Honestly, I don't remember. I think it was a Guillow Trainer III with McCoy 35. The first plane I flew inverted with was a PDQ Clown with no landing gear and an Enya 19 screaming it's guts out. First full pattern was a scratch built Dick Mathis Coyote with Enya 35.

Hi Matt,
My first was the family trainer, a Ringmaster Jr. with an old Japanese engine called a Hope 19. Dad had a UReely handle and we lived in the Windy City of Chicago so he would adjust the line length to match the capability of the model against the elements. Everyone in the family learned to fly on it except my brother as he was spoiled (he is the youngest) and got to learn on a Magician with a Fox 35. The Ringmaster is named Pinky, because mom and dad didn't have a ton of dough when they built it and mixed the white and red dope they had to paint the model. I still have it in my shop, I think it was built in 1956. It needs recovered but it's still in one piece.
Chris...

My very 1st plane had to be a 5 cent chuck glider from the Five and Dime, used to get one every time I could scrounge up a couple pop bottles and a few pennies. Then the Sleek Streaks, Strato Streaks etc. Good fun for a kid.
The 1st C/L plane I flew was a friends Cox PT-19. His family had fewer kids and a bit more dough - so he got the cool stuff before I did. I had the apptitude to read instructions and make stuff work + I had been running toward the sound of any model engine I heard for a few years and watched the bigger guys start and fly their planes. When Gene got his PT-19 I was right there to help, I had the basics of the routine to start and tune a Babe-Bee. 

My 1st C/L plane I owned was a Cox P-51, I crashed it on it on the 2nd flight - Christmas Day around 1969-70. Dad flew the 1st flight and made it look easy. I did a classic figure 9 and broke the wing. Never was the same after that
That Mustang was not as friendly to newbies as the PT-19, too fast and dropped like a rock when the engine quit.

The Sterling 1/2A sheet profile Warbirds were what really got us flying, sometimes the dope was barely dry when we took them down the street to the culde-sac to fly. Cox Super Power fuel would strip the fresh AeroGloss off in an afternoon- but who cared! We flew the wings off those things- literally. Several came apart in flight to our great amusement.

I still have a Sterling ME-109, plus some CG Wizzards for kids to crash when they show up at one of my secret flying sites ( the Park and School boards don't let something as dangerous as model airplanes on THEIR property). Much safer to have herds of kids kicking each other in the legs and running each other down while playing soccer, or build a concrete and steel skate park so they can break bones and get concussions - after they sign a waiver.

  - but I did pay fees and sign waivers so my kids could play soccer and skate at public parks, then have been run off for flying a C/L model in a back corner away from everything else.

My first flying plane was a PDQ clowm with a Cub .09 on it.I craked it up doing a outside loop It would not turn tight enouigh to do it. I repaired it and learned how to do outside loops with it. My brother told me before he died that a friend of his amd him also flew that plane and never told me. I bought a set of solid lines in 1947 and they came on a cardboard real and when i roled them out and i accidently droped the reel and screwed the lines all up. so had to order new set. when got the new set they were cables. I then was able to fly. I was 17 years old then.

'got kind of carried away on the 1954 thread, where I posted a picture of what probably was (is) my 2nd CL plane. the first must have been a Dil-Bod that I didn't get to fly - lots of bright red dope and a golden #2 on its side, but a recalcitrant Wen-Mac. As with some of my other early models, it's probably good that it did not fly; I don't think my idea of how to use Ambroid on the firewall would have pulled the plane with it for long. My Scientific "Atomic" and some reminiscing are on the other thread. Here's the Dil-Bod ad again, since that's how I wanted it to look.

SK

If I remember I will check the shop and see which one I have still in the box.  DOC Holliday

Ringmaster Jr. with a Fox 15.  Bought both from Leroy Barry who owned Barry's Bicycle and Hobby Shop in St. Augustine, FL. I was fourteen at the time.  Leroy sent his helper in the shop to my house to teach me how to cover with silkspan.  He also introduced me to something called sandpaper.  Geez, who would have ever thought that you need to sand the thing? 

When you walked across the wood floor in the hobby shop, it made a hollow sound.  I can still hear that sound.  Good memories of that place.  Leroy and his wife were great people.  They didn't care if you just came in to hang out for a while without buying anything.  They knew we had to save up our nickles and dimes before we could buy anything.

Leroy also got me together with Donnie Thibault (I still owe Leroy a debt of gratitude for doing that).  Donnie taught me to fly that Ring Jr.  That was forty nine years ago and Donnie and I are still flying together and I still consider him to be my best buddy on and off the flying field.

Bill Hodges

  Megow ROG.  Cost $0.05 from the five and Dime store (Perry Bros) and came with the covering AND a tube of glue (that always ran out JUST before you got the plane built.
  First CL plane Stanzel Shark, O & R 60,  Flew approximaely 4 feet (Two up and two more down and rekitted itsself).

