Control Line Fascination (or 'What got me started')

[Mike Lauerman]

Santa Clara, 1953. I was 11, but still knew Harry Angelo's hot rod roadster when I saw it. Well, there it was, at the curb in front of Fremont school. I rode my bike up close, to get a real look. A loud noise suddenly broke up the silence, and I turned toward the schoolyard. Harry and his buddy were fooling with a big model airplane, painted like the Flag...Harry ran away from it, stooped to pick something up, and waved to Johnny Perreira, who pushed the big plane to roll it, but it took off, going loudly round-and-round, leaving a smoke trail behind.
  Harry was wearing his familiar leather jacket, holding the handle horizontally, (like the "rap-gangstas'" do nowadays) his other arm extended for balance...(maybe effect!)
I was more than intrigued. The sound that thing made, it was like music to my ears. Excitement!
The plane was enormous, at least to me. The canopy was clear back at the tail, like that fat red-and-white racing plane I had so many pictures of...but it was different. When Harry landed it, I asked them what it was!
Harry and Johnny laughed, and told me it was a "Gas Motor Plane," (I knew that, my Dad had taken me to the C/L contest at Moffet Field the previous year.) They said it was an "American Senior".
They set to starting it again, but all it would do was pop and blubber. At least I got to see it fly. They told me of a contest coming up at Lafayette park on the following weekend (6 blocks away) and I made plans to be there!
The contest started early Saturday morning. There were contestants lined up at a long table, and some men were measuring and weighing some of the planes. Another table had planes that were being worked on, and I was fascinated with the wire-and-screws, and fitted metal pieces
that held cowlings and hatches on...there were some high-wing 'cabin jobs' (what the men called them) and they had doors that opened, with springs and wires and all kinds of hardware, and batteries and switches...I was in "hardware heaven".
  I asked one of the older boys where one would get such a machine: could you buy it at the hobby shop? "No. You have to build it. When you're older, you can do that."
  The lady at the hobby shop showed me a Firebaby. My Dad said I'd 'cut my finger off'. I settled for a Monogram Speedee-Bilt. A P40. For the 'time being'. I began 'living' at the hobby shop. When some of the older boys went flying from there, I tagged along. It was good that I did, as one of them felt sorry for me, and taught me to fly around on his trainer. (Testors Sophomore)
  Mike Shannon (my best friend) was also Harry Angelo's cousin, and let me fly his brand new Sterling Mustang. Harry tutored both of us. Mike and I flew for years, always with "Hey, wait'll you see my latest!" It was like that with our cars, too...Mike went ROTC in High School, attended OCS, and was killed his first day in Viet Nam, land mine.
  Come on, where did you guys start?   

[John Miller]

Spring of 1947. It was at one of the parks in Salt Lake City. I was 4 years old at the time. My parents took me on a Sunday picnic at the park, and while there, a bunch of young men pulled up in several cars and began hauling model airplanes out into the open area, away from the trees.

Being a kid,, and with the War recently over, and being plane crazy anyway, like most kids of that time, I was a handful trying to keep me away from the line of planes. That was until they started one up, and I watched it fly up into the air. Round and round it went, and I just sat there on my little bum and watched. After a few flights, someone tied a streamer on and something I'd never seen before happened. Two planes, both with streamers, were chasing each other all over the sky. I believe this was right about the time that UC Combat was first being flown. I was hooked.

My Dad bought me my first real model when I was 8, but before that, I was whittling planes out of wood boards I found laying around. I tried swinging them around on a string, but it mostly didn't work, as I knew nothing about balance.

For Christmas, 1952, Santa left me a Cox RTF. It was the TD-3, and I thought it was the most beautiful plane I had ever seen. I wouldn't fly it for fear of crashing it. It finally became brittle with age and cracked all to pieces some years later.

I built a number of Strombecker solid display models, as well as a bunch of Comet rubber stick builts, but my first Gas ukey was an Enterprise Razzle Dazzle, and I used the engine from the TD-3 to Tower it with. I had learned to fly before this while staying the weekend at my buddy Bob Sullivan's home.

