{"id":812,"date":"2013-07-20T18:39:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-20T18:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/?p=812"},"modified":"2013-07-19T14:46:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T14:46:00","slug":"joe-konefes-buzzard-bombshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/2013\/07\/20\/joe-konefes-buzzard-bombshell\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Konefes’ Buzzard Bombshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The museum portion of August\u2019s Model Aviation<\/em> “In the Air” column looks at Joe Konefes\u2019 Buzzard Bombshell in the museum collection. There wasn’t enough room in the column to share all of the information related to the model, so it is shared here in a \u201cdeleted scenes\u201d type format.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The original 1940 Buzzard Bombshell on exhibit at the National Model Aviation Museum. Source: National Model Aviation Museum, 1984.20.03, donated by Joe Konefes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joe Konefes built his Buzzard Bombshell in 1940 and flew it in mass demonstration flights at the 1940 Nats and regional meets.\u00a0 He set a Class C Open flight record with it at the 1940 Nats.\u00a0 His first flight was 49 minutes, 40 seconds.\u00a0 The official time for all three flights was over 58 minutes.<\/p>\n

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\nJoe almost didn\u2019t have a Buzzard Bombshell model to fly at Nats.\u00a0 The second time he participated in a contest with the model, it was lost during flight somewhere in the wilds of Wisconsin.\u00a0 Luckily, over a month later, \u201ca farmer\u2019s cow shied at something in a tree and the lost plane was soon back with the rest of the Buzzard Flock.\u201d\u00a0 In the October 1940 Air Trails<\/em> construction article, Joe wryly comments during the first launch at Nats he gave a \u201cshort prayer of thanks to that Wisconsin cow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Joe\u2019s<\/a>
Joe\u2019s Certificate of Record awarded by the NAA for the 49 minute 40 second flight. Source: National Model Aviation Museum, related to 1984.20.03, scan of the copied original.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\nThe Buzzard Bombshell design had been the winner of a Buzzards Club of Chicago contest for the best design to use for a club project and mass flights.\u00a0Gordon Christoph was a member of the Buzzards, and also the owner of the Aircraft Co. kit company.\u00a0 Because the design had been a club thing, Aircraft Co. was the company that received the design and kitted the model.\u00a0 At the time, though, Joe was working for Comet.\u00a0 Rumors indicate that Comet wasn\u2019t very happy when Joe shared the Buzzard Bombshell design with Aircraft and not them.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The ad for Aircraft\u2019s Buzzard Bombshell kit that appeared in Air Trails<\/em>, November 1940. Magazine can be found in the National Model Aviation Museum Library Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\nThe July 1941 issue of A Boys\u2019 Life<\/em> described Joe\u2019s flight, \u201cJoe\u2019s ship made a perfect take-off, grabbed a honey of a rising air current, or thermal, and stayed aloft for a forty nine minute official flight.\u00a0 By a trick wind shift, the plane drifted more than a mile away from the contest field, then circled around and came back for a perfect landing in front of the judges.\u201d
\nJoe\u2019s flight beat Carl Goldberg and his Zipper and Sailplane designs.<\/p>\n

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\nJoe fixed the covering and made some repairs to the model before it was donated in 1984.\u00a0 He donated it in memory of the\u00a0 Buzzards Club of Chicago, Illinois and its members: Grace and Gordon Christoph, Bill Englehardt, Harry Guenther, Shirley and Bill Klumb, Martha, Rita, Ed and Joe Konefes, Bill Lackey, Louis Lewald, Harb Maas, Ed Manthey, Les Paetz, Dick Scheffner, Mary Lou and Al Thorwaldsen and Joe Trefny.\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Many thanks to Ed Konefes and Dan Kane, Sr. for sharing their memories of Joe and the Buzzard Bombshell with me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The museum portion of August\u2019s Model Aviation “In the Air” column looks at Joe Konefes\u2019 Buzzard Bombshell in the museum collection. There wasn’t enough room in the column to share all of the information related to the model, so it is shared here in a \u201cdeleted scenes\u201d type format. Joe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,47,1],"tags":[56,98,246,50],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-flight","category-museum","category-uncategorized","tag-artifact","tag-buzzard-bombshell","tag-free-flight","tag-museum-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amamuseum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}