  Bigiron

 I was BOM,  cranker during start, Adjuster of the timer and needle valve.  My dad turned the plane loose and helped pick up the disassembled "kit" and helped tote it home.

  Bigiron

First bird was a CG Lil Wizard using a Babe Bee .049. Second was this CG P-40. Eliot School, Tulsa, 1966. First big bird was this Ringmaster with a McCoy 35 RH, Tulsa, 1967. Jim Hill, my father, guided and helped with both...and cut his fingers on engine starts until I could do it myself. It made him joke about his "M1 thumb"--

I wonder how many of us on this forum had our careers shaped and decided by this hobby?  I know mine was.  First airplane was a carved balsa fuse, solid balsa wing with an .049.  Next engine was an O&R 23.
I still have an .049 like it screwed to my balsa cabinet as a reminder of those times in the hay field.  (Someone else on this thread flew in the hayfield.)
Will

Serge,

Does anyone know is the meaning of the name "Dil-Bod" ?

I wonder how many of us on this forum had our careers shaped and decided by this hobby?  I know mine was.  First airplane was a carved balsa fuse, solid balsa wing with an .049.  Next engine was an O&R 23.
I still have an .049 like it screwed to my balsa cabinet as a reminder of those times in the hay field.  (Someone else on this thread flew in the hayfield.)
Will

Junior/Senior years of high school and after graduation in 60, would fly T-Square after the hay was in the barn.  Dad would launch for me and he loved the T-Square better than my other planes.

Some where between the age of 4 and 6(about 1960) my dad built this Guillows T-3 powered with McCoy RH .35 for me.
Have film footage of me almost flying it---with Dads help to hold me down.
I think I remember that first time and when the handle was mine about 1/2 a lap of rapid altitude loss and then dad had the handle.
Started serious flying around 8(?) when I would load a gallon of fox superfuel ,battery and lines with airplane onto my bicycle and ride about 6 blocks to the flying field.
I remember wrecking my bike on the way one time and sliding on my chin and belly while holding the airplane in front of me avoiding damage to it.
 
Over a year or 2's time I must have run 50 gallons of fuel through it and stayed in trouble for skipping school to fly.(with my bud Tommy)

Loops and Flattened loops for learning inverted with at least 1/2 of the inverted flights ending in mud during pull out.
Must have bent and straightened that 10x6 TF nylon prop 1000 times.....
Epoxied the motor mount back on only once!
Has not been flow since I recived a Flight Streak kit for Christmas one year.
The McCoy went to the Streak.

Hope to repair/restore one day. the decals and blue on rudder were added by some dumb kid(me)
I will always remember flying this one...

There is pics of a freshly built one and copy of instructions here
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9227394/tm.htm

Started out with plastic models, graduated to chuck gliders and rubber band models.  Then, my grandmother sent me a Super Sabre with OK Cub 049.  That poor little cub couldn't get that heavy plastic thing around the circle.  I'd get someone to throw it as hard as they could with the engine screaming and got 3/4 of a lap once.  That was with full up.  And no, it didn't stall.

Then came the Stanzel 1/2a trainer.  I soloed on that.  Used to take it to the parking lot at the high school that was being built and flew it until I ran out of fuel, or until dark, whichever came first.  My father bought a Stanzel ABC Trainer and a McCoy "36".  He flew it until he allowed me to fly it.  Then he bought a Firecat that I was not allowed to touch.  He totalled it and gave me the ABC trainer and the McCoy.  I then bought a Ringmaster and flew it with the McCoy.

I finally learned to fly inverted with a Lion Tamer wing, the rest of which had been totally trashed, a TLAR Firecat fuse with a 1/16" horizontal stab and elevator, the outside portion of which flew away on the first flight.

And so on ad nauseum.

After a number of years of flying things like Cleveland rubber powered, Walker gliders, Hornets, and Cieling Hoppers, and building a number of Enterprise and Scientific kits, I finally learned to fly CL with an Enterprise profile P-51 with an older O. K. Cub .099.  Even leaarned to do wingovers with it.  Could never keep the LG on it, so I got most of my flying with it hand launched.

Mine started with a plastic P-40, don't remember whether it was Cox or Testors either way, I flew it, it didn't fly great but it did fly quite a few times.  Dad would fly an old Sterling SE-5A (Mccoy .35) and later a Sterling Corsair (Fox .35). 

The first one i built and flew was a Sterling Mr. Mulligan, I found that  at The Depot hobby shop on Lantana road probably about 1980 and paid $2.50 for the ancient used but unbuilt kit.  I flew and crashed it a few times, its been rebuilt at least twice and I still have it after not flying for 25+ years.  Now I'm trying to get back into flying and it may be one of the planes I use again, so it just won't go away!

33 years, that seems like yesterday to me now.  Bet the area the picture was taken doesn't look that now.  The place I first flew control line is still there where I lived.  The people that now own the house have added to it.

