How did you stumble into the hobby?

[Konrad]

Elsewhere I was bemoaning the loss of participants in the "toy airplane" hobby. Particularly the builder of models and the competitor.

I'd like to learn how you found the model airplane hobby. This might give us an idea as to what to work on in our attempts to entice the general public to try the hobby/sport.

I'll start. When my family moved back from South America to the USA. The US doctors found that my younger brother suffered from amblyopia. The doctors suggested that near focus and visual concentration of model building might help. As part of his physical therapy for his eyes, my parents bought my brother plastic models for the attention to detail needed to paint them. I was told that as an 8 year old I could be a bit of a pill. So to keep harmony in the family unit I was given a few kits. At that time my father encourage me to collect stamps as a way to learn geography. I had just found the Hungarian series of stamps showing models. So I asked for flying models. My parents bought me a few Comet and Guillow models, and I was hooked.

The only other family support I recall was having a space where I could leave a mess while I built the model. My mother hated the smell of the glue and solvents. My father suffered the pain of my crashes a lot more than I. So much so that I didn't want him around when I threw my models into the blue yonder. Progress was slow! For example it took 2 years before I learned to use wax paper on the plans. I also recall getting a few Testor 0.049 CL hand me downs (read crashed models) for a distant cousin. Who had moved on to rockets. One of these engines had a cross threaded case. I figured that out as being the cause of an air leak. (And this set me down the road to being a mechanic. Ending up with my team being invited to race at Road Atlanta 15 years later).

I must have flow a dozen Sterling beginner 1/2A control line models for 1/2 a lap. It wasn't until the Carl Goldberg Wizard that I flew a full lap with a control line model. It wasn't until I was 16 with a drivers license that I started to fly gas free flight models, as I could then get to the large open spaces needed. Somewhere a found a Mattel single channel RC set in a second hand store. After a lot of work I learned the basics of electronics and got it to work, at times. This sent me down the road to engineering as I liked to seeing the patterns in mathematics ( I hate arithmetic).

At 18 I bought a 5 channel Futaba radio and tried to really fly RC. I learned of an RC field from the hobby shop. And with the help of their flight instruction program was soloed in a few weeks. They held a Q500 race within a few months of my joining the club. I worked it and was hooked. My 3rd RC plane was Scat Cat racer.

A few years later a guy from the midwest came to a club meeting with a plug for a 1/4 midget racer (0.15cid) asking if anybody knew how to make fiberglass molds. As I was working as a body and fender man I knew how, or so I thought. This guy would later become the AMA RC Pylon chairman. And running the engines I built for him won the AMA Nats in 89 for FAI F3D Pylon.

That's my story in a nut shell. So how did you become interested in the hobby? And what kind of support, if any, were you given?

 

[thenated0g]

I think you are view that this is a dying hobby and people are not coming into the hobby to build is incorrect. Its just that they places people are going are drastically different than they used to be. Myself i am 46 and did not grow up around the hobby at all. I didnt have anybody in my family that was any kind of hobby builder (rc or not) or artist. Wasnt until about 9 years ago that i even got started in it. And it was all thru youtube. Self learning watching youtube, flitetest, looking at build threads online, going into the forums. I didnt touch rcgroups, ama's website or have any interaction with other hobbiest physically for many years. Flitetest forums right now have 55,000 members and they are hard core build from scratch enthusiast. Their youtube channel, although they obviously have followers that are not hobbyiest, has over 2million subs. What originally got me into slope soaring was i very quickly found Andrew Newtons youtube channel and he always was posting scratch builds and specifically slope scratch builds out of foam, foamboard, or anything he could find.

For myself the AMA magazine in particular i find very boring. It has never held my interest as it seems to focus solely on balsa builders almost exclusively. If balsa was the only way to build models i would have never got into the hobby. Even now years later the most i can handle are the micro planes as it goes quickly. I also stopped going to our local ama club as the old crew just has zero interest in anything other than balsa built models. I made huge 200% 30lb cargo plane out of foamboard. Dont care at all. Quads, nope dont care.

And that right their i think is one of the keys to why it may seem that the hobby is dying. I dont want to be around those kind of people and im sure people younger than me are picking up on that as well. So we go to other places where we are welcome and encouraged, which are not the old places. Even rcgroups i am very particular about where i post. So many "experts" that just want to critique you about what you are doing and why its wrong. The slope section usually being an exception to that rule.

