Stunt Heroes and their affects on us today.

[James C. Johnson]

I haven't been participating in stunt for about 4 years now.. but here I am again drawn back into the fray.. what brought on these thoughts was the passing of Dennis Adamisin's daughter.. and I posted my first post on The Stunthanger to Dennis with condolences and he PMed me with Thanks... one of my stunt heroes... picture yourself.. a 16 yr old devotee of the modeling scene and you finally scrape together the $7.00 it took to join the AMA... 89338... that was 1971.. in part because I saw Dennis and the Typhoon in AAM . All of us are indebted to another modeler for the courage and support that brought us here today.. internet and all..

The past five years could have been better, but you know what? That's life.. and all of us get "little" interruptions in life that keep us away from the things we like to do.. sometimes it is health, or finances or burnout... in my case is was a girl... my wife... now ex. And through everything there are things that sustain us.. for me modeling has been one of those things.. and the people involved in modeling.. I owe a big thanks to Steve Helmick and Bill Darkow .. they have kept in touch and listened to me whine.. kept me up to date and have never stop encouraging me to come on back... there hasn't been a month that has gone by that one of these guys hasn't invited me to come fly or go to an event.. Bob Parker has also emailed me a bunch too ..

In my emails to Dennis I stated that modeling is about people and "toy airplanes" is just a means that that binds us together.. this past year I reconnected with 4 of my boyhood friends who I flew with in 1968-71..  the means that bound us together in time was model airplanes.. one is still flying and his brother wants to start again.. I hadn't talked or seen them since 1974.

There is one other man I want to find.. to thank him for being there for me while Dad was forever at sea during the Viet Nam War.. His name is Ed Brown.. at the time he was a crew member on a Sea King CH-3 out of NAS Imperial Beach.. an E-4. We rode all over on his 67' Yamaha 100 Twin.. to events and hobby shops.. we flew RC and CL every chance we got.. built planes together. In essence, he was a substitute dad for me.. the Navy sent him back to the war and I never saw him again.. but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't forget him..

My heroes.. Jack Sheeks.. with all his marvelous designs that graced the pages of FM.. Dennis for being a 14 yr who flew at the NATS.. I aspired to be just like him.. and to Steve, Bill and Bob.. for keeping me in their thoughts.

I owe model aviation more than I can pay back.. some of my fondest memories have been modeling.. one of my fondest is sitting next to Jack at VSC 2001 watching the flights together like we were old friends...  and Parker, making me part of his family while I shot pictures for my book... and sharing a motel room with Steve while we both snored all night.. and Bill who has made me a part of his family and the many hours we "invested" talking modeling and politics in his shop. I have put some of you heroes on a pedestal.. only to find out latter... you weren't heroes but men who are just like me... you have propped me up and for that you are my heroes..

I thank You. And the Typhoon and Dennis live in my heart ... almost 40 yrs later.

PS.. I am trying my darnedest to get back in the air this season..

Jim Johnson

[Will Hinton]

That Dennis sure was a good lookin' young dude!  Heck, what am I saying - he looks exactly the same now!

[proparc]

Gene Schaeffer was, and is still my hero. What an amazing talent. Words just doesn't do him justice.

[Bradley Walker]

Baron 1996.

PM/ST 60.

Nearly flawless.

[Michael Floerchinger]

When it is all said and done, this is what it is all about, folks that have helped each other thru hard times, thanks for sharing Jim. Even though we are grown men flying model airplanes the thread that holds us together is the camaraderie. We come from all walks of life and many backgrounds and we all love to fly and talk. While waiting for our turn to practice we sit on the sidelines discussing what is going on in our lives. I have received lots of good advice other than “toy planes” over the years and have had friends that I could call at a moments notice to discuss what is going on or to just “vent” with all of our differences we have, BOM or ARF, in the end we all have the friendship that binds us and helps us stay sane.