My first control line model was a "Spook 48".  For those of you not acquainted with vintage free flight, it was a gull-wing cabin free flight plane.  It was a gift, and the doner showed me how to install a bellcrank and hinge the elevators.  Although a free flight, it was pretty heavy and covered with "bamboo paper" and a whole lot of nitrate dope (or maybe super Kem-Tone?).

I installed my new Ohlsson 23 with all the spark ignition stuff.  Well, at 48" wingspan and all that weight, it just barely got airborne with that little engine chugging away.  It flew mostly with slack lines and dubious control.  Being a free flight plane, it pretty much went around by itself, regardless of my control input.

That was in 1945.

Floyd

Dick Shannon....Hmmmm....I don't recall ever meeting Dick Shannon, but did once fly a combat match against Henry. Some playfield over in WS. He had a Voodoo with a .35GH on it, and didn't get it started. I only recall having two matches against .35GH's, and neither got started.

I flew speed around Seattle in the middle '60's...Rollie Hillesland, Keith Loutocky, Jerry Wagner, Chuck Stohlmeyer, Brian Mace, Chris Sackett, Bill Case, Glenn Holm, Bill Bradley, and some I have forgotten. Knew Jerry Thomas, but not Ted Fancher. Finally met Ted at NW CL Regionals about 8 years ago.

Were you the Shannon of Shannon & Delaney speed team? And was that Gordan Delaney, of Utah, by chance? If so, it's really a small world afterall!    Speaking of small worlds, Dan Rutherford hasn't recently told the story about running into you in a restaurant in Albany, OR. Let's just leave it that way... 

I have a large framed picture of the original Seattle Skyraiders members from 1963, courtesy of Steve Stevenson's niece, Gem. I could be wrong, but I think you might be in it? There are some in the picture I remember very well, and don't remember the name to go with the face. I'd like to fix that. Maybe Homer Smith, or Al Likely, would remember the names. Welcome back!  Steve

Hmmm....Berkeley Mini-Zilch, Cub .049, circa 1950.  Never left the ground.  First "real" attempt was a Fox .29 Ringmaster, c.1952.  Half a lap, straight overhead and into the ground.  Had NO clue about proper control.

Next up: Sterling Yak-9...same Fox 29.  Made two laps before "going in".

Things improved after that, although (as "friends" will attest) by not all THAT much.   

My first plane would have been a North Pacific skeeter -- we had those around the house since day 1, thanks to dad (who never flew models seriously, but kept us supplied with those North Pacific things).

My first stick-built plane was a Comet Neuport 11 -- no one told me you were supposed to spritz the tissue with water after covering, so it was a bit wrinkled...  I think I was 11 at the time!!

My first control line would have been a Sig something -- probably a 1/2-A Skyray.  Second was a Sig Beech Staggerwing, and third was a Sig Dewybird (I've got another one sitting by my elbow, waiting to be built, and a soft spot for CL planes with dihedral).

Then a Ringmaster, then I got distracted by RC, college, and kids, in that order.  I'm coming out of it now.

Jamie, sahme on you,  don't you know the Cox PT-19 and the Corsair were the worst flying planes around, if you got them to fly. LL~I have lost count how youngster I helped get to flying with the Cox planes and a couple of Testors.  They were meant to get one started, like the A-J Firebaby.  Glad to hear you are back at it.

Actually the PT-19 had lots of wing area, so it flew better then most of the plastic sleds. A freind and I bought one to play with, not as a first airplane, I'd been flying all my life. Anyway, I said 'let's do same carrier landings". So we got some 1/4" flat rubber, (being a rubber flyer I had plenty) and drove a couple stakes to hold the rubber about 2" above the blacktop at the local school parking lot. I made a hook, can't remember how I attached it, and we went flying. We spent hours rolling in the grass laughing every time one of use managed an arrested landing. The rubber would stretch out and the rubber bands on the wing would pop go off and the model's pieces would fly off in opposite directions doing all manner of wild gyrations. It survived our play time and we gave it to a  neighbor kid that showed up to watch, fuel, battery and box, ready to go. He never flew it, I'd see him around the 'hood and ask, but he never did get it out, If I'd known that was the case, I'd have kept it.

I think I may have already told this story. but you may enjoy hearing it again. Mine was a 25 cent comet Structo-Speed P51 mustang kita a 5 cent tube of testors fast-dry glue Hadto go back to the hobby shop to get more a 1/2 dozen gillette double edge blueblades (which I used to cut hell out of myself, so i could get glue in the cuts to make me cry. I tryed test gliding it. All that did was break it. So I wound up the rubber motor, sat it on the front porch to launch it off like an aircraft carrier. well the prop spun it moved forward about 2 inches and quit. motor ran down. next I really wound it up! rubber band broke inside the fuse and destroyed my p-51 >    Still makes me    jim