 

[Konrad]

Thank you.

The You-Tube exposure might be key to today's efforts to grow the hobby. I see the dead tree press as dead.

As you know I don't like videos. I may need to rethink that. What do you use to edit your video content?

I see the hobby dying in the number of vendor, lack of new products and few folks at the flying fields. I agree the AMA magazine has failed to be little more than add space. I see some balsa builds but that is it. I agree balsa is so 20th century. I'd like to see some nice contoured foam models presented.

As to foam I've seen some really nice models. But most are low investment slap shot models. These are fine for studying a new concepts. I've done that myself.

The AMA clubs I've visited where very interested in how I built/ finished my foam models.

I don't see quads as models to build. They look to me as assemble and system integration issues. If there is craftsmanship (other than nice solder joints) I've missed it.

Maybe it is a generation thing I'm 62 years old. I like it when the "experts" show me the short coming of my build/ designs before I suffer a catastrophic failure. I thank them for their interest. Now if they keep harping on the issue then yes I feel that is counter productive. I've seen too many project fail at the flying field and on U-tube that might have had a good chance of success if somebody had given the project a good going over with a second set of eyes. This is why I find flying clubs so helpful. It is why I ask the better pilot on the slope to go over my models, focusing on the programing!

On U-tube I see guys just crashing their hard earned projects that given some mentoring would have worked.

I think you are a lot like most of us tenacious builders, that is stubborn. You won't let set backs detour you. I don't think the public at large has that same drive.

 

[thenated0g]

Well the quad things is more about electronics. Do you enjoy soldering kits? Thats a lot of what quads is. Soldering and programming. Thats another hobby in itself. I enjoy the soldering but i hate programming. Than you have the FPV aspect which is great, getting to go places like a bird. Than you have the part afterwards where you edit footage, thats a hobby. Than you have all the social interaction online.

So for instance i will usually record footage whenever i am out. Later, days or weeks, i will feel the bug to do some video editing and i can go back through footage.

Right now i use Adobe Rush as i can edit on my PC's and my Phone. Its more of a beginner program, but that makes it easier to use.

For me my hobby is the time i spend in the shop and flying. I dont view a plane/project as my hobby. So if i crash, it sucks, but that doesnt mean all the time i spent working on it was wasted.

 

[Konrad]

For me my hobby is the time i spend in the shop and flying. I dont view a plane/project as my hobby. So if i crash, it sucks, but that doesnt mean all the time i spent working on it was wasted.

Thank you. I'll look into that editing program.

And there is the key it is not a waste. It is to me a basis to build upon. That was the problem I think my father had when he saw a week of smelling dope fumes come back as a box of kindling.

To me flying is just proof that the rest of the work was correct. That is that I have command of the processes needed to create what I envision. I think that might be a bit hard to get across for the first time builder or new hobbyist. And to those that don't get it, I think the ARF is a valid tool to learn how to fly, program and how to develop those eye to hand coordination skills.

 

[thenated0g]

This is why foamboard is so great. Little time put in, little money put in. Very quick to repair with a glue gun. So not so painful when you crash.

 

[Red]

I grew up with it. My dad was into it so my earliest memories are being out in the garage building and flying on the weekends. I soloed a glow powered 4 channel model at 6 years old. By 10 I was doing maiden flights on other peoples planes. I competed in my first national event at 13 (F-1 Pylon at the Reno Nats) and flew competition for many years over many disciplines. I was lucky enough to start flying in commercials and a few films during high school. I didn't really start making the hobby my career until I bought a hobby shop in 1998 and then worked for a UAV manufacturer. Eventually I left that job to come run the sUAS Flight Research Lab at NASA Armstrong. I've been designing and scratch building since I was 10. I love to design because I get to have things that interest me that aren't otherwise available. Producing a few kits lets me share that with other like minded people. If anyone showed interest in one of my kits under 16, they got it for free. I've mentored many, many young folks and taught countless kids and adults to fly. I don't have any problem sharing what I've learned for those that are interested.

