mightyhorn

The farthest back that I can remember, my dad's 1st plane was a Cruiser. It was escapment and push button transmitter. He then had a Little Freak- same radio.
This was followed by an Ascender, also same radio. He always felt that the "true" flyers could use those one button transmitters and mostly do what we do now. He got a 10 channel Orbit & built a Jerry Nelson Sultan but never flew it. Due to changes in his work he left the hobby. I always thought he'd return but never did.
Me? I flew the little CL jobs with the Cox .049's. This spring I will launch my Hobbico trainer.
mightyhorn

maukaonyx

I really am not sure what my first RC plane was, but it was controlled with this:


AND saying that it was "controlled" is a real stretch of the imagination! I had to chase the plane with it. I am thinking I put it in a self designed glider with 049 power pod strapped to the top of the wing. Guys were using Ace pulse and the galloping ghost, and I was jealous. My single button radio was expensive to me, and meant the world too, but advancements started to come fast and I felt primitive in an instant. This was back in the 60's when a handful of us flew in Kapiolani Park in the shadow of Diamond Head, Oahu. In a few years, I had a real proportional radio, the Cannon 2 channel, and really was in the modern age then. Flew that in a Midwest Lil'T off the slopes above Enchanted Lakes, Oahu...that was when I really learned to fly RC. Jon

Taurus Flyer

My first plane 1966, after a period of controlline.

Scratch built radio, two channel, Metz two channel rudder servo, so no escapement. The radio has tone selective filters .
Airplane is of own design and engine a Webra 1,5 ccm diesel.
The radio I used for a boat in the first place to try out, the range was enormous.
Receiver was a superregen which I am rebuilding now, see the last picture.

Second picture, 1967
Later the plane was equiped with three channel receiver and a one channel Metz servo added for motor control, two positions. engine Webra Glostar 3,5 ccm.
One battery pack for the two Metz servos and one for the receiver. Tail wheel replaced for nose wheel.

The transmitter is my second one and also a "bang bang" (Dutch tip-tip), so about 45 year old, double symultaneous scratch built and four channel.
Now I am building a new four channel receiver. the coils are ready. The battery indicater is in the third transmiiter, my first proportional so must be replaced. All a matter of money.

Last pictures, first proportional. own design scratch built. the last picture with the first ailerons.

Cees

Jeff Foley

My Feedback: (45)

Boy I'm glad someone resurrected this thread....I love reading this stuff.

Avaiojet

This was actually the late 50's, probably 1959, first black & white photo. Yes, that's me as a delinquent.

Second photo was around 1962. Not me, but another delinquent holding my model.

Charles

buzzard bait

Somebody's got a nice new Valiant!

mred33

I can't remember my first plane, since it was a Comet stick model FF and rubber powered. Then it was on to C/L and for a few years that was all I could afford. Then in the 60's I finally got a Goldberg Skylane and a single channel system and few that for awhile. I loved it, but I never did get to land it. The rubber always wound down by then and it was just a spiral down to landing, but no real control. Then finally I got a ControlAir when they first came out. That was it for me, I was hooked and got my hands on a Orion and had a ball, until the battery wire broke one day and it went in full power in the concrete and totaled it but good. After that Ifell in love with the Kaos and haven't been without one since. LOVEthat Kaos............

Ed

ukengineman

After several failures, my first really successful R/C model was a Ken Willard Gasser. It was powered by an ED Racer 2.5cc diesel engine and controlled with single channel (rubber powered escapement). It met a most unusual end, it was flying nicely when it suddenly went into a fast flat spin. I was totally perplexed as to the cause of the spin until a spectator came up to me and told me that my wing tip had hit the string of a large box kite flying at considerable altitude in the R/C flyer's area, talk about unlucky!

mightyhorn

[8D]

Recolections from experience & pictures:

My dad's 1st plane was something that looked like it belonged in the service, it was smaller.
Next came the Live Wire Cruiser, a DeBolt model. A great trainer that, as my dad said "floated."
Then, Dale Root's Ascender- the plane he flew most and I have the most menories of.
Last was Jerry Nelson's Sultan which he built but never flew.
My trainer is still getting ready to go. THIS YEAR!!! ONWARDS!!

mightyhorn

JECraig

A C/L trainer out of Boy's life. Then a Jr. Ringmaster with that same OS Max .15 II engine. I built a Mambo .15 but never flew it. Followed by a R/C Gary 1 .049 glider, first flight crash. Much later a .049 Esquire, first flight crash. Then some success with a Mark's Models Windward glider. Flew the engine of a Hobby Shack SST .049, oil soaked wood & epoxy gave way. I graduated to a Debolt Champ, Saracen .049 glider, Bill Evans, reflex wing. & a Debolt Acrobat Bipe. A 20 year sabbatical, Navy & family. Started R/C again with an electric Cub, learning the C/lL Beginners Pattern, & rehabing a Falcon 56 & Sweet Stick for abit of '60s-70s nostalgia. Still have that OS .15 & the Mambo.

John Cole

My Feedback: (4)

nice thread thanks.my first balsa model was a Jetco thermic 20 at age 8, Christmas 1965. Thanks Mom and Dad. A single edge razor blade, some Ambroid, a piece of sandpaper, and my modeling journey began.Once completed, I walked to the top of a small hill on our property, learned how to launch smoothly, then a hike to the bottom. This cycle repeated countless times since I had no idea how to really launch a glider. But the fun was never forgotten.

