1957 and 13YO, an old guy (must have been at least early 20's) down the street from me gave me a second hand ETA 29 and taught me how to mix my own fuel and start the engine (the engine actually came in a shiny black class B speed model called a Speedwagon). He then taught me how to build a trainer which used flat sheet balsa wing and tail with a flat pine fuselage and then helped me learn how to fly it. My best memories from those days was that two of my school friends also got interested so we all had very similar models and in fact similar types of engines. One had a McCoy 29 RR and the other had a Dooling 29! So 3 of the best racing engines of the day were being used by 13YO kids learning to fly
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Many many years later my son wanted to learn to fly CL so I built him the model in the photo that was almost exactly the same as what I used as a kid except I added small flaps and an adjustable lead out guide.