He had an all metal delta flying wing with a K&B .049 that really took a beating teaching the two of us to fly. We did this in the Cul-de-Sac, in front of his house, spent the entire day to learn to take off, fly level, and sorta land, when the engine quit. All those crashes into the asphalt, and that combo kept coming back for more.

I don't recall what happened to the Razzle Dazzle, but last year at VSC, someone sold me one, NIB, so it sits in line waiting to be built.

The best flying 1/2a, the one that taught me to fly loops, and upside down, was the SCIENTIFIC American Boy. It also was pretty indestructible over grass.

About 1956 or 7, I used the proceeds from my paper route to buy my first "Big" engine, a McCoy .35 RH. I built a Sterling Mustang to mount it on. Fortunately for me, some of my flying friends knew a little about engines, and taught me how to take care of that McCoy. I never had a lick of problems with it.

Several profiles later, I built a Super Ringmaster. I actually learned the 57 pattern with that plane.

1958, one of my buddies had given up on building his 57 GB Nobler. It was just a bit beyond his skills at the time. He sold it to me for $6.00. What a bargain. I finished it. I still didn't know much about trimming, in fact, I don't recall ever checking the balance out on any plane I built during that time. Still, things must have been right, as that Nobler flew like a dream, right off the boards. Until recently, it was the plane all new planes were judged by.

I sold the Nobler, along with the McCoy to one of the younger fliers before departing for active duty in the Navy, in '62. Sold it pretty cheap if my memory is good, about $25.00. I wonder what happened to it?

I sort of layed off after the Navy, I did design a stunter in ,67 that I'd like to build some day. A Canard pusher, patterned after the B-70 Bomber.

After moving around the country, Washington, and Alaska, I found myself in Wisconsin in 1980. By '81, I had built a new stunt trainer, the original style Tutor, with,what else, a McCoy RH for power.

I've been back in the hobby since then and enjoying it more every year. Thanks to great friends and acquaintances, I hope to continue as long as I can.

[Randy Powell]

I was "sentenced" to flying with my cousin, Bill, as a punishment for some, uh, transgressions that involved my parent's church. I made it impossible for them to take me back there and so, was foisted off on my cousin to "watch" me on Sundays. I was 13. Turned out I really liked it (much to may parent's dismay) and started almost immediately building planes. My cousin designed and build his own planes and I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "kit" until I was about 16. I remembering wondering what the big dea was. OK, so someone else did the cutting out. Is that important? Probably why I tend to build from scratch now. I didn't build my first kit until after college.

I flew at Whittier Narrows with my cousin in the late 60s and early 70s. Pretty much until I went off to college. Stopped flying CL for a bit, through college and for awhile afterward wandered off into RC. Then came back in 1984 and have been doing it ever since.

[GEOFFREY]

School in  1954 Shop class , still remember teachers name "Mr Olson" was handing out  choices for projects. Everyone remembers the  2 color wood cutting board, think  maybe bird house or can' remember but he was building a DEMCO Continental and A model was all i could think about.Got a part time job in Hobby shop and never looked back. when schools offered hobby's there really wasn't much time for TAGGING OR VANDALISIOM

[john e. holliday]

Well here goes.  My brothers on my Mothers side of the family were into models of all kinds.  Of course I was much to young to participate as far as they were concerned at that time.  My brother Bob was the best at constructing them and finishing.  My Brother Bill was the one who helped and could build.  They had an all metal plane they tried to fly at what was called City Park in Kansas City, Kansas.  I never got to see them fly back then.  My brother Howard spent his time playing drums which in time he got to go to a lot of places with the High School Band and Orchestra.  Later my brothers Bill & Bob got into motorcycles.  My brother Bob also got into tether cars and held the KC record for a very short time with a McCoy 60.  I still have his Thimble Drome car with an O&R 19 in it. 