I don't see the hobby as dying at all. It is for sure changing however! (get off my lawn you damn kids) If you are stuck thinking that people should enjoy the hobby as it was while I was growing up, then you will be disappointed for sure. I learned a long time ago to embrace new technology, new ideas, and new people all the while enjoying the hobby exactly as I want to, on my terms. I don't compete anymore, except the odd pylon race here and there. Now I get much more enjoyment BS'ing with friends and fun flying than anything, which is why Sunset is such a blast.

Younger generations are more into the tech side of things than ever. Traditional building of kits has given way (although it is making a comeback) to multirotors, computers and FPV for those very reasons. Foamboard is great, less and easier construction, and more focus on the tech. That's what is bring the kids in.

So for me, I am grateful I can still purchase the things that interest me, and learn about the new stuff as well. For the record, I don't fly multirotors except at work lol.

 

[Konrad]

This is why foamboard is so great. Little time put in, little money put in. Very quick to repair with a glue gun. So not so painful when you crash.

That is why it is so good for beginners or for concepts that might fail.

Now I've seen some exquisite foam-board builds by modelers like Keith Shaw. Now those even a SAM member would swoon over. I'd like to see the AMA magizine cover that kind of craftsmanship in foam!

 

[Red]

That is why it is so good for beginners or for concepts that might fail.

Now I've seen some exquisite foam-board builds by modelers like Keith Shaw. Now those even a SAM member would swoon over. I'd like to see the AMA magizine cover that kind of craftsmanship in foam!

Never saw Keith build out for foamboard, but lots of Depron though. Very different material.

 

[Konrad]

I grew up with it. My dad was into it so my earliest memories are being out in the garage building and flying on the weekends. I soloed a glow powered 4 channel model at 6 years old. By 10 I was doing maiden flights on other peoples planes. I competed in my first national event at 13 (F-1 Pylon at the Reno Nats) and flew competition for many years over many disciplines. I was lucky enough to start flying in commercials and a few films during high school. I didn't really start making the hobby my career until I bought a hobby shop in 1998 and then worked for a UAV manufacturer. Eventually I left that job to come run the sUAS Flight Research Lab at NASA Armstrong. I've been designing and scratch building since I was 10. I love to design because I get to have things that interest me that aren't otherwise available. Producing a few kits lets me share that with other like minded people. If anyone showed interest in one of my kits under 16, they got it for free. I've mentored many, many young folks and taught countless kids and adults to fly. I don't have any problem sharing what I've learned for those that are interested.

I don't see the hobby as dying at all. It is for sure changing however! (get off my lawn you damn kids) If you are stuck thinking that people should enjoy the hobby as it was while I was growing up, then you will be disappointed for sure. I learned a long time ago to embrace new technology, new ideas, and new people all the while enjoying the hobby exactly as I want to, on my terms. I don't compete anymore, except the odd pylon race here and there. Now I get much more enjoyment BS'ing with friends and fun flying than anything, which is why Sunset is such a blast.

Younger generations are more into the tech side of things than ever. Traditional building of kits has given way (although it is making a comeback) to multirotors, computers and FPV for those very reasons. Foamboard is great, less and easier construction, and more focus on the tech. That's what is bring the kids in.

So for me, I am grateful I can still purchase the things that interest me, and learn about the new stuff as well. For the record, I don't fly multirotors except at work lol.

What is the definition of tech? I see it as being anything that is created based on the hard sciences, not just moving bits and bites. Then there is the artistic side of creativity.

 

[Konrad]

Never saw Keith build out for foamboard, but lots of Depron though. Very different material.

Yes, he had a lot of foam board I'm thinking of DH Comet. This was in the 80's time frame.

 

[Red]

What is the definition of tech? I see it as being anything that is created based on the hard sciences, not just moving bits and bites. Then there is the artistic side of creativity.

As it relates to the hobby, things with a chip in them and involve programming.

 

[thenated0g]

This is a concern with the new remoteID requirements. Hopefully transmitter manufacturers like frsky make it easier for us and roll out something cheap and small.

 

[Konrad]

Do you think the regulatory burdens will stifle the growth of the hobby? What level of enforcement will there be? Heck, the house is try to defund the 86k new IRS agents.

 

[thenated0g]

I have never seen a FAA officer in my life and from talking to local law enforcement they dont really know what the laws are either. I mean most guys flying on 5.8 fpv channels are doing so illegally as a ham license is required and nobody comes around asking for that stuff. I think its more like if you get caught doing something really bad they have a bunch of laws to throw at you. I still plan on trying to follow them.

