Ed Smith

But now I an getting old and remembering is hard work.

I think this one was taken two years ago, not too sure though.

Ed S

MinnFlyer

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Your heart hasn't aged a day Ed.

hemiflyer1

My Feedback: (2)

Seeing a real RC airplane back in the mid 60's. After building my first big (48")  free flight glider in the early 70's, taking  it out on the porch and giving it a toss and watching it fly perfectly across our yard for about  100' ,I was hooked. Climbing a tall tree to retrieve my cox cessana foamie. Asking for help (late 80's) landing my ace allstar, as I could take-off and fly at that point.  Taking my boys to the flying fields with me when they were small, god I miss that. One minute while I wipe my eyes. OK I'm better now. My first crash smashing the plane to smitherines.  RC Report in its 1st  and 2nd form. Thats a few, neat topic.

GSNut

My Feedback: (8)

I remember watching Johnny Carson and building my first DeBolt Cub in front of the RCA Clinescope !
Using old used telephone dry cells to fire up the glow plugs of the day.
Ordering stuff from AHC.
O&R, Fox, McCoy, Dooling and Super Cyclone Engines.

No one in our club knew how to fly R/C we all learned together then. After we built our own radios, but that is another story.

Those were good times.

Cheers

luckyb

I remember talking my Dad into taking me to the local park in a foot of snow, shoveling me a circle, starting his car and turning on the heat so we could barely start my Fox 35 on my Ringmaster, filling his car with smoke,carrying the running plane to the circle while I stood in the middle and tossing the thing into the air. It made two wobbly circuits and then crashed and he gave me a standing O. Will never forget it. I also remember Ambroid. tissue, the hobby store not selling me glue unless my mom came with me ( 60's ), and cutting my fingers to ribbons to get something started. Ahhhhh, the good old days.........Doug

airega1

My Feedback: (204)

Right around 1958 I received for Christmas a control line electric powered P-51. you held a 6 volt lantern battery in your left hand and in your right hand the U control with a thumb activated switch. the flying wires were the electrical wires out to the airplane, it had an elevator that had only one side that functioned. The next year I got a Flite Streak and a McCoy .35 red head, and Ive been in the hobby ever since, starting R/C in 1972 with an MRC MK V and a Dave Cashburn Lucky Fly which got destroyed after me thinking I could fly it without an instructor

Flyerjoe

My Feedback: (9)

I remember:

1. Flying on 27mhz

2. Goldberg Trainer III

3. Silkspan and dope for coverings

4. My first and only AMA# 12207 - still a member.

5. Flying R/C at Hadley Airport in Edison, NJ with Leon Shulman and other oldies but goodies.

6. First RC - Jenson Ugly Stik w/Weber .61 Blackhead

7. First Propotional - Orbit 6Channel

8. Certified PIC November 1971

gwweber

My Feedback: (24)

i started with boats   dumas deep v 60     Webra engin   Kraft 2 channel brick  and i did not know what locktight was   LOL
EXPENSIVE back then

TexasAirBoss

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After building all of those Gillow's stick and tissue kits I thought that my first RC, a Sterling Mini-Fledgling, was an ARF !

Cpt Crash

My Feedback: (12)

Here's some control line memories. Good times, good times...

nine o nine

My Feedback: (1)

Strombecker kits with a packet of glue (casein I think) one mixed with water. Scientific u/c kits. Built every one of them I think, but couldn't get one off the ground succefully with the OK Cub engine. Ran the OK
engine nailed to a post in my apartment building for the first time and when it started I jumped away in fear.
First witnessed RC flight at the New England Championships with Hal DeBolt beating Lou Andrews and Harvey Thomasian. At the same contest in Orange , MA I remember a J-3 Cub going nearly overhead with a dead engine and I could hear the rubber band escapment clicking away.
My first RC was a Mambo covered in wrinkly old style monokote. Had a Controlaire galloping ghost with a Rand actuator and an O.S. 15 with a butterfly exhaust linked to the throttle. Throttle worked with either full up or full down elevator and the plane doing large hiccups.
I've stuck through this great hobby longh enough to earn the "Grey Eagle" award at last year's TopGun. Mitch

John Redman

My Feedback: (8)

Awesome thread!!
How about these:

You made patterns of certain models when you built them so you could easily build another one.

Most model clubs had a balsa cupply with wood that was crazy stupid cheap.

Most clubs mixed their own fuel and sold it for a few dollars for a gallon.

As stated before a .60 sized 2 stroke was HUGE!

When the first OS 4-stroke .60 and .80's came to the states and ran and sounded soooo cool!!

Because of that last one Hobby Shack began the first engine designated contest in Riverside California; The Hobby Shack Four Stroke Rally.

Heli's only hovered.

You always cut your fuselage sides in a Sig kit and loved it

Bridi kits were the best because they routed and machine cut all parts, no die crunching.

Monokote was sold by the foot at the local hobby shop for $1.

