I grew up building and flying freeflight planes, heck, I recall when I was 5 years old making my own kites from scratch because my parents didn't want to pay for us kid's foolishness in this area. There will be a thread in this regards, the poor man's kite using sticks pulled off of the tree, some kite string, elmers and newspaper for some cheap entertainment........

Growing up, I built many freeflight models, most rubber band powered, but their is one model, a solid balsa glider kit that really stands out, and only on one windy day.

I was out at the field, my friend with his expensive Monocoated RC glider, converted to eflight next to me to conquer the field. His goal, to take what mommy and daddy could muster up on their rather high end budget to get their kid his next biggest and best in the hobby, mine, well, I worked at home after chores and made $1.00 per hour, this is in the 70's, not 20's, so a really poor wage....... I came home with this inexpensive, solid body glider, he just showed up with the full RC compliment, nice expensive kit, the likes of which I was not able to even touch for fear of blemishing it.........

That day at the field, I watched as his dad launched it, he didn't understand the very fundamentals of eleveator control, so nosed into the grass 3 times, the plane was now toast, never to be seen again. As I watched him relent upon the discovery, no amount of money is going to be thrown at him to get into this expensive gig, I toss my simple glider into the winds....

The bird snagged onto a circling wind, not a thermal, but a mini one since it was close to the ground. It circled seemingly endlessly, over and over again, kept on flying and I was ecstatic over how it just kept staying airborn. It finally set down in the tall grass at the edge of the field, but by that time, I was alone.....

I never will forget that day, nor that flight no matter how many RC planes I fly.