Great thread!

I remember as a kid all of the plastic Testors and Cox airplanes at the nearby Kmart. My dad built lots of stick and tissue and CL planes, but he was not interested in flying. I had a couple of the plastic planes, but they really did not fly at our altitude in CO. I did not have a lot of help from my dad on the flying side, just the building side of the hobby.

I would consider my first successful CL flying was with a Fox .35 stunt, and a Sterling Ringmaster. I know, it is typical. I could loop it pretty good, but ended up hitting the ground too many times to go any further with that airplane. My second big CL plane was a Sig Banshee. My dad had built one when I was really young, so this was more for sentimental reasons. Got a lot of flights with it, but never had the courage to learn to stunt.

Then I found RC in the early 80's. I built a Sig Twister around 1989 and did learn to fly inverted. Having experienced pylon racing and flying in competition, I met a local combat guy in 1990 and went crazy back into CL. My new friend was Dave Henderson, and he taught me how to design, build and fly CL combat aircraft. It was as much fun as I have ever had in any aspect of model aviation. Traveling to contests, including the AMA Nats in 94'. Got to fly with the likes of the Mears bros, Wilcox, Minors and Larry Driskall.

Kind of funny now when I am at the flying field (I fly mostly giant scale warbirds now with gas engines) , I still have an aversion to an electric starter. The RC guys just do not understand that we used to practice our pitting and engine starting procedures. Electric starters are not allowed in many events. They just look at me like I am crazy!