Good reading, all of this.
I was taught how to build and fly by my Dad. I'm sure he wanted me to be more involved and more of a self starter than I was, but I did participate and he was the motivating factor. That is what dad's are for. Later in life, I became vey involved in Stunt. A lot of the practices I learned as a child from Dad.
I taught all of my kids to fly c/l. Jeremiah was active through my motivating him until he started racing BMX. We built plastics for several years together after he quit c/l.
Michael likes flying r/c better than c/l, but when the other kids are flying c/l he likes to do it too, because he can and is pretty good at it. All of the kids like to build for bout 1 to 2 hours, then hit the pool, beach, park, eat, whatever. I let them go after a little clean-up in hopes they'll be thinking about it later and come back to it!
My brother-in-law's kids and Michael like to fly r/c parkflyers because they are quiet, fun to fly, and can be recharged and flown at the relatively low stress surroundings of the local school yard or park, depending on which models we are flying. They get a kick out of soloing, even if us adults are just letting them cruise a powered glider for a few minutes without standing at their elbow. They all fly c/l too, it's just a different type of flying to them, noisy, oily, more urgent because it is SO LOW (their words).
My wife looks down her nose at r/c!!! She doesn't like how they fly, and likes to watch me fly Stunt more than anything else (though she says I look cool throwing HLG). Something about standing there twiddling our thumbs instead of dancing with that big Stunter! And they're ugly, she says. Gimmicky graphics from some corporate artist that doesn't know what an airplane is supposed to look like, she says. Except mine! (I paint them like Stunters or Scale ships). She loves me so much!!!
There were fewer and fewer kids flying models when I was a kid in the 60's and 70's, so it's been a long time coming now, this youth downturn in the hobby. There are a lot of old men at the r/c field too. The kids are at our electric field. Foamies and batteries, electronic stuff seems to be what they like. EDF is popular, though there are still kids without a lot of dough with whatever they can cobble together. One day some expressed suprise when I told them that c/l electrics exist an they fly them in Stunt and Scale events. They seemed to think that was a very fitting thing, which I thought a teen knowing what c/l is refreshing. For all I know they are flying cobbled up c/l foamies in their backyard tonight.
Saturday I'll fly models with Michael and his cousins, they'll learn some more and fly better for it. It always puts a smile on my face.
Chris...
Topic: what are we doing wrong??? (Read 7703 times)
