In 1958 I was nine years old and could not take my eyes off my friend's older brother's silk covered glider. This was in England, and the glider had a box frame fuselage with a compartment for lead shot ballast in the nose. I went to the hobby shop, bought a bunch of sticks, and built a crude smaller version of it from scratch and memory. I had to have that ballast box, and I still have it. The glider worked fine tossing it around the park. We had a shop class where I learned to make chuck gliders from scratch. Then I bought a series of Keil Kraft rubber band model kits, but none of them flew. A few years later back home in Iowa I started building control line kits and had a lot of fun with them, when I was about 13-14. Also built a towline glider from magazine plans, and an RC Schoolboy with S/N escapement when I was 16. Many years before I returned to the hobby. Still love those old designs.

Jim