Right now its hard to say because the FAA talks about the 2 different remote id technologies like they actually exist in some way (well technically it was just a software update on DJI stuff) but nobody has actually seen them and they are not selling them. For instance Horizon Hobby is still selling "ready to fly" stuff but does not say anywhere that it has remote ID. Anything manufactured since September is supposed to have it built in automatically. For us that do pnf/kits/scratch builds we are supposed to add some device that transmits the planes stuff out to anybody nearby, but i havent seen it. I think that requirement goes into effect later this year.

So right now its impossible to say as we dont know the import things that will impact building.
Added cost. And is it per plane or can we move a little device between planes?
Weight
Size

 

[Wayne]

Thread creep in full effect..

Back to topic.

My grandfather flew small planes and was a bit of a name in the industry. Started at Waco in the depression pushing a broom, was the first non-family member in Cessna sales after he sold a bunch of Bamboo bombers to Canada before WWII. Was on advisory groups for Washington, etc. After retiring from Cessna he started up an aviation insurance company that is now AOPA insurance. I'm still finding things he was involved with in aviation.

You could not be in our family and not feel the aviation influence. My father was a recreational pilot of single engine planes, an officer in the Air Force and then worked at Hughes Aircraft in the radar devision. My brother and cousin also ended up working at Hughes (TRW, Northrup, etc) My other brother went into the Air Force.

As a result of all of this I loved everything aviation! I'd ride my bike to our local airport and spend countless hours there. Soaking it all in and hanging out with the builders and professional pilots at the field.

I'd race out to a local field where people occasional flew glow power models. Always hoping one would let me check out the plane, or better yet fly it. But they didn't! One day we found people flying slope gliders by the beach, wow!!

That year my big xmas gift was a 2 meter glider kit, the Wanderer!! Wow, my own plane!! But the deal was I was not allowed to build it unless my dad was there to help. Uggh! This is going to take forever! Dad was very patient, I was not! Eventually my dad gave in and I finished the model. I had to wait for my birthday to get the Monokote to cover it! Orange and yellow! (Some things don't change) The next Xmas my gift was the radio gear! Woohoo! (Then we crashed it in 1.5 seconds.)

Dad stayed out of my way once I was airborne. I moved at 100 mph in the hobby and could not get enough stick time. Just thinking about that magic period is a great feeling. I made good friends on the slopes and spent as much time flying as possible. I would have been 12 or 13 when I was finally flying on a regular basis.

At one time I was making my own fiberglass PSS type models with foam cores, mostly to trade for other PSS planes. Sadly somewhere after college I stopped flying.. No idea why. I didn't get rid of my planes, but they were mostly trash. I only picked it up again when a neighbor in his 80's was excited about his new RC plane he was about to learn to fly. I was off and running again, and that eventually led to Aloft Hobbies being born from that garage.

I have received so much from this hobby. Great times, great memories and a zest to learn and share. I guess you could say it has always been in my blood.

 

[iflylilplanes]

My first model was a Keil Kraft Ajax, a birthday gift from my father in 1968, that was when I found out he was a modeller in his youth, he told me he built and flew model aircraft (free flight gliders and rubber power) while recovering from acute Asthma bouts he suffered before his teens, I have the same Asthma and was suffering a few attacks myself (the reason for the KK Ajax), luckily, we both eventually grew out Asthma. Dad and I built the Ajax using razor blades, sandpaper and PVA glue, real basic building, normal for the day. I had fun flying the Ajax and a few months later I built a KK Gypsy, so my first foray into aeromodelling was free flight rubber power.

With Apollo 11 happening over the same period, the model aircraft were forgotten, and I became a fan of the moon shot, collecting every newspaper and magazine article I could find, watching every TV news report and documentaries on NASA’s aim for the moon.

In 1971 my first year in high school, my school held a carnival, and the local MAC (the club I eventually joined, and still a member of today) performed a control line display, one of the flyers crashed his model, he removed the motor and the remains binned. I like to know how things work so, I retrieved the remains from the bin and, over the next 2 months I repaired the model, saved my allowance and purchased a 1.5cc Taipan diesel, joined the local MAC and learned to fly C/L and, have been in aeromodelling ever since.