Ram-bro

My Feedback: (101)

I would love to hear from the young guys, those new to the hobby and what they think about some of these tales and how far the hobby has come. The one that had me scratchingmy head was fabricating you own fuses....now that was fascinating.

tonyob

I remember when no one cared if we flew without mufflers too

I remember tissue and dope

I remember how easy the Cox .049 was to start especially compared to the diesel engines that ran on kerosene and ether

I remember the fight between two friends of mine who flew combat, the fight was because one of them missed the streamer and his prop chewed up half the other guys fuselage

I remember (recently) having my first ever RC mid air collision, my best friend at the field saw me taxiing, said he'd come up too to "tag me" and accidentally we did collide. Oh well, his plane was confetti and mine flew on just fine.

raptureboy

Hey I flew at Hadley! I took my Falcon 56 out there and the guy who offered to take it up for the maiden promptly put it into a pile of concrete at the end of the runway! Thats when I learned repair work I remember flying our cox planes in the street in front of our home and when a car came we just flew high until they passed by My first Monokote was done with my moms iron, and boy that was tuff not burning holes into it. Staying up late on Fri nights building my planes, yeh good stuff. Hadley is a mall now, what a shame some of the first airmail was flown from there.

Edwin

My Feedback: (2)

John,
quote
'You made patterns of certain models when you built them so you could easily build another one. '

I still do that.
Edwin

s. wallace

My Feedback: (24)

I was brought up with the hobby, some of my best memories are...

1. Flying my dad's rudder bug around once he took it off (w/ a Quadraplex no less) at age 6.

2) Building almost every Comet & Guilllow kit, learning and doing better each one. Some flew pretty well

3) My first thermal with a FF hand launched glider...will never forget that.

4) Attending the Navy run AMA Nats in 69 and 71. Coolest thing ever, could see everything in modeling all at once. The model building/repairing that used to go on in the hangars almost 24-7's!

5) My first plans built model, a 1/2A gas FF from one of the first Model Aviation editions. It flew great (too good-lost)

6) Once out on my own, busting up one 1/2A RC model after another, then building a 'big' Kadet Jr with a Veco 19 and finally learing to fly

7) Thinking my first computer radio (JR Max 6) could probably never be improved upon! Until then I had made 4 with 4 channel radios, but one had servo reversing!!

Scott

Fleet

Wow! I feel so danged old now.

My highlite has to be Mr. Hertzon letting me light the dethermalizer fuse on his Nordic just before tow line launch. Thought I was hot stuff until I had to chase it down over the fences of Patuxant River NAS. Climbing back over the fence with the plane got the attention of a truck load of Marine guards. After they lit a fire under me, they gave me a ride back to the assembly of modelers.

Ray

John Redman

My Feedback: (8)

Edwin I totally understand.

One more:

Do you remember when servo horns had a square shaft instead of a spline shaft?

And then there was the point of having the radio when you bult the model so you would make sure you got the flight controls correct as there was no servo reversing. (my dad didn't like anyone changing things inside the servos who wasn't from the company that built it)

Receivers had pigtails coming out of them and weighed a ton.

balsabuff

My Feedback: (30)

I remember:
Warbirds flying ( even in contests ) with no pilot in the cockpit... and it was OK.
Guys showing up to the field wearing one of those beer can hats. They all seemed to have 'em.
Engines that fit inside the cowl.
First time with CA glue- Hot Stuff. Walking around the house with a spar firmly stuck to my fingers.
Seeing about 10 yellow Cubs at every 1/4 scale event.
Living a couple blocks up the street from the original Sheldon's Hobby Shop. They had everything.
Dave Platt kits.

Speedy-Gonzales

My Feedback: (202)

I remember when.....My Dad was a young man and I was a brat kid!!

A successful R/C flight was when you took off and landed in the same square mile and you found the model the same day!!

"Winding up" your rubberband powered escapements.

A transmitter that was like holding a cinderblock.

Tuning your transmitter with a headset. The "radio" part of R/C was an actual radio!!

Riley Wooten "Quickers" with a Johnson 35

DeBolt "Super Cruisers"

"Smog Hogs "

I still have a full gallon of "AERO-KLAD" clear dope and I often crack the lid open long enough for my wife to holler "what stinks!!"

thepamster

I remember that great smell of dope and tissue. Built several rubber powerded planes as a kid in '70s, only finished a couple.
I remember in '80s trying to teach myself how to fly r/c with several of those small .049 planes and could not fly any of them as they flew the way a brick doesn't. I gave up on that and bought a Piece O Cake and put that .049 in it and learned to fly that way though for that first flight it was a stallfest but a good flair landing from a complete stall. Oh yeah, it was a cox 2 channel radio.
I then bought a Sig Cadet Jr. ,3 channel with rudder on right stick and continued to teach myself how to fly.

The Pamster

jeffEE

My Feedback: (5)

I remember going to see the QSAA flyin at Las Vegas, 1/4 scale was BIG then. Later it was the first event I ever flew in.
I remember the feeling of being on the other side of the fence, I was a pilot!
The best time I ever had was just this year at the Fond Du Lac FLy-in. I never flew with more than 5 other planes at the same time. But we got 10 or 11 WWI birds up and I remember landing and thinking "That has to be the neatest thing I have ever done."

Kwigen

Trying to get one more start out of those old telephone batteries we used to fire a glow plug.

randyepting

I remember a man name Jim Miskeely teaching me to fly I was 19 he was 67 then I am 52 now . I remember building a heath kit 8 channel with my dad he has passed now.
I remember having one or two planes I enjoyed flying 40 size now it 100cc