Longer Rubber Motors

摘要

Over the past seventy years modelers have been striving to run longer and longer rubber motors in their ships. Many are the devices invented to accomplish this end. "Return" gears have been used to run a motor down the length of the fuselage, through a gear box, and back forward again. In other cases gearing has been used to break the motor up into two or more skeins thereby re- ducing the cross section and allowing more turns to be stored. Commercially produced "jiggers" were available in the 1930s to do the same thing as these gear boxes. "Jiggers" were simply music wire crankshafts supported in a simple sheet aluminum frame connected to the prop shaft by another sheet metal plate that served as a connecting rod. They weighed much less than gears. The motors could be broken down into two, three, and even five skeins. Other gear boxes and even a simpler sheet metal affair called the "Twin Motor Hickey" were designed to run two motors successively. Some of these devices worked well enough, and some were balky. All of them had drawbacks.