Written & Submitted by AL (06/1996); Transcribed by NR (09/1996); Edited by SS (2002), Reformatted by JS (10/2009); Updated by JS (12/2011)
Career
- AMA Leader Member for over 40 years
- Competitor
- Kit Manufacturer
- Life Patron of the AMA's Museum Patron Program
- Contest Director (AAA Meet)
- 1983-1995: Wrote Column in Model Builder Magazine
- Book author
- Wrote article for many other and other hobby magazines including: Scale Ship Modeler, Live Steam, U.S. Boat & Ship, RC Boat Modeler, and the National Model Aviation Museum’s Cloud9 newsletter
Alfred Lehmberg wrote the following in June of 1996.
Alfred Lehmberg, also known as Fred, was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1924. Fred began modeling model ships and airplanes when he was eight. His first airplane was a tiny Gee Bee solid model. He felt there was something wrong with it.
After playing with it awhile and comparing it to an airplane passing overhead, he realized it had no stabilizer! Perhaps that is the reason he favored large stabilizers on most of his future designs. He joined the Hearst Junior Birdmen in the 1930s and became proficient in rubber-powered models, then gas powered. His first engine was a Bunch Warrior and, in 1937, Christmas brought him the additional money he needed to get a Brown Junior, the top engine of the time. He built a number of originals for this engine, including the 1938 Goon and the 1939 Feather Merchant C. He powered his 1940 Feather Merchant A with a Bantam. Our museum has an Ohlsson .19 powered replica of this model in its collection. He built all the Goldberg Comet kits and the Berkeley Cavalier Standard, the Modelcraft Spook, a Lackey Zenith, and a scratch built Custom Cavalier.
Fred's Class A Feather Merchant was a very successful design, winning nearly $500 in two seasons of competition. Fred was a member of the San Antonio Gas Model Airplane Club. Years later, he wrote feature articles about this Club in the September 1989 and November 1990 issues of Model Aviation magazine. He flew his Class D Indoor Stick to a national record on Dec. 6, 1941 in the Brooks Field Dirigible Hangar. The next day, Japan forced many modelers to grow up overnight and put their model aircraft aside for the duration. For some the duration was forever. Due to his model aviation experience, he was one of the modelers selected by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now NASA). He worked in the Dynamic Model Shop and the Free Flight tunnel at Langley Field, Va.
In the 1950s, Fred with Charlie Underhill and Ed Steffenhagen produced Radio Controlled (RC) model airplane kits in Ridgefield, Conn. The company, Model Tech Specialties, produced three RC designs. These were Leapin’ Lena, a Fokker D-8, and the first advertised pylon racer, Firebird. Air Trails and Model Airplane News advertised these kits.
Fred also planned and was contest director for the First Annual Westchester County Model Airplane Meet. Sponsored by the Westchester County Airport and the Rotary Club of White Plains, N.Y., this was an AAA meet. It was one of the largest meets on the East Coast. Fred moved to California and, after a few years of boating on the Sacramento River, rediscovered RC models and the fantastic improvements in RC. He produced a few designs including the Jolly Baron biplane that was a winner in an annual design contest sponsored by RC Modeler. Fred moved to Oxnard, Calif. where he kitted three sizes of Feather Merchants and the Leapin’ Lena. His interest in the aircraft model hobby is still strong. He is also an active modeler of sail and steam powered model boats and scale display models. He is a Life Patron of the Museum of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, and has held an Administrative Leader Membership in the Academy for over 40 years.
Since his youth he has been active in yachting, both power and sail. He is a member of The International Blue Gavel Association as he is a Past Commodore (1976) of the Channel Island Yacht Club in Oxnard, Calif. He has Life Membership in the United States Naval Institute and in 1992 was awarded for “Contributions to the Professional, Literary, and Scientific Knowledge of the Naval and Maritime Services.”
His articles have appeared in all the leading American hobby magazines and are multi-genre in nature. These are historical, documentary, and technical essays and construction projects. These magazines include Model Aviation, Model Builder, Scale Ship Modeler, U.S. Boat & Ship, RC Boat Modeler, and Live Steam. Over the years, Cloud Nine newsletter has published many of his nostalgic profiles of early model aviation and its personalities. He is looking for a publisher to market his fantasy novel about Assyria, Blade of Ishtar. He has presented technical papers before the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Many of his aerospace reports on his work at Aerojet, Sacramento are on file at the Battelle Institute in Maryland.
Joanne Lovitt has authored a lengthy profile, “Fred Lehmberg, Modern Day Janus,” accepted by Model Aviation for 1996 publication. Liz Helm has produced a biographical sketch for the Summer 1996 issue of Cloud Nine newsletter.
A Tabulation of Manuscripts and Publishers of Alfred Lehmberg (T) =Technical (E) =Essay
(H) =Historical (C) =Construction
(D) =Documentary (R) =Product Review
Abbreviations of editorial columns
(P&F&CT) = PLANES & FACTS & CHICKUM TRACKS
(WL&C) = WATERLINES & CURRENTS
Abbreviated Title or Subject P&F&CT, Sopwith Camel Effect P&F&CT, A Lot About Air P&F&CT, Witch Doctors and Thermals P&F&CT, To Freewheel or not to FW P&F&CT, Wind Tunnels and Airfoils P&F&CT, When is an Old-Timers Not an O-T?
