Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Hi y'all

I'm again here with another new topic and also I'm kinda being nosy how long have people been in this hobby including operating/flying, building, training and their ages. Sometimes it's hard for me to differentiate whether any person is new or experienced, young or fairly senior not old lol :).

I'm gonna start off from myself. I'm in this hobby since January 2005, flying and building ARF for the last 5 years as well. My third ARF is Escapade which I recently bought and I'm gonna have it's maiden flight this Sunday. On May 18, 2010 I would be 41 years. On my Official records I'm gonna be 39, it's a long story, but chronically May 18, it's my 41st Birthday.:D

Thank you all and I'd appreciate everyone's response to it. Don't hesitate about age cos women hide age men don't:)

Mody

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I'm 45 years old and I've been flying RC for almost 15 years now. However, I was 8 years old when I built by first stick and tissue balsa wood airplane. My dad and I used to fly control line planes  all the time when I was growing up. I've been building models both wood and plastic since I was 8. I grew up breathing balsa dust!!!!!!  ;)

Ken

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Wow,

That's really impressive RCKen. Like Father like son. Amazing

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Hay guys, Can i use a hitec crystal in a airtronics rx?

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Though your question is impertinent to the topic I put, but I'm sure RCKen would be able to answer your question. My wild guess says you cannot use hitec's xtal in airtronics.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I started C/L when I was about 9, flew freeflight and C/L through my teens.
Started R/C in 68' before the service years and continued after I returned from RVN in the 70's, mostly sailplanes; I still fly a Maestro. Started in the fiberglass manufacturing business in the early/mid 70's and continue part-time today. Still flying R/C these days.
On the boards: Old GP Skybolt kit, Bud Nosen A&A ind. J-3 kit conversion to Super Cub; Hostetler 100% scale C206 on Wipline Amphibs. Age 59 going on 80!

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Wow, 59 going on 80 or 18:)

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Not a miss print... Hips, knees, shoulders and cancer, welcome to my world.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Hi,

I'm a year younger than AH1G (58) going on 17. I started in control line when I was seven. Moved into R/C about 1975 and had a small hiatus from 1980 until about 2001 owing to family, work, motor sport and an obsession with fishing shared with my elder son. Retired now and try to fly R/C at least twice a week. Ditto to cancer and my "bete noir" is my back stemming from a motorcycle accident in 1973. Still any day above ground is a good one. My other addictions are my cars (full size:DI, I still find time to surf (when its' good)and ride my mountian bike every day and snow ski at least one week each year. The last couple of years my wife has introduced us to ballroom dancing which sees us out of the house one or two nights /week, this is a real achievement for someone with two left feet but at least she almost never complains about the time I spend building and flying, so it's a small price to pay and on the odd occassion I get it right it's satisfying.

Cheers,

Colin

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Ahhhhh... Australia! What a great country, I was lucky enough to spend first a week there and then went back for a month when I was overseas. I had a hotel room on Bondi beach, WHATAVIEW! I'd love another trip there. Sorry about your gun control laws.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Hi,

I used to live just north of Bondi, (about 1 Mile) before we moved up north, (about half way between Sydney and Brisbane), away from the "big smoke" about 30 years ago. Bondi was where I learn't to surf and indeed swim at the baths at the southern end of the beach. They still fly slope soarers from the little park at the southern headland overlooking the beach.

Was the week R&R? that led to the longer trip?

The gun control laws are a bit of a pain as you need to join a club or be a primary producer to hold a licence. Guess what the crims still have access to "Prohibited Weapons".

One of the really good things weather wise is flying all year round isn't a problem, the problem is finding time to build.