For Christmas in either 53 or 54 my brother Bill gave me a Thimble Drome Space Bug.  Needless to say Bill & Bob wanted to see it run.  But, we had to wait until after dinner.  They got it running and showed me how to run it.  Wacked my fingers a few times.  Only sissies wear gloves to start an engine. 
In sixth grade at a spring picnic a couple of classmates tried to start an engine on a control line plane.  They cranked on that thing all afternoon and never got it air borne.  I offered to help as I could start mine on the bench within a few flips and listen to it run.  During all this time I could be found at the magazine rack in the local grocery store reading the "Air Trails for Young Men" magazine while Mother did her shopping.  That is where I read about a plane called "The Fire Baby".  My neighbor paid me for picking apples and pears so I could buy the plane.  The Thimble Drome was mounted and I tried to fly it with my brothers watching.  Got so dizzy I fell over and crashed after about a dozen laps.  That is when the Hardware Store in Whitechurch sold me a Scientific Kit called Sport Racer and a OK Cub .049A.  I literally wore them out flying.  Yes I did go to longer lines so it wouldn't make me spin so fast.

Then I managed to save enough money working at the riding stables the summer of 55 that I bought my first 35 size engine and  a Guillows Rat Racer.  Won't mention name of the engine as I have been informed it didn't exist at that time.  I have been hooked ever since.  Still have the engine even tho it is completely wore out.  I guess its wore out as when it was in a Nobler it would take three drops of 3-in 1 oil and 3 drops of fuel to get it running. 

The thing I really owe a big thanks to model planes is all the places I have had the privelage to fly them and all the people I have met.  Can't remember the names of all  of them.  Later,  DOC Holliday

[don Burke]

My parents took the three of us to a "model airplane contest" in Junction City, Kansas sometime in the mid to late 40s.  All the airplanes, at least to me, were Vecos of one variety or another and the engines were O&Rs.  My dad was in the army but must have had a big interest in airplanes.  He made sure we went to any kind of airport or airshow we could see.  What I remember most is that most of them crashed!  Before that during WWII there would be models to build for my older bro and sis, I was only 5 when the war ended. 

I bought my first kit, a Comet Fokker D-VII, at the five and dime in Junction City.  Bought it because of the drawing of the Mustang on the box.  Was very surprised upon opening the box when it was the D-VII.  So much for reading the label on the end, or looking at the dwg on the corner of the box cover!  Continued hacking on wood with Mom's scissors and things, wow did that go over big!  Cut my fingers big time with double edge razor blades. 

Didn't really get flying until the mid-50s when we got back from 3 years in Germany.  Got my first Cox Baby Bee at America's Hobby Center in New York, within days of getting off the ship!  Mom & Dad supported my bro and me in anything we wanted to do concerned with model airplanes.  Dad was then assigned to an army base in VA.  My bro and I were the only fliers in Blackstone, VA or on the base.  We flew at a softball field within bicycle distance of our house on base.  There was a hobby shop on base that we could mail order things from, and hobby stores in Richmond for walk-in stuff, but that was a weekend trip deal.

The parents took us to a contest at Andrews Air Force Base in 1955, The National Capital Model Airplane Contest.  We had airplanes we thought we could fly in combat, but watching Riley Wooten  & others fly theirs, chickened out from flying.  Dad was ticked off!   But, I did see George Moir and his Rambler fly Team Race.  I've admired that airplane ever since, and wow did it go!  Been hooked on racing ever since.

We were in a club in Fredericksburg Va. having moved from Camp Pickett to Camp A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg.  When we got there, there wasn't really a good place to fly CL on either the base where we lived or in Fredericksburg.  But we did get into R/C, flying single channel, escapement type, airplanes at the Fredericksburg airport or in open fields on the base.

After a while the army decided that the colonel, my dad, needed a tennis court near the house we were living at on base.  Not much tennis got played, no net, no smooth grass, but you sure could fly CL, and it was just 100 feet from our house!  We flew when ever we wanted, since the house was out in the middle of nowhere on the 37 square miles of base.  Great memories of those days and our parents who encouraged and supported us doing the modeling bit.

[Andrew Borgogna]

How did I get started in this hobby?  Well my first recollection of model airplanes was in the early 50's there was a short movie that played once in a while on our brand new Philco black and white TV.  The movie was something like "The Adventures of Tailspin Tommy", anyway they had rubber powered and gas powered freeflights.  There was something about the little planes that flew that hooked me for life. 

