Next February, I will be celebrating my 64 birthday and 60th anniversary of participating in the great hobby/sport of model aviation.

I am a builder/flyer. I also have a number of ARFs. And model rockets. I prefer to build, either from kits or plans, or an occasional model from my own warpped mind. I have built flyable models within a few hours (hand launched FF gliders) wintin a week or so (some simpler RC kits and ARFs) and eve as much as 2 decades (a Ted Strader .15 powered P-51 and a Hustler delta from MAN plans, which is stil waiting for it's maiden).

I started with small gliders like the Walker 74s and Interceptors, graduated to Walker, Guillow, North Pacific, Cleveland and Comet kits, then into glow powered FF, CL,, got a couple early ARFs like the old Japanese wire framed silk covered jobs, the Wen-Mac Aeromite .049 CL, Cox TD-1 and the like. I still have my first glow engine, a OK Cub .099 from about 1949 or 50. In 1962, when I got my first regular job, I started in RC with a Super Aerotrol Transmitter/reciever kit which I never got to work. I also built a couple other recievers from scratch, none of which worked, but taught me quite a bit about electronics, and more important, how to troubleshoot, especially how to stick to a job and improve myself. Part of what has kept me working at the same job for a company and in an industry that rarely keeps a given person for more than a couple years. I eventually went through the single channel escapement RC and graduated to multi-channel proportional RC. In a time frame when local flyers were trying to get an electric RC job to fly, and giving up because of the early difficulties, I met with sucsess. Through my involvement in building and flying, I have met many great people, learning more and even having the priveledge of teaching some of what I know. It has been a great learning and growth activity.

There is, depending on the club, quite a classless society in this activity. Just this Sunday, after mixing with truck drivers, retirees, steel workers, and a pharmicist, I got to watch a bank executive fly a great performing turbine model, then help him get a balky .15 glow job started, and show him and several other people the proper launching technique. Next Sunday, after our club meeting, I will be going to another field, either to compete in an FAC Free Flight contest, or just to set around, watch, and BS with the members. Some day I will finally take the time to drive out to a nearby county fairgrounds and do some CL flying with a club I joined almost 15 years ago, but haven't flown with since they had to move to their new location about 8 years ago.

I have seen quite a few people enter the RC flying portion through the ARF plug and play, get pretty good withing a few years, loose interest, and drop out. No growth and expansion of skills and capabilities often seems to lead to a basic boredom and attendant loss of interest.

I hope that even in the future if my health eventually makes it difficult or impossible to continue flying, I will still be able to continue with my current building of planes, model railroad equipment, and ships, including ship-in-bottles. In fact, this last summer I got a nice certificate from a local public library for lending several of my fully rigged sailing ship models to a display program they put on.


Although I don't especially care for ARFs myself, I don't put people down for it. Whatever floats your boat. If all you want to do is to fly with the minimum time involvement, have at it. Just don't dis me for enjoying what I do. If you want to stagnate, that's your priveledge and business. As long as you enjoy it.