Billy Hell

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I was talking to George Hicks the other day and I mentioned the Bros. He said he had followed us since the early days and had a Morris Top Cap that had about 1,500 flights on it. I told him he was over qualified but should join the Brotherhood. I just looked and he is now officially a Bro. Very damn cool!

TailTwister

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Sorry, I'll be the dummy. Who is George Hicks?

ChuckAuger

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The guy who won the ETOC. His resume has a few more accomplishments than just that.. What made him a household word (well, SOME households!) was the videos of the Tribute, the first flat foam plane most of us had seen.

TailTwister

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Is that the guy at Horizon?

ChuckAuger

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No, I don't think so..from what I understand George is an aero-something engineer. Are you thinking of Mike McConville?? I think he is a Horizon rep and flew one of Georges planes in the ETOC.

TailTwister

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No, there is someone who electrified the Funtana, and someone is in the pics of the new H9 foamys.

I was thinking one of them might be him.

I know McConnville, so I'm only half a dummy.

TailTwister

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This is George, right?

TailTwister

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Another

ChuckAuger

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Yeah, that's him, and those are his foamies. Horizon picked them up, but I don't think George works for Horizon. He might, I'm not very up on who is with who.

TailTwister

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OK, maybe I'm a 1/3 dummy then. I knew the planes at least.

I'm also not sure if he works there, of if they just snagged his planes and these "photoshoped" images of him. These guys should let Gator do their touch ups...

ChuckAuger

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No, that's really him, really flying planes he really designed. I would imagine he got a royalty or something for the design, but I just don't think he quit his day job to work at Horizon.

mvigod

Yes. That is the infamous George Hicks. For those of you who don't know him he is an excellent pilot having just won the E-TOC and an accomplished designer of aircraft to boot. He is extremely knowledgeable in the field of aeronautics as many on RCU already know. His full time gig is at Gulfstream but he does design models such as those depicted in the above posts being offered by e-flite.

As good as he is the nice thing is that he's a very nice and down to earth guy. You WILL be seeing more of George these days I can assure you!

PaulSwany

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Very Cool!! Good to have George aboard!! I really liked that bipe he was flying... Did he do the airbrushing on it?

TERMAGATOR

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hey George flies "Seeloff style" (low slung antenna) cept gary dont fly with no neck strap.....or expo.......I did see Gary fly in Houston on "Beer expo"

777M8

1500 flights on a Top Cap....sounds like Jess's OMP...And who in the heck counts anyway???

Billy Hell

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I always figure guys that count flights are deadley serious abou their game. I still don't have my rx antenna pinned to my OMP yet.

Spastic

I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Toledo show, he was hanging out with Quique. It was really great to get to talk to both of them.
one thing is for sure they are both Hell of good Guys! You can tell these guys do it for the love of the hobby.
I guess this is a good time to let the cat out of the bag, I'm working on a balsa and foam Tensor 4d (more like 40) profile .46 size model, its in the design phase now. I plan on just giving away plans of it.
here is a pick of the tensor if you havent seen it
http://carusotech.50megs.com/etoc_pics_4.htm

TailTwister

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Both of the pics looked doctored to me. Something is wrong, at a minimum, the background was altered. You can see the electronic airbrush around his image on both. I'm not saying he can't fly exactly like that, but both look funny to me.

It's good to increase the well of knowledge that the Brotherhood has become. As a group, there is nothing we can't handle.

Spastic

I think it's the same pic of him just with the 2 planes pasted in there, you can tell he is not looking at the plane..

Funflyaddict

thats what i thougth but look at the door and basketball lines on the floor

TailTwister

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Yeah, somethin' don't add up!


We be a friendly bunch of Bros...

GRH

Hey Guys,
That's for the warm welcome from the Pro Bros...I'm proud to be a member. Thank to Billy, Marc, Chuck, Paul, Spadstick for the kind comments.

I've got to come clean about the Tribute and Ultimate pictures...I've never been in that gym but it sure looks like a great place to fly indoor. I think Spadstick's right...it's the same picture used twice. I don't work for Horizon but I do get to work closely with Mike McConville, Pete Goldsmith and Patrick Brown at Horizon especially on their indoor electric airplanes.

To tell the truth I didn't count the number of flights I had on my Top Cap but my wife did through my fuel bill...Apparently she kept up with my spending and informed me that I'd spent almost $900 on glow fuel in two years. Back in the day that was about 75-80 gallons of fuel which is well over 1500 flights (only 6oz fuel tank) on that airframe. I sold the model when I left San Antonio last year and someone in Houston has it now...I assume that it's still going strong.

It's funny to hear you guys bring up Gary Seeloft and Jess...those guys are both awesome pilots. Gary is one of my favorite freestyle pilots of all time. He's simply amazing. He was one of the first guys we ever saw doing 3D down in the South Central region. I met both Gary and Jess through IMAC...it's a small world. Jess has an awesome knack for this stuff and is very smooth and controlled when flying 3D...he's got incredible control over the airplane. Both are really great guys. One last thing about Gary...I wish someone would setup his airplane for him because he could be one of the best precision pilots in the country if he'd start using mixing and expo. I still don't know how he flies as well as he does with his linear setup. He's truly a purest and I respect that.

To answer Paul's question I did do the airbrushing on the Tensor. It took me about 7-8 hours which is probably over twice as long as it would take a real airbrush artist to do it. I only started using an airbrush a few years ago and I've only airbrushed foam. I was a comic book penciler in another life but this is the first time I've really tried anything with color. The airbrush is a great tool...I only wish I could paint like Oversray and Termigator. If you check out this months issue of Quietflyer you'll see some great shots of the Tensor...the lighting in those shots make it look better than it does in person. After seeing those I'm glad I took the time to airbrush it.

Here's a more realistic picture of me hovering...this one's for real but not pretty enough for box art. Actually it's a picture of one of my prototype Tensors.

Thanks again guys,

George Hicks
Team JR

ChuckAuger

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Hey George..get to the Memphis ProBro May 22~23 (or really anytime from the 21st thru the 24th ) and hang with Gary, Jess and a lot of the other Bros. It's gonna be a blast.

777M8

Welcome to Brotherhood George!!! Those are some very impressive numbers of gallons burnt...A couple of years back I was burning three planes per gallon of fuel at a cost of $300.00 per gallon I didnt keep any reciepts..
Maybe you can join the Gary Seeloff fan club, Dues are kind of high though.(right Gary?)
Hope to see you at a Pro Bro sometime...[8D]

Jleyland

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Good stuff George. [8D]