Cheers,

Colin

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Building and flying since 1961.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I started building stick and tissue freeflight when I was about 8. When I was 10 I started on plastc airplanes. I think I built every model airplane that any store with 30 miles had(distance to the hobby shop). I read every book about planes the libraries had by the time I was 12(doesn't say much for the libraries around here). I flew some control line in my 20's. I am 43 and got into RC about 3 years ago. I was amazed to find the cost had not changed much in 15-20 years. The price of an engine or TX is alomost the same as it was then. How many things can you say that about? I cannot believe I am getting into 1/4 scale and gas, that was a dream of mine when I was a kid.-BW

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

62 calender years but a mental age of 13 and that is on a good day.

Started building tissue covered FF scale models when I was 10, was flying control line by 12, built with the aid of my physics teacher a single channel TX and RX whenI was 16. It even worked from time to time.

So I guess that gives me 52 years but I know that there are lots of guys with more.

Best moments I have had are when someone I have been teaching flys a model he or she built themselves and flying RC combat 7 up.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Flew my first Control line Cox PT 19 when I was 14. That was somwhere arounf 1973. It is the reason I bought my first giant this year, of course it is the PT 19. I have only been actually flying for about 1 year and 4 months. I have six planes now and climbing. In the process of recovering my Hangar 9 easy 2 trainer. GIving it to my father inlaw who's an Air Force guy in his 70's and wanting to learn to fly. I am totally hooked on this hobby.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I'll be 60 in June. Flew my first C/L in 1956. Started R/C in 1979. Still active in both C/L and R/C. From the old school of kits/scratch builder, not real wild about ARF's. I even designed and manufactured a R/C kit in the early '80's. But work and family time brought that to an end after about three years.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I'm 26...started flying control line and building Guillow's around age 11. Started flying RC about 13 years ago. I've always been a builder and a tinkerer...always will be.

I hope to have many more years in this hobby!

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

aren'tyou a little off topic?

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I'm 35 and started flying with my Dad when I was 13. Been in and out of the hobby, but recently picked it up for good 2 years ago.

I am the YOUNGEST person at the field whenever I fly. Too bad there's not more younger folks in this hobby.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I started building wooden and plastic models when I was pre-teen, probably 8 or 9 years old. Bought and built my first RC plane, a Sterling Fledgling, in 1972. I'll be 72 in November if I should be so lucky.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I spent most of 1952 in a C-54 between Japan and Korea, read in "Air Trails" about the Good Brothers flying an R/C airplane, made up my mind to try it once I got back to the US of A. Fast forwrd to 1953, Moses Lake Washingto, flew my first R/C with all home made and partly own designed equipment. Been at it every since, never had an ARF, profile, Ugly Stik or (Ugh!) foamie. Probably the last of the dinasaurs! Eloy Marez

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

My father, who first went to the NATS in 1940 (he still has the 1940 and '41 programs), says he started me building stick and tissue free flight when I was about 5. Like many others I made the progression from stick and tissue, to silk and dope free flight, to Control Line to R/C. A life long process. Like AH1G I'm 60 going on 80.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

I've been busting balsa since 1984 and enjoyed every minute of it![:@]

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Im 32 and things are starting to hurt a little. Been flying for the past 4 years, repairing/rebuilding for the last 1.

Though I did build my first plane from a kit when I was about 10. It was an Ace Whizard with a Cox .049. I covered it in all yellow. Never did get to fly it.

RE: Years of experience in R/C hobby including operating/flying & building
 

Remember those rubber-band launched, folding wing gliders? I started flying those in '47. Then there was the "stick 'n tissue", which would actually almost fly. Then came the hardwood "sand-for-ever hope they look like the actual plane" kits.

Then the plastics - never enough room in my bedroom for all of those dust collectors! Then got interested in the more complex free-flights and gliders with those less than consistent de-thermalizers and then some control-line models. But then life put everything on hold for a while.

Got back into modeling in '76 with my first RC slope glider which then lead to power models. For now I'm still flying slope gliders and I've just completed making floats for my 1/6 "stand-way-off-scale" DHC-2 Beaver.

Life goes fast when you're not paying attention.

;)