P&F&CT, Thrust Stand P&F&CT, Physics and Chemistry of Air P&F&CT, Wars and Literature, Effect/Hobby P&F&CT, Downwind Turn, Extreme Case P&F&CT, Thoughts From the Forties P&F&CT, Noise P&F&CT, Noise 2 P&F&CT, Propeller Design P&F&CT, Props as Pumps, Power Poop P&F&CT, More Poop on Power Plans and Instructions for Paypod, an RPV P&F&CT, Experiments with Paypod P&F&CT, Old Timer Rules P&F&CT, Paypod Instrum’n and SAM Champs TINA, RC Sailboat, MB Version Wings, The Whole Banana Keystone Bomber, Hug Crchr with 2 wings and Rd Engs WL&C, Hull Lines, Introduction of U.S. Boat and Ship WL&C, Stability and Metacenter WL&C, Steam Article on Cole’s Engines WL&C, Steam Basics WL&C, Design of a 16-Foot Steam Launch WL&C, Sailing Rigs WL&C, Propellers
Publisher Model Builder (MB) MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB MB
Pub. Date Aug. 1983 Jan. 1984 March 1984 April 1984 July 1984 Aug. 1984 Oct. 1984 May 1985 July 1985 Nov. 1985 Jan. 1986 July 1986 Aug. 1986 Nov. 1986 Jan. 1987 Feb. 1987 May 1987 June 1987 Aug. 1987 Dec. 1987 Late 1996 Late 1996 Oct. 1995
Type T T T T T E T T D/H T D/H T T T T T C T/D D/E D C/R T D/H
U.S. Boat and Ship Model (USB&SM) USB&SM USB&SM USB&SM USB&SM USB&SM USB&SM
Sumr 1987
D
Fall 1987 Wntr 1987 Spring 1988 Sumr 1988 Fall 1988 Wint 1989
T D T T D/E T WL&C, Turbulence – America’s Cup Vostellung die Damphbarkasse Patricia WL&C, Waves Building Quarter-Scale Steamer PUFF Galleys, Rowboats with Class Oh, Build Thou the Skip of Ra Hull Forms for Scratch Builders – Part 1 Hull Forms for Scratch Builders – Part 2
USB&SM
USB&SM
USB&SM
USB&SM
USB&SM
USB&SM
RC Boat Modeler (RCBM) RCBM
Hull Forms for Scratch Builders – Part 3
RCBM
Review of Lobby Glasgow
Scale Ship Modeler (SSM) SSM SSM SSM SSM SSM
Stuart, A Royal Name in Steam Building the Sidewheel Tug Glasgow Building the Sidewheel Tug Glasgow, Best of The Chesapeake Bay Skipjack Building the Willie L. Bennett Do You Need a Pilot, Sir?
Corsairs Sail Again Corsairs Sail Again Heat Exchanger Design and Plans To Sell a Boiler (on boiler design) All Aboard (Review of Steam Exhibit) Weeden Steam Toys, A Premium Name Glasgow, A British Sidewheel Tug Weaverville Steam Stamp Mill You Gotta Have Clout Planes Dutch Flew Those Days of Wonder and Change Smilin’ Jack (Biography of Zack Mosley) Feather Merchants, For Fun or Fight Sal Taibi, A Living Legend Leapin’ Lena, a 1950 RC Model
SSM
SSM
RC Ship Modeling, Special Vol. 1, #1 Live Steam (LS) LS LS LS LS LS Model Aviation (MA) MA MA MA MA MA MA
In Preparation or Filed Toilet in Research (model meteorology) – T
A Design For a Propane Burner (A burner for a model steam boiler) – T/C
Sprg 1989 Sumr 1989 Sumr 1989 Fall 1989 Fall 1994 Wntr 1994 March/April 1991 May/June 1991 July/Aug. 1991 April/May 1991 June 1991 June 1991 1991 Nov. 1991 April/May 1992 Nov. 1992 Oct. 1992 1993
H/D C T C H/R C T/H
Sept. 1988 June 1989 Oct. 1989 Feb. 1991 March 1992 Late 1996 Sept. 1989 April 1990 Nov. 1990 May 1991 Feb. 1993 Dec. 1993 March 1995
T/C T D D/H R H D/H H/D H D D/C D D/C
T/H T/H R D/H C C R C C H/E H/E
Building Stuart Double-Ten Marine Engine (Building a steam engine kit) – C Feedwater Pump For Double-Ten (Building a boiler feed pump for D-10) – C People, People, People & Things (Environmental essay on over-population) – E TINA, R/C - Sailboat (Different from that accepted by MB) – C/G PUFF, a 16' Steamer in Full & 1/4 Scale – C
Blade of Ishtar: (A fantasy about Time Travel via controlled mind regression and visits to the cabarets and skies of WW-1 and to Mesopotamia in the 7th Century B.C.) How an ancient Sumerian curse affects the outcome of WW-2. [Completed novel] Halcyone: A historical fantasy of the 5th Century BC about Darius the Great's Greco Persian War. A sequel to River of Return that involves the Book of Revelations and manipulation of the future to change its prophecy.
Cameria: A fantasy novel about a colonization expedition of the future lost in the records of their parent planet. A political satire depicting the effects of government growth. (signed) Alfred Lehmberg 6/1996
This page is a text transcription of the original document, made automatically and may contain errors. .