I had wanted to try RC after having a control line plane that I could never get to start. (How many people did Cox ruin with their crummy engines that wouldn't run)? So, when I was interning during my second year of college, and made some money, I bought an early ARF. This was in 1984. The plane was a .25 size high wing that had foam core wings and a plastic fuse. There was I guy I worked with that said he new how to fly and would teach me.

We went to one of the empty parking lot fields by the Charlotte Motor Speedway to try it out. He got it about 30 feet in the air and rolled it straight into the ground. He said that the controls were set up wrong. Of course it cracked the plastic fuse into multiple pieces. I put it aside, and it wasn't until 20 years later when an intern who started working here talked about RC that I got back into it. I have since come to realize that the transmitter was set up for Mode 1 and my 'instructor' was used to mode 2. Why he didn't checked that I'll never know.

I'm sure there were clubs back then, but there was no such thing as the internet, so I wasn't aware of them. It was definitely a different time. Had I found a real instructor, I might not have lost out on 20 years of fun.

P.S. I have to admit that I was terrified of that little engine. I thought I was going to cut my fingers off every time I had to adjust the needle valve.

Kerry