My older brother got some kind of balsa RTF with silver paint and swept back wings around 1952-53 he never flew it and eventually I inherited it.  I never flew it either but I loved it.  By 1955 I was hanging out at the local hobby shop that was on the way home from school, until one day it closed.  Neither of my parents were interested in "Toy Airplanes" they were depression era lower middle class working people and thought such things were a waist of money.  My father, much to my mothers displeasure, did buy me a Firebaby with an OK cub .049, by this time I had progressed to where I could start the motors but didn't have a clue how to fly.  Later one Christmas, I was about 12, I received a Veco Tomahawk and with a Veco .19.  But left on my own I didn't have the skills to build it let alone fly it.  It wasn't until I was around 15-16 and hooked up with some school friends their father knew model airplanes and Hi Johnson that's when I really started flying. 

I built a few 1/2A's but I was drawn to the larger planes.  Because of my friends connection with Hi Johnson we all went out to Hi's plant, my friends came home with motors but I had to wait.  I finally earned enough money babysitting and purchased a Johnson .32.  I still have that motor and it still runs.  My first plane was a PDQ Flying Clown, why, because it what cheaper than a Ringmaster.  I finally got a real job working in my parents Pizza take out.  With money in my pocket I was able to moved up to a Ringmaster, and started to progress in my flying skills.  With nobody to teach us the pattern we all were happy to just punch holes in the sky with our Ringmasters and Flitestreaks.  It was around this time I built an Ambroid Stuka Stunt. 

Not long after high school it was into the Air Force during the Vietnam war, I flew control line the entire time I was in the service.  The Air Force had hobby shops on all the bases and the cost of equipment was very low.  Later after coming out of the service I brought home with me a Flitestreak I had built with a Fox .36x ( I still have that motor in a running condition).  It was around this time I started work with the company I am still with after almost 40 years.  My drive to work from Downey California, where I lived, to Pasadena California, where I worked, took me right past Whitter Narrows.  I knew they flew R/C there but didn't know they also had control line circles.  I stopped by one day and saw the control line area, so later I went back with my Flitestreak and that was when I met Tom Warden and his crew.  I flew with them for a few months, my brother destroyed my Flitestreak so I bought a set of plans from Tom for his Trophy Trainer and had a great time flying it. 

It was during this time that I finally started learning the pattern from Tom.  I was doing well until I started practicing outside square loops.  I did a number on the TT and around this time my first son Michael came along.  The model airplanes were set asside for several years, when I came back it was stright to R/C where I spent the next 25 years.  Finally when the last public flying site, Mile Square Park, was shut down so another golf course could be built I just walked away from R/C.   

That kind of bring me to the present, a few years back I started following an internet forum for CL which later became Stuka Stunt Works.  I built a Brodak Nobler and scratch built a Tomahawk to make up for the one I didn't finish as a kid.  I started flying CL with my younger son who really enjoyed it.  That lasted until he got married and once again I stopped flying. 

Later I posted a message on SSW asking if there was anybody who flew CL in South Orange County and my good friend Larry Renger answered and we have been flying ever since.  Since then I have learned the pattern, destroyed a few planes and met some really great people.  I belong to the Knights of the Round Circle a really fine club dedicated to control line.

Between Stunt Hanger, Stuka Stunt Works, and Brotherhood of the Ring I have met people from around the country and the world. Every now and then I venture to the dark side just to see if I can still fly R/C but I always return to the light of control line.   

Larry and I attended VSC last year and will be there again this year.  I kind of settled on building and flying the planes of my youth, I love my Ringmaster. 

Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Andy Borgogna

[Jim Oliver]

What got me started?

Well, I got sooooo tired of hand winding the rubber bands in all those little Comet stick models I built back then.

Can't say the Wen-Mac .049 (my first engine) was much of an improvment, though.......but it got me started.

