Dad flew a Barnstormer built from the kit, mostly by my oldest brother. It had an O&R .29 on it, and the fuel of choice was Francisco's "Power Mist"...the one with all the nitro benzine in it. Mmmmm, boy Howdy, did that ever smell good!
Being an Air Force pilot, ol' Dad had to fly here and there on assignment, to keep his flight status. Often he'd bring home a Monogram Speedi-Built kit for me, and I built a bunch of those, then Comet and Cleveland kits. Finally, in Jr. High, I taught myself how to fly CL, and also puttered around with gas free flight. My older brother was struggling with early single channel R/C, and we finally got some success with that.
We never lived anyplace with anything but sport flying, but when Dad retired from the USAF and we moved to the Seattle 'burbs, I got into a club and contests. Once I flew in a couple of contests, I dropped R/C entirely and concentrated on CL for awhile and then FF for awhile, and back to CL when the FF field went away. It looks like I'll be back to flying both FF & CL in awhile.
Steve