span) or Scale (between Jumbo and 13″ Peanut) – depending on which events are hosted at the contest.\u00a0 I clearly remember telling him that I wanted to do one, but it would certainly be as simple as possible given the inherent complexity of the largest of rubber-powered models.<\/p>\n

Well, I may have really bumped my head on this one.\u00a0 I quickly went for simplest high-wing monoplane ever to a complex low-wing twin-engined behemoth.\u00a0 I have started drawing up the Caudron C.640.\u00a0 Caudrons of the mid-30s are some of the most streamlined and beautiful airplanes ever and this one may be the epitome of their designs.\u00a0 The C.640 is basically a twice-sized C.460 with two engines instead of one.<\/p>\n

I’ve been steadily working on drawing up a 55″ model.\u00a0 I have got the wings and nacelles just about drawn up to working prototype level.\u00a0 Here is a screen cap of the nacelle design.\u00a0 This model will swing 10″ props – they probably should be bigger, but cheating the nacelles outward would start to change the look of the plane (they were very close to the fuselage on the full-sized plane).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

that rectangle is 24″ wide. and the F1-Motor Peg distance is 15.5″<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyway, I have committed myself to this plane and having it ready for Geneseo in July.\u00a0 It is unlikely many of those remaining twelve 2020 projects will see much work until this is done.\u00a0 Right now, I’ve gotta get back down to the basement and pack up some more orders to keep all of you customers happy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a day or two early, but I think I’ll write about the past year, the past eight years, and the past decade, in general – today.\u00a0 Good-bye to the 2010 decade, and hello to the 2020 decade. This … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-builds","category-customers","category-events","category-products"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}