Jim

[Dave Nyce]

I tried to build a few of the stick models when I was 5, and couldn't quite read the instructions.  No one else in the family had any interest in model planes, so I just looked at the drawing and tried to make the model look like that.  Eventually, I got one together and somewhat covered with tissue paper.  Wound up the rubber band, launched it in the basement: hit a pole and broke the wing.

Built a couple more rubber powered models before getting enough money to buy a Babe Bee engine and an F4F Wildcat built-up wing and profile fuselage kit.  Then I got a Cox plastic plane for Christmas.  Took a while to learn how to start the engine.  Then didn't have much trouble learning to fly the Cox, but had trouble finding people to release it for take-off from a picnic table.

I had enough building experience by then, and got the Wildcat together OK.  I was seven by then.  Was able to fly that one right off, and was doing loops by the end of the first flight.  Later, I put a screw-eye in the bottom of the tail, and two screw eyes in a stick that I hammered into the ground.  Tied a string to a nail placed through the three eyes, and then had the ability to fly without a helper (taking off from an old piece of plywood on the ground).

Built lots of 1/2A planes, and got some other kids interested.  When I was 10, started a club called "Flying Funlimited" and made membership cards on a printing device ordered with cereal boxtops.  Local hobby shops gave us a 10% discount.

Flew lots of combat, and often had an "all-up" at the end of the day.  We used to get up to about 15 planes going in the same circle before the tangle.

As a teenager, built larger planes.  Then spent a few years chasing girls instead of combat planes.

Dave

[Wynn Robins]

I started building and flying in 2003 -

built probably 20-30 planes - and smashed most of them learning the F2B pattern - but now that is all I do ....the l Dreadnought  is the last one off the board.....

as you all know- I am in the middle of a B25 twin stunter -which will be something fun.

[Chris Edinger]

I got Hooked in one night in 1956...
Was in my junior high days... a new freind asked me if I would like to go to a model airplane club meeting..  Well.. sure  why not.. Was held at the Topeka Public Library...and the club was called the Topeka Parrots... A young fella named Lamont Shaw was kind of heading up the meeting.. and had brought a what I vaguely remember as a Nobler...all I knew was that it was... Huge... and beautiful... I didnt hear or understand much of the meeting,, I was glued to that plane!!!   At the end of the meeting.. Monty... as he was called... asked ... Who would like to learn to fly??
I raised my hand thinking that it would be some day in the future.... Nope.. Monty said for us younger guys to call our folks and see if it was alright to go .. right now....So at 8:30 at nite we were off to the Gage Park Flyin Circle that even had lighting.

Monty dragged out what I later learned was a home built trainer made from house siding and a McCoy 29 RH..
I was totally in awe when he fired that thing up. He taught one of us how to ... Stooge...and he taught i think  4 of us to fly that nite.  Monty was great at teaching us to fly this thing... it was awsome.. and I was totally hooked..

My first plane was a Veco Tomahawk.. which I only skipped into the ground a few times.. It wasnt until my next plane, a Veco Tom Tom did I truly Auger one into the ground.

Although I havent stayed with the hobby continously,, I have made forays back into CL several times and am returning again after nearly a 30 year layoff.. I'm just as excited to be building and flying again as I was in 1956.

Its all about havin fun

Have fun ya'll

Chris

[Randy Powell]

In explanation of my above post, I should note that I was something of a "bad" kid. Hung out with, uh, club members and got into all sorts of problems of the legally involved sort and saw the inside of very small rooms on more than one occasion. Nearly drove my parents crazy with worry. The stuff at the church was just a sideline. I have to say that were it not for model planes, I'd probably be cooling my heels in long term incarceration now. I owe a lot to "toy" planes.

[don Burke]

Where we spent our teen years, out in the country, away from all the other kids our age, there wasn't much opportunity to get into the bad stuff.  Amen to the model airplanes getting us directed toward positive things.  My bro and I were the only model builders in the whole county!

And thank goodness for the local clubs, model magazines, and the AMA for keeping all of us in the US and elsewhere, in a way linked, together.  We devoured and re-read MAN and AIR TRAILS, and when we discovered it, AEROMODELLER!   The NET today and forums like this one provide links to others that none of us even dreamed about.

