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I have been flying model planes since I was a little boy, from the small, rubber-powered stick flyers, to the comet kits, onto the sterling Control Line and Radio Control kits. I was always building something that flew. Today, I'm in my 60s. I not only fly the models but also fly the real thing, and my workbench is cluttered with one being built and one being repaired.
I became aviation-minded as a child of 4-5. I would lie out under a tree in the front yard and watch the DeHavilland Otters and Beavers fly over from the National Guard at the airport 5 miles N of the house. I knew then that someday I wanted to fly.
Doctorate in Educational Administration from Columbia University. Retired special educator and musician. RC pilot for 25 years. Lives in Westlake. Dog lover. Sponsor of St. Jude and Multiple Myeloma Foundation.
I never knew universities helped high school seniors get involved with aviation until this happened to me:
Besides being one of my RC club’s Intro Pilot Instructors, I also volunteer with Horizon Hobby Flight School as one of their instructors. When someone buys one of their Eflite or HobbyZone trainer planes, they can enroll in the flight school, and HH finds a volunteer instructor like me near their zip code. So, HH emailed me contact information for a new student in November 2022. It was quite a story she told me.
My father flew every generation of Radio Control, starting with escapement. I started flying solo at 10 years old in 1966 and flew a ton of hours from then through college, graduating in 1979. From 66 to 79, I feel comfortable saying I flew 2,000 hours or so.
From 1979 until 2015, life happened, and luckily I flew occasionally, enough I didn’t lose my skills completely, but I certainly lost the edge. Early in this period, I got my private pilot's license, which more than kept my interest in aviation alive.
Around 1989ish, a work buddy of mine invited me to a fly-in at his R/C airplane club. Before this, I had no idea anything like an R/C club existed.
As kids, our parents did not expose us to anything like that. Neither of them had been around remote control 'toys,' so we weren't encouraged. My first impression of that event was "WOW! I gotta learn to do that!"
Flight? Mmm. As a child, I had a neighbor who flew full-size aircraft. :) Notice I said full-size. :) He sold model gliders at his parents' store. I asked my parents if I could have an RC model. The answer was always, "NO! But you can have a glider or rubber-powered model." So, I flew a Guillow's glider and built scale kits. After I married, I bought my first RC miniature airplane :) and joined AMA in 1994. AMA 523646.
At 62 years of age, models have been a part of my life as long as I can remember. My Dad did the wind up airplanes when I was a baby. Dad would wind them up and chuck them, and I would run them down. As I grew up, I did the Control Line, and in the early 80s, I got my first RC airplane. Over the years, I have built 100s of airplanes.
My introduction into model aviation was while I was serving in the U.S. Navy in Hawaii. As a young sailor living in the barracks, I needed something to do, so I decided to build a Goldberg Gentle Lady Sailplane on a bathroom door sat on top of two chairs. I tossed this glider off the third story of the barracks and flew it to the parking lot below, until I learned there were areas in Oahu where I could fly it.
When I got out of the Navy in 1960, I saw Bob Cording flying RC. I kept asking question after question. He asked me, "Would you like to fly it?" I said, "No, I might crash it." He said, "You won't crash my plane." He took it up high and gave me the transmitter. In no time, I had no control. Bob took it back and leveled it out and told me to "give just a little bit of control." I did, and I was hooked. I had to have one.