Mike

[Dalton Hammett]

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James ----  Yours is an interesting post.  I was just thinking about this a few days ago and for almost the same reason.   I received a PM from Dennis Adamison in which he seemed a bit surprised so many people would write him - For me, I was awed that he would take the time to PM me, very unexpected.   I was out of flying for about 30+ years because of time but kept up with the magazines and my icons were the Adamisons, Jack Sheeks and Bill Werwage.  I also had the privledge to meet Jack Sheeks and Big Art and met Bill Werwage years age and I doubt if any of them realize what a thrill it is to get to sit and talk with them is.  For that matter, I don't know that any of them would remember meeting me - but they were great to talk to and treated me like a friend -  I believe that is part of what makes an icon great !!!   I get to fly now with Mike Ditrich who does not compete any more but is a fantastic flyer and great personality and takes every chance he can to talk to people, especially youngsters, about the sport and help other flyers out with their building and flying.   The C/L community is a family and I think we have a number of really great people out here that may not realize that they are viewed as being great.

Dalton H.

[Jim Kraft]

Mike Ditrich's Cobra with the cut down turtle deck, and bubble canopy, that was published in Flying Models April 90, is one of the most beautiful planes I have ever seen. A great I beam const. article to boot. Another great in this hobby to me is Bob Gieseke. I finally got to meet him at VSC. I could name probably 25 people just off the top of my head that have inspired me. What a great bunch of people we have.

[Dalton Hammett]

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Hi Jim

      You are correct - I know there are many more than the few I mentioned.   By the way,  Mike still flies the Cobras and is completing a new one for this summer's flying.  I got to see it in the bones a week or so ago.

Dalton H.

[Dennis Adamisin]

Jim:
All I can say is I am humbled by your post.  I know that I was just so FULL of myself over getting a construction article in the magazine!   I still get wrapped up in myself too often... but that is another story...

Will
You smoooooth talker.  ALL RIGHT I'll buy your new book too!  Again I am selfish.  I'll buy it because I genuinely enjoyed your last book, "Lonely are the Hunted". (shameless plug!)

Milt:
Gene Schaeffer is the maybe the only guy I ever watched where I'd come back and think, I don't know how to do that.  Imagine my awe years later, Gene told me that he thought Bob Hunt and I came closer to duplicating his style than anyone else out there.  Whew....


So many CLPA heroes - to name 10 is to leave out 100 others.  Yet I am struck not just by their modeling excellence but by their humanity and the examples and life lessons they delivered.  Here's a few from the past that pop into mind, in no particular order:

George Aldrich: Our first NATs, in Willow Grove in 1965: GMA assuming the role of "official timer" for a bunch of kids holding an impromptu 6" glider contest in the hanger - at 1:30 in the morning.  That's the kind of thing that heroes do.

Jim Kostecky: Always a tough competitor who managed to also remind us all to have some fun and not take ourselves so seriously.  Set the standards for design-styling excellence; and for displaying Playboy Magazines under the canopy.

Lew McFarland: never a bigger combination of TOUGH competitor and consummate southern gentleman.   Lost count of how many times I saw him do this: he'd go out and fly a so-so good first round flight.  People would start thinking "Hey we can get Lew today."  Only Lew would go off and fly typically 3 practice flights.  Come the second round: he'd take off, his head would kinda lean over to one side... and he'd set the air on fire.

Bob Gialdini: another of those gentleman competitors who took CL Precision Aerobatics and raised the bar to CL Performance Art.  Taught me that the flight begins when you pick up your airplane in the pits, and ends when you replace it there.

Don Bambrick, Dave Gierke, Leroy Gunther, Jerry Worth: among a select few who routinely demonstrated how to create pure art forms in balsa, tissue and dope.  No spray on auto-shine here, these guys did the real thing using media that HAD to be worked to deliver perfection.

Jack Sheeks: way back people would pick on Jack for the many designs he had published.  Yet now. HOW MANY people acknowledge that getting the
latest FM with the latest Sheeks bird was their highlight of the month!  Reading Jack's old articles even now energizes me and makes me want to
run into the workshop and get busy!

Bob Gieseke: soft spoken, no frills, no show off.  THoroughly prepared and practiced.  Just let his work do the talking.  And to paraphrase, what he DID shouted so loud you could not hear what everyone else was saying...