Most of our drive came from the positive support and encouragement of our parents, even though they really didn't have a clue as to what we were designing and building, they never did anything but encourage us to continue.  That had a lot to do with both of us pursuing engineering in college. 

That also brings to mind that we were the only guys in our drafting classes in college who even knew how to make or read a drawing!

[Andrew Hathaway]

For me this all started one fateful afternoon back in about 1987, driving through Gage park on the way home from someplace and dad drove past the flying circle.  Someone was out there messing with something so we pulled up and watched for what seemed like an eternity (5-10 minutes probably) as the people on the circle fought with one of those plastic Cox planes.  I don't remember that they ever did get it in the air, but dad mentioned they'd flown those planes when he was a kid, and that he could do better then these guys with this plastic plane.  Being the kid I was, my reply was something along the lines of "Prove it". 

A few weeks later a couple boxes showed up in the mail from my uncle.  Turns out dad made a phone call to see if any of the old stuff was still laying around.  This first round was pretty bland, there was a shoebox full of old engines, almost all of which were completely in pieces.  There was a mix of other hardware, some lines, an EZ Just handle, etc.  Not all that long after the first batch, dad said we had to run across town to pick up another box.  All the old completed planes had been packed into a windshield box and crammed in the corner of someones racing trailer for the trip to Topeka.  That box had at least 7 planes in it, 2 Noblers, a Thunderbird, a Flite Streak, 2 Jr Flite Streaks, a Jr Ringmaster.  A few of the planes had the Fox 35's on them.  It wasn't too long before we had a plane or two ready to fly.  Between that old refurbished Flite Streak with a Fox 35 and a Baby Ringmaster with a Cox, dad got back into it and I learned how to fly. 

It took a few years to get up to speed with technology, and get involved with the club.  For a long time we flew using that full size EZ just handle, old Pylon lines, an oil can for a fuel pump, and 3 D-cells with alligator clips.  Fortunately in Topeka we had a REALLY good hobby shop, that always stocked CL stuff, and they knew CL and would provide advice at the counter.  We had a really good flying site close to home.  There was a local club that was pretty active, that gave a lot of advice and assistence.  Even our next door neighbor flew CL and was in the club.  By 1992 I'd learned the beginner pattern and started flying in contests.  In 1995 we moved to South Dakota and suddenly we didn't have a fully equipped hobby shop, we didn't have a flying site, we didn't have a club, the neighbors called the police if we ran an engine at home, and it was freezing cold 9 months a year.  We kept flying at contests irregularly till 1999 or so.  At that point we took a few years off, other things were getting in the way and with everything relating to the hobby being so difficult, it was easy to drop out.  Then in 2005 I caught the bug and started getting things back together.  We started slowly relocating to Salina, KS and it seemed possible that CL could once again be fun.  Once we got down here and relatively settled in, we got in touch with the Topeka club again, and Jim Kraft.  Jim got us set up with the local R/C club.  Their beautiful field here in town is just a few years old with an area set aside for CL flying.  We still don't really have a hobby shop, but having someone to fly with, and a place to fly, and weather that cooperates sometimes, definitely makes it a lot easier. 

[Phil Coopy]

What got me started…..
In 1944 when I was about 5 years old, we were living in Waterveliet, NY where my father was working at Allegany Ludlum Steel as a precision grinder of artillery barrels for the war effort, in the mind of a five year old kid, everything was bout those sleek warplanes.  I remember cutting out those cardboard airplanes that were on the back if a cereal box and probably had a couple of tinplate models too. In the cellar of our duplex rental apartment I discovered two wonderful large stick and tissue models that my father had carefully constructed, complete with working pull/pull controls, and had also thought he had carefully hidden them from my inquisitive hands with instructions to my mother that they were strictly off limits to my brother and I.  At the moment that I saw those creations, both the idea that models of airplanes could be made by someone, and the image of those two airplanes, was burned into my subconscious like the Statue of Liberty.