1973 Dad got me a Futaba 5 channel radio and we scratch built David Boddington’s Tyro Major learning to fly RC by the pass the transmitter method. Funny thing now is the last two scratch builds over the last 12 months have been 1960’s models, I’m now into vintage RC aircraft and RC gear. I do build and fly gliders in competition (E/RES thermal, F5J).

But for a 4-year hiatus in the late 1980’s when I worked in the industry, 6 days a week selling model cars, boats, train and planes was too much, I took up gun smithing and competition pistol shooting.

Still going strong and flying almost every weekend.

Dave

 

[Doc J]

My dad worked as a production manager at the Hawkers - later BAE Systems factory at Kingston upon Thames - where I was born. So naturally when I was asked at school "wot does yer dad do then?" I was very happy to explain - 'e makes aeroplanes, dunnee! And it grew from there.
Later, when I was about 7 or 8 Dad set up a yacht building company with a partner in the same area so I had a lot of exposure to fine woodwork until they closed the shop a few years later. Ironicaly the reason they shut down was because of the onslaught of glass fibre in the yacht industry, and now look at me! My Dad always said to me: "Know when to start something, and know when to quit, but always be the best you can be, and don't listen to those other F***ers who tell you that you can't do it." So I did, and I didn't.

After secondary school, now with a few control line models under my belt and completely addicted to all things aeronautical, I was lucky enough to become a student engineer at the DeHavilland Aircraft Company - later Hawker Siddley Dynamics at Hatfield. No easy days I can tell you. No holidays picking bloody grapes in France with willing girls with big wobbly bom-boms for me. When it was work time I was a slave, when it was holiday time I was a cleaner, and when I wasn't doing that I was on day-release at tech college, and at that time if you didnt pass your exams you bloodywell got chucked out. Que Violin....

But somehow - I copied a lot? - I did well at Tech College and was eventually sponsored by the company to go to university - thanks in no small part to my 'dutch uncle' Sir Sidney Camm. What started as an undergraduate degree in aerodynamics, graduated to a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering and finally a PhD in Materials Science. Fun? you had to be there...

All of this time I had been aeromodelling. A bit like my education, free flight went to simple control line models, which went to semi-competitive conrol line models, whch went to the numero uno, ultra competitive FAI teamrace discipline - and with my Team mate Peter Williams, I did well. I was making my own engines by that time; shamlessly plundering the resources at Cavendish Labs and brown-nosing like a demented wombat in order to gain the friendships of the master toolmakers working there. You have no idea how complicated the internal metallurgy of a 2.5cc model diesel racing engine can get. But hell, it was so much damn FUN! I could tell you stories...

Problem was, by the time I graduated, I had no flippin job at Hawkers. Cutbacks in Government funding due to the scrapping of the TSR2 fighter - among other things meant that jobs in the aviation industry became few and far between. So eventually I ended up working for a Turbine manufacturer in the Newcastle area, but because I couldn't understand a bloody word anyone said - ever heard a Newcastle Geordie accent? - I quickly changed to Metals Research - later Cambridge Instruments, after being picked up hitchhiking by the Chairman, Dr Michael Cole - in his chauffuer driven Rolls Royce. "Come to my office on Monday at nine sharp, young man, and dont be late! I did, and I wasn't. So that was me employed for the next decade or so.

For reasons I'm still not sure of, something to do with that old enemy, life, Pete and I drifted away from C/L racing both for the same basic reasons I suppose, like raising a couple of kids, and so it wasn't until some years later that I returned to modelling. I had been on a trip to Japan - my second home by that time - and I had - for no apparent reason - purchased a model sailplane kit: The Divine Wind" by pilot models.
Of course by this time I had an advantage over my previous modelling activities - oh yeah...I could afford a radio set! I built the balsa and ply model which I suppose was a kind of allrounder/aerobatic trainer, and bit by bit, by handing the transmitter back and forth with an experienced flyer, I learned to fly it.