Billy Werwage.  Always knew (knows!) what to do, never got intimidated by anyone or anything.  Flexible and adaptive when flying conditions turned bad.  Even when he lost, he never accepted defeat as anything but a temporary setback.  Always nice to people he met no matter what their experience.

there have been so many others....

[john e. holliday]

Dennis and all have hit the nail on the head.  Go back to the early 50's for me.  Sitting at the magazine rack looking thru Young Mens Magazine that became Aircraft Modeler and then Model Aviation.  So many people I would read about in the Annual that would come out after the Nationals.  The dreams of meeting them some day came true when my first NATS was 1964.  Met Larry Scarinzi and found out he is just another guy that likes model planes.  There were so many people I met like Riley Wooten in the second round of combat.  If only I had kept a log of everything. 

The big highlight was watching a fellow club member become NATIONAL CHAMPION.  His name was Wayne Meriwether.  He quit flying after that as far as contests.  I have learned that model planes is one big family no matter where I go in this great country of ours. 

Anyway Dennis thanks for the memories and hope the family is getting well.  DOC Holliday

[proparc]

Milt:
Gene Schaeffer is the maybe the only guy I ever watched where I'd come back and think, I don't know how to do that.  Imagine my awe years later, Gene told me that he thought Bob Hunt and I came closer to duplicating his style than anyone else out there.  Whew....
[/quote]

Holy cr$%. If Gene told you that, then PLEASE remind me NEVER EVER fly against you!!!

By the way, I had that article of you with your Typhoon. I thought it was so cool. A bad dude with a bad ship-so New York.

[Dennis Adamisin]

I know Gene had higher success later with the Hallmark, but for me, my favorite Gene Schaeffer airplane was the Stunt Machine.    At long last, I finally got a copy of those plans today..!

[stunt1]

Hey Guys,

Just think, he and I lived in the same building in Astoria and he was my mentor. We sure spent allot of hours in each others workshops. Both he and I had ceiling to floor mirrors in out LR and we would go to each others apartment and hold the ships up to see what the side view would look like at the end of the lines.
He and I literally flew every night during the week and most of the day on Saturday and then he'd pick me up after his gig with the band and we would head off to some contest somewhere and I would then drive us home because he was up since the night before. Back then we had a contest every weekend here on the East Coast. Some nights we'd go out with the wives, set up the BBQ and the girls would cook the burgers or whatever and we would fly.
Ah the "Good Old Days". We sure have allot of memories, or at least I do. No one has heard from Gene in quite a few years, but I did hear from some friend's who were at a DooWop Show last month that he was introduced as being the guitarist for Joey Lee and the Statlighters. Just think, he replace Jimmy Hendrix. He was a great guitarist and a wonderful singer. If you didn't look at him when he sang you'd swear you were listening to Ray Charles.
Well enough of the "Flash Backs" I could ramble on for days about the good times.

Remaining yours in STUNT,

Bob "Champione" Lampione

[Marvin Denny]

  All of my heroes are now dead.
  Babe Hall, Pat Massey, Hal Debolt Jim Walker  Giants in their day, but not forgotten.  I am having a set of plans for the Hall & Massey speed plane --the Golden Rod-- restored and am planning on building one of the B size.

  Bigiron

[Jim Pollock]

All of my Stunt hero's are now dead as well.

The ones I remember most are 1st and foremost - Bob Palmer, I remember sitting on the school grounds at Selma CA watching him fly the 1958 WAM pattern and thinking, there was no way I could ever get that good ad flying a model airplane.  2nd, not foremost but at least as important - Mike Thompson - he was such a gentleman and not even 18 years old yet.  Also, I gave him his initial flight instruction until he soloed, he did so in less that 8 hours of dual instruction which was pretty good by my exacting standards.  Mike keyed on my accomplishments in aviation and became a U.S. Forrest Service helicopter pilot flying many rescue flights in the High Sierra mountains.  I lost track of Mike in my days of switching my career from aviation to Law Enforcement and keeping a family going