Well, with the war over, we moved from there back to Plattsburgh, NY, our home of origin. And I remember those two models coming with us and being stored on the front porch of my grandfather’s house, where we stayed while my father renovated a house he bought in Champlain, NY.  I used to look at them a lot, but the no touch rule was still in effect. Somehow in 1947, when we moved to the new house, the two models got discarded.

My brother Bill and I both liked building models but our interests were very divergent, he liked those antique car kits and I liked building stick, tissue, and rubber kits. With no hobby shop close by, I used to mail order everything from America’s Hobby Center (AHC) in New York.  I built a lot of them, some flew pretty well but most not so well, because I didn’t understand trim and balance yet. The bad ones hang from the ceiling in my room, the good ones eventually flew till their untimely death in a tree. But I constantly gained some knowledge from experience or from my newly acquired membership in AMA.

The first model gas engine I encountered was, like many of us, by chasing down that all familiar sound.  I discovered that one of the fellows that my father worked with and raced boats also had an interest in model airplanes. One Saturday morning I followed him to the local high school, and actually saw the things come alive that I had only read about in Model Aviation magazine. Well, from that point on I had to have a gas airplane. Hobby money was short, so I shopped for the cheapest engine I could find and ended up with a .125 DEEZIL engine that I bought from an advertisement in Mechanics Illustrated for $1.25 plus 5c postage.  Long story short, it didn’t run too well because I didn’t understand that ether in fuel evaporates without keeping it capped, and anyway, I didn’t have a plane big enough for that engine. In the meantime, the Western Auto in our town started to carry model airplane kits complete with a line of OK Cub engines.  After mowing a lot of lawns, I finally could afford an OK.049B and a 1/2A cub kit. My father’s friend spent many hours, and a lot of patience teaching me and other kids to fly with a minimum of crashes.  I mention this because if it had not been for this man taking the time to help us kids, gas models would probably have been just another passing fancy in my juvenile mind. Later my brother, who was in the Navy at the time, bought me a new McCoy .19, and with that I got into larger planes and stunt flying. I graduated high school and also ended up in the Navy (10 yrs), and when I could, I still flew 1/2A models that I built with removable wings, that fit into a small brief case (with lines, fuel, battery, etc.) adapted for storage in my locker. Occasionally when we were tied up with carriers, we used their flight decks on weekends. In 1967 married and living in the Washington, D.C. area I really got into C/L stunt. There were contests at the Anacostia Naval Station and we practiced a lot in the Pentagon parking lot. I taught my two boys to fly C/L. There was a nice group of flyers there, but RC was beginning to take its toll on my C/L flying. And as the 70’s came along so I went with the others. Fortunately, I became a good enough RC flyer to  get invited onto the Virginia Air Show Squadron, an AMA air show team, which put on many demonstrations in the area including the Dulles Airport Exposition, at which we performed in front of forty thousand folks. I mention this because, in effort to keep my C/L skills alive, I had talked the air show team into including a C/L segment in the presentation. At this show I managed to clip the top wing off of a SE-5, on a too low outside loop, and continue to complete the rest of the routine as a monoplane, with a slightly smaller propeller.  The crowd loved it!

Fast forward to 1978. Still on the show team, I built a house on ten acres in the country near Warrenton, VA where I could now have my own flying field.  By this time I was into RC pattern and IMAC, but still faithfully flew C/L a couple times a month.  My boys still had a ball flying 1/2A combat until they discovered cars and girls.  The county parks and recreation department advertised in the paper for someone to teach model airplanes in an evening adult education class….I volunteered and we built C/L, RC, and rubber airplanes once a week in the school cafeteria…….about 25 in all.  The outcome was that we formed a model airplane club and named it The Fauquier Aero Modelers (FARM), which now has about a hundred members. With involvement in drag racing and ultralights, C/L flying just faded away for me sometime in the latter 80’s.

