Another jewel found in the AAHS Journal (Spring 1968), the Argentinian Gresci (or Greschi, or perhaps even Grescci) helicopter imposes its towering beauty upon the unwashed modeling masses.
Only two photos can be found in the Journal, of the blurry/grainy quality type, but hey, better than nothing. I found nada
on other sources on this very obscure subject, including the ever-providing
Internet.
Mr Gresci, as stated in the Journal, also designed the 50 hp
rotary engine that was supposed to propel the artifact, but apparently choked
and died in the valiant attempt of performing its duty.
Now, you will see rotor blades, wings, sponson-like
elements, a kiosk… You may see Frankenstein. I see Beauty.
Apocryphal statements that affirm that the Kiosk was used to
sell ice-cream, or that the whole concoction was indeed a “Calesita”
(Merry-go-round) must be dismissed.
It is not obvious in the photos how would you access the
apparatus, but I think that you just simply put it on, like a hat. Or perhaps
you used the oval windows. Or perhaps the door was in the other side of the
photo. I turned around the photo but I found only white paper there.
The interior is also a mystery. Only the rotor/engine shaft
seems to continue through the kiosk-like structure. And mysterious will it
remain, since I painted it a dark color. It is surely certain that some Yerba
Mate was wisely allotted, though.
The whole thing was covered in what looks like a
silver-doped canvas, and the Argentinean cockade can be found underneath at
least one of the rotor blades.
The model:
The usual styrene sheet
engraved and folded to create the flying surfaces, a scratch engine which
cylinders were made scoring a rod on the Dremmel, carved bamboo sponsons and
metal bits. The Kiosk, though, was made with styrene sheet, but then an
aluminum tube was inserted vertically and a canopy-like structure was build
with wire –see images-. Then the gaps were filled with “window maker” and later
given an additional coat of white glue. That created a realist scalloping
without the need of using even more cruel construction methods.
The rotor cube was made with a square-section aluminum rod,
with and inserted round tubular section. Then tiny holes were drilled through
in order to insert the blade axles.
I am proud to say that I drilled my thumb only once.
Yet another wonder is brought to the light from the most
inaccessible and obscure crags of aviation history.
May all of them shine under the bright sun of recognition.
And now as a bonus track, a brief biography:
The great Greek
philosopher, modeler and olive pitter Styrenides (V century B.S.) in the eleven
volumes of his “Brief Comments on How to Better Understand Why the Cutter Fell
Exactly on Your Foot With its Pointy End Down” describes, in parables, the
fascinating world of model-making.
Styrenides even
includes some paragraphs dictated by his wife, Methyl Ethyl Ketone –presumably
under the threat of the imminent fall of a kitchen rolling pin- about the
delights and secret pleasures of finding very small parts that (as it is
explained in the Theory of the Membranes) are snatched into parallel
dimensions.
Fame
nevertheless systematically eluded Styrenides. The cause may be found in the
fact that his scale model airplanes were made before the airplane itself was
invented. Or perhaps one could argue that Styrenides had to carve his vast
literary production in stone, mainly in the frontispieces of public buildings,
for which he was accused of engraving graffiti.
Styrenides was
eventually ostracized to Argentina,
which was indeed a very harsh punishment; but since Argentina at that time neither
existed nor could be reached, he managed to stay home.
At the end of
his hard-working life he repudiated model-making and took on politics, becoming
instantly rich and famous and appearing at guest-shows in a number of
amphitheaters.
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