More than once I had spectators snidely remark "aren't you a little old to be playing with toys?" It's a combination of thinking flying rc airplanes as toys and on the other end of the spectrum as it being very intimidating.
If I were to ask spectators if they would like to give it a try, 99% of the time they said that they were sure they would immediately crash and that would mean a very costly endeavor. After assuring them they wouldn't crash, I would let them fly my trainer. After a few minutes of flying, they would take a 180 perspective and become very interested. Even those who made those "toy" remarks I managed to persuade to fly took a much different attitude. Seems that after they flew for a few minutes they had a hard time to stop shaking. Toys...yeah, right. lol