What got me restarted…….
Fast forward to 2000.  I retired from my career with the Federal Government in 1994 and later we moved to Florida in 2000.  I just continued to build RC stuff.. bigger, and bigger, and bigger.  About 2005 I just got bored with building. You know, build fly, build another and fly it, build another……..  One day in my new shop here in Florida, I was cleaning up and I came across an old modified CG BUSTER with a FOX 35 that I had stashed up in the attic. Hmmmm, wonder if that old FOX will run. Well, long story short, it ran and I dug up some lines, took it to the RC field, and gave it a try. Bang……13 years old again! It just felt so good to feel the pull and actually be connected to the airplane.  Subsequently they let me cut a circle at the field(being club president helped) and since then a few of the members have gotten back to it.  I have built three SIG Twisters, a FUN 51, a Ringmaster, and I am working on a VECTOR 40.  I fly C/L twice a week and RC on Sundays. Since then we have hosted three C/L fly-in events at our field (The Central Florida Fly-In), I have connected with several diehard C/L flyers in the area, and have competed in precision aerobatics at three contests (scores withheld).  At my age, 69, it is hard to predict the future with any degree of certainty, but with one of our club active RC flyers being 95,  you never know, there is a remote possibility that I could end up being the oldest active C/L flyer.

Phil

[Will Hinton]

Wow, nostalgia and then some!  I started with the Comet rubber powered jobs in about 1950 at age ten.  Stayed with those and others 'til '56 when I finally had the bucks to order a combination setup from AHC that included a Stinson Voyager with carved and hollowed fuse and solid wing with a Cox Thimble-Drome Space Bug Jr. .049.  The name of the engine was bigger than the airplane!!!
Like so many others, that may have been the last of my modeling except for Max Smith, a school teacher/farmer who learned of my purchase and helped me get going.  I spent many days at his farm flying that beast on a very steep hillside that required every lap be a wingover.  No exageration!
I went from there to O&R 23's 'cause that's what Max had and then to a Redhead .35 in a modified T Square.  I added a Whatzit type tail section to it for whatever reason and flew the socks off that thing.  I even learned to fly inverted with it while stationed in Oklahoma for aviation prep school with the Navy.
One of my favorite memories from my modeling is the times I climbed up into our hay mow with the Comets, one airplane at a time for ten or more airplanes, then set by the space where there were several boards missing while winding each prop up to max before launching them out and watching them fly out into the hay fields, well, most of them.  There was the SBD Dauntless that crashed into the side of the outhouse and destroyed itself.  Man I hated that, it was one of my favorites!
what a ride this modeling trip has been for me.  I cherish it and am so blessed to have a wife who totally supports all I want to do as a flyer.  God has been good to me.
Blessings,
Will

[Maurice Bishop]

Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) in the early 1970s.

Hugh Farrel, Philip Preston and I would fly Hugh's brand new Cox PT-19. We must have been about 12 or 13 years old.

The old yellow and blue colour scheme, the dacron lines, the 0.049" engine, the flat performance. What a great trainer.

Hugh was so proud of it. Spent four times as long cleaning it as we did flying it. 

Great memories.   

Maurice

[Chuck Feldman]

1947 Bridgeport, NJ.  The family moved there in the spring. Mom and Dad went to work making the old house more to there liking. Walls where stripped of old wallpaper layers (house was over 100yr old) Paint was stripped from wood work and so it went. By Christmas they had the house more or less done. Bridgeport had an airport in that time. I went over there a lot. Piper cubs J3 where the plane of choice. I got lots of free rides etc. Back in town population 500 I had good friends we played with 74 fighters and the like. Some how I got to making the 74 fighters into what we called swing gliders. Attached a string to the left wing and glue a penny to the right and fly it round and round. We must have made hundreds of various designs some for speed and some for stunt. It was great fun. Then Dave's dad came home one day with a ready to fly plastic gas model called an Aeromite. Dave and his dad did there best to fly the thing but it never did fly and finally it broke. It was like a rock on a rope LOL.  My father got interested in this flying? we where doing and found a Jim Walker firebaby in a little one man hobby shop that was in an 8x8' home made shack. This was the beginning and from there it grew right up to Ringmasters, Fox 35's and the veco Chief. In 1955 my father got interested in RC. The u/c stuff just sat there. I didn't get to fly the RC model and soon after that I went into the Air Force. I kept going in U/C to this day.

Chuck Feldman