UP FRONT

By Richard Mandel
Editor in Chief

Short-term and Long-term Design

In April I was back in my old stomping grounds of Southern California, meeting with friends of Designfax and visiting with personal friends. Such a trip provides opportunity for dropping in on my folks, too, so north I motored on State 101 to their retirement community that nestles between Los Angeles and Ventura, between mountain and sea.

Next day, my father and I drove over to Camarillo Airport and the museum of the Commemorative Air Force (formerly Confederate Air Force — a politically-courteous renaming). The collection of artifacts from WW2 is well-presented and well-represented — uniforms, weapons, equipment, personal artifacts and the like. The museum also maintains an excellent reference library of information about the old warbirds. It’s handy, though, having a personal guide with me — Dad was Tech Sgt/top turret gunner on B-17s, and has a long memory about other platforms from that period. The tour also took us into the restoration hanger, where volunteers are not just cleaning up a bit of history to put on display, they’re making history fly again. It’s impressive to look around the bomb bay of a B-25 and see the meticulous care being put into replacing stringers and skins — of course, if it were I looking to catch a ride on one of these aircraft, I’d be careful with my work, too. Another plane being serviced was a Japanese Zero. At this point, the tour guide pointed out how much lighter was the material used in the Zero skeleton, compared to the construction of the American aircraft. The reason for that, he explained, was that the Zero wasn’t expected to see service of more than a few weeks.

So, I suppose that asking for an extended warranty package would have been out of the question.

On a more down-to-earth note, Designfax has entered into its 23rd year — not a cardinal number in anniversary celebrations, but a mature age, nonetheless. We’re taking ourselves into the hanger and making alterations to the magazine that will be first seen in the September issue, which will be why you won’t be seeing the August issue. A few major changes are on their way (though the moustache stays — nobody touches the ’stache), and we want them fine-tuned in time for September’s IMTS show in Chicago. See you soon.