John

lflf

My Feedback: (1)

This post must have been around a long time because going through it I discovered I answered it some time ago. I am surprised there are not more Goldberg kits popping up, as they were very popular in my neck of the woods.

bryanm1601

A Keil Kraft Super 60. First one dad flew on reed gear with rudder / elev / throttle and a Merco 35, subsequent planes had ailerons. I have one in my loft today! Hopeless in a wind but great to learn on and with a 40 up front the power to weight ratio was perfect.

mightyhorn

This goes back to the mid-late 50's but I think I remember my dad's 1st planes:
1) Livewire Cruiser (De Bolt) New designers could learn from them!
2) Lil Freak (Root) Small shoulder wing
3) Ascender (Root) The plane he flew the most & finally sold. This thing went into a flat spin, hit the deck & only suffered a broken prop and one wheel that flew off.
4) Sultan (Nelson) Sadly he never flew this plane. He wound up working for a 2 man company (he was 1) and didn't have the time or the money to get a "new" proportional radio. This was just during the transition. I'll fly it one day.....

jbfly

My Feedback: (1)

My first rc was a Babcock Breezy with Babcock single channel radio & an OK .074 diesel for power. The excapement usually let the rudder act like an ACE pulse system. The result was a lot of FF flights.
This took place in the Sepulveda Basin in the San Fernando Valley (LA CA) The basin also had an active NIKE site! Mid 50's

jbfly

50+AirYears

One club member back in those days had a Midwest Esquire with a cascaded compound escapement to give rudder and throttle on his Max .15 with rotary exhaust throttle. If the wind speed was just right, he could adjust the throttle on the ground to the point where he could actually achieve a stable hover.
Even weirder was what was called a single channel back around 1964 or so was called the Windmill. A competition plane for rudder and throttle only, several degrees of upthrust on the K&B .45 engine. It used a reed radio system with special switcher boards to get positionable throttle and assorted rudder throws for a couple specific stunts. that was about the time the ancestors of our current proportional radios were coming out for the equivalent of a couple thousand of today's dollars. The plane looked to be a handful, a .45 on a plane the size of which would normally use .15s or .19s.

Hircflyer

RCM Trainer 60 size great flyer!

Michaelj2k

Download the Windmill from Hip Pocket Aeronautics. http://www.hippocketaeronautics.com/...ans/search.php Requires a log in.

cvint

1.Goldberg Jr. Falcon
2.Little Tri Squire

Did not learn to fly RC until about 1978. Jr. Falcon was my first plane but learned to
to fly with little Tri Squire. Spent a lot of money and time at Indy RC in Carmel In.-now closed.

rc lifer

My first rc plane in 1965, the TF Schoolboy with a Mule transmitter, superregen receiver, Babcock compound escapement and, powered by a Cox PeeWee 020. It was a good day at the field if you did not crash or have a flyaway. Nice thread.

otrcman

I'm always amazed to hear about people who actually learned to fly on their first plane. For me, it was a long succession of planes that got between 1 and 13 flights before being so badly damaged that I had to move on. First successful flight was in 1960 with a 9 foot Miniature Models Taylorcraft, Ohlsson 2-speed engine, and Orbit single channel radio. That was the plane that introduced me to the 13 flight barrier. Many other mixed successes followed, but none gave me enough flying time to say that I "learned" to fly. Mambo's (2 of them), several original designs, all contributed to my education.

One of the best remembered was an Ace kit called "Ranger S-10-W". I think this was the first plane to break the 13 flight barrier. Square fuselage with balsa slab sides, built up wing with little or no sheeting, sheet balsa vertical and horizontal. Anybody else ever heard of this plane? It was similar in design and size to a Falcon 56, but nowhere near as appealing to the eye. Mine may have been the only one Ace ever sold.

Dick

50+AirYears

A legend in my former RC club was a high school manual arts teacher who reputedly showed up at the field with a newly built Sterling PT-19 scale low winger, 48" wingspan,and a Max.19 RC engine, rudder and throttle only on escapements, as his first RC plane, and got his A level on the second flight. Seems he started with Free Flight rubber power before WW-2, went up to power Free Flight, then Control Line, all with ignition engines, before branching into glow engines and Radio Control back when the radios still had tubes and dry cell batteries.

Michaelj2k

This is your lucky day. http://www.ebay.com/itm/350925236507...84.m1438.l2649

otrcman

Thanks for that, Michaelj2k. Yes, that's the plane that I built in 1961. I don't recall a pre-built fuselage, although it might have been so. Also didn't recall the Blackwell name, but now it does seem sorta familiar.

The most memorable plane for me was my first Mambo. I folded the wing while trying to spiral it down under power (too much power with a McCoy 19 and too large a gas tank). Funny how engines always seem to run strongest and longest when you wish they would quit. I was alone at the field that day. After the wing folded, the fuselage and half the wing came screaming down with engine still running strong. After impact, I ran over to the wreckage, staring at it in shock. Soon afterward, there was a resounding "pop" right behind me. I knew I was all alone, so the sound just about made me pee my pants. When I turned to look, it was the other half of the wing. It had fallen much more slowly, and impacted right behind me.

Dick

cocobear

My Feedback: (2)

First RC was a Midwest Super Sniffer with a Cox .049 and a Galloping Ghost single.