NC Space Cowboys
District IV
Club 4253
1254 Frankie Coburn Rd Pactolus, NC, 27834
RC History
For decades, RC modelers have enjoyed flying, driving, and water vessels using a device made possible by one man, Nikola Tesla. In 1898, during an exhibition at Madison Square Garden, New York, he used a coherer based radio to control his small craft. The model, a remote controlled boat.
With this modeling marvel, Tesla would mesmerize on lookers by giving verbal commands while controlling the craft remotely. Since then, RC enthusiasts around the world have enjoyed his discovery. Here we will stroll down memories lane and look at RC model history. If you have any history you would like to share, please contact us at: [email protected].
Radioplane OQ-2A
This aircraft played a pivotal role in the success of arial defenses. This thirteen-feet three-inch one-hundred eight-pound remote controlled aircraft with a ceiling of eight-thousand feet and an air time of sixty minutes could fly at ninety miles per hour. It was powered by one O-15-1 2-cylinder, air-cooled, two-cycle of 6 hp. It’s mission, a flying target for anti-aircraft gunners.
Developed in 1935 by the Radioplane Co. in California, the 0Q-2 helped gunners hone their skills in arial defense. The company in 1943 received a contract from the Army Air Corps for one-thousand air targets. During the war the company produced over nine-thousand-four-hundred target aircraft.
Another interesting fact surrounding this historical aircraft and its company is one of its workers. In late 1944, photographer David Conover, was sent by the U.S. Army Air Forces’ First Motion Picture Unit to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers. It was here he discovered Norma Jeane Dougherty working the assembly line. Today we know her as, Marilyn Monroe.