If you have a head full of technology, it can creep into almost everything you do, except - as my ex-wife told me - romance...
Anyway it was not long before I was designing and making my own sailplanes, and I made my first all-moulded model somewhere in the middle of the '70's. Then life stepped in again about that time and surprise, surprise I was getting divorced. I was spending so much time travelling in Japan and the USA that I guess my wife wanted a husband and not an occasional visitor. I didnt even have a Japnese Girlfriend...'kin tellin yer! But by that time she was banging her second cousin - also an accountant, the evil little witch. I can actually imagine - quelle horreur! - how their bed time conversations went when her accounts receivable integrated with his accounts payable...

So inevitably the next life-turn happened - I got the chance to come to Taiwan as a consultant to a military organization. I had actually been there few times for Cambridge so it wasn't completely new to me. At first I poo-poo'ed the idea, but then after a week or two I gave it another think over, and decided to do it. After all if I didn't like it, I could always come back, couldn't I? But I did, and I didn't.

Well, since I had lived in Japan for a few years by then - again working for Cambridge - so as I said, Taiwan was no real shock to me, but oh that damn language! Anyway, me being me, I soon had a girlfriend - language problems solved - and it wasn't long before, gazing upon those grassy windy mountainsides in the Taipei and East coast areas, that my mind naturally turned to slope soaring. I guess even if you are not active, from time to time your brain still turns to your love, and I don't mean the one with the nice bum and firm boogie-woogies.
I'd had a design fermenting in my mind for a year or two, so without further ado I set out to make it. That was the Vector III - eventually it was produced by RCRCM - but thats another story.

Thats me.

Doc.


.

 

[Red]

Holy cow...Sydney Camm! wow that's cool.

 

[Hank GB Z]

Well, i got into through my dad. My dad got into it in college when a friend had a C/L model he couldn't run and my dad being a Mechanical engineering student at the time said he can make anything run. I grew up going to the field with my dad, we'd go to mile square in Orange County and when he would fly i'd sit on the tables with the standing order to get under it if any yelled "Heads Up". My dad and I built lots of FF models together and when i was about 9 he gave me a large box of balsa and a bottle of thin Jet Ca glue and i was off and running making all the chuck and rubber powered models i could think of. My dad taught me to fly when i was about 12 and gave me a Falcon 56 kit for Christmas. I built the model and flew it till one day the onboard battery died and she crashed. My modeling slowed a little later on in high school, but right after high school a buddy of mine ,who also flew, came by my house with a scratch built fun fly type model. that model was electric and he was doing loops and rolls with it in my front yard i knew electric was where i wanted to go in the hobby. So knowing nothing about electric power systems or small radio equipment i went and bought a Herr Engineering 30" ws FF kit and built it for RC 3 ch A/E/ thrtl. That ended up using a GWS "A" box and some pico servos and an 8 cell 250 mah Nihm battery and after some trimming it flew. Next i built a Guillows Thomas Morris scout for 3 ch R/E/Thrtl. Again after some triming that thing flew really well.
Later on I went to college in San Francisco where i joined the Vultures and at my first meeting I met Konrad and he had the framed fuselage for a Guillows Fairchild 24. We started working and flying together pushing each other on to try different projects and ideas. We flew in Golden Gate park so stuff under 40" ws was better than bigger stuff. My friendship with Konrad really pushed my building and flying skills and i can certainly say that some of my best models were a result of his help and guidance.
I still fly with my dad quite often and we enjoy flying from the Lake and out at Kite hill and the local park. We lost a good field during Covid so that's been a downer. I have a son now and he's getting old enough to learn to fly but he doens't show much interest. I bought an Aero Naut Lilenthal 40 for him for his birthday. I'll see if i can get him interested in building. Lot's of my dad's flying buddies who had kids around my age never. Their kids never liked flying that much because it felt like a job "they had to go flying", Or they liked flying with their dad but they never took it up on their own. Also as Wayne said about leaving and coming back to the hobby, i've met lots of guys in their 20s and 30s who said they tried it as a kid but couldn't get it to work or they couldn't afford it and now they're trying it again. My dad taught a guy in his 80s to fly a few years back, he's now in his 90's and still goes out to the field once a week and flies his plane. While age is more than just a number it's not a limiting factor.

Hank

p.s. Below is a pic of my Guillow Champ model i built 17 years ago. Konrad helped me laminate the tail feathers and make the smooth fillet on the fuselage. We used to fly formation me flying this and him flying the Fairchild down in Golden Gate park.