I learned to fly R/C with the plane my son seems to be trying to crank in the first picture. It was scratch built and roughly a copy of a model appearing in Model Airplanes News, sometime in 1954. It was single channel with an escapement on rudder only. The radio was built from a kit and was Dr. Walt Good’s design. It had three vacuum tubes and a Sigma 4F relay. The transmitter was also home built from a kit and is shown in the next picture. It had a nine-foot tall antenna. By pressing the button on the end the chord, you could alternate left and right rudder. There was, of course, no throttle and every landing was dead stick when you ran out of fuel. Yes we had to have a “citizen band” license to operate. We thought it was all very amazing.

My first model using modern equipment was the “Miss America” shown in the last picture. It was also scratch built from plans enlarged from an old magazine and has an O.S. 10 for power. I still have it and have flown it this year. I've retired it several times over the past eight years, but always seem to bring it back.