281,463.55 raised in 2026. We have reached 56% of our goal.
Help us reach this year's goal of $500,000!
Larry Erbach’s fascination with flight began almost as soon as he could walk. Some of his earliest memories involve standing in the yard with his grandfather, who brought home kite sticks—scraps from the millwork company where he worked. With those simple pieces of wood, Larry spent countless hours building kites of every shape and style, discovering the joy of creating something that could ride the wind.
I began building plastic car and airplane models in the late 1950’s. I was drawn to WWII military aircraft and was pleased that my local hobby shop hung some of my painted aircraft in the store, where they battled with professionally painted demos!
I started flying models around 1968. I was a junior in high school. I started out in control line. My first plane was a Sterling Ringmaster. The picture I enclosed shows me with my plane at the local high school with some of the boys that got into the hobby. The picture was taken by the local newspaper and made the front page.
My name is **Lenny Muroff**, and I live in Port St. Lucie, Florida. After spending more than five decades in the Ophthalmology field, I am now happily retired.
Around 2017, I had a patient who worked in law enforcement and was affiliated with a local RC club—the Port St. Lucie RC Hobby Group. As a photographer, I had developed a strong interest in flying drones, so I decided to visit the club.
The first person I met was **Patrick Lyons**, one of the earliest contributors to our drone group and, in my humble opinion, an expert pilot.
In about 1974 I was living in New York and my father came home with a magazine. I was 14 and remember it like yesterday. It was a Model Airplane News. I believe it had a picture on the cover of Larry Wolf's A-4 Ducted Fan Jet. I sat up all night and read that magazine cover to cover and by the weekend at least ten more times. I remember I went to school and told my friend about this magazine and how it was full of these things called Radio Control Airplanes. He told me that another kid in our class actually had one.
Rubber powered and balsa hand launched models is how I got started in 1950’s. My first control line plane was a Jimmy Walker 1/2a model. It took a lot of hope and perseverance to teach myself to fly. Mostly, I would bring my models home broken. Once repaired, it was back to the field to break it again.
My first r/c airplane was a DeBolt Lil’ Kitten with a 27mHz single channel radio rudder only 1/2a model. A successful flight was if you recognized one controlled turn. . . before it crashed!
I have been in the hobby for about 20 years now, I can remember my childhood when I went to hobby lobby to get a couple of wooden chuck gliders that I could throw in my backyard. Some years down the road, I discovered Air-hogs and I was absolutely fascinated with these aircraft. The models I had we the f-16, f-22, f-14, lazer tag helicopters, the hawk-eye, and the switchblade.
Aviation has always been a part of my life.
Growing up, my father was a private pilot and we flew for fun all over southern California. We'd fly from Montgomery and Gillespie fields in the San Diego area in Cessna 172s, Piper Archer 2s and Cessna 152s. We had so many adventures tied to aviation growing up - from day trips out to Catalina Island, hamburger runs over to Borrego Springs airport to a cross country family trip in an Archer 2 from San Diego to west Texas...I will never forget those experiences.
I started building stick and tissue models in the early ‘60s. I did free flight and rocket powered planes and gliders leading up to my first RC plane. It was a single channel Carl Goldberg 1/2A Skylane. Proportion came a few years later.
Over the years, I’ve done all sorts of RC models, including helicopters, turbine jets, gliders, boats, FPV, and of course, RC cars and trucks. My fascination of flight led me to a career as a corporate pilot. I retired in 2022, but still flying both models my models as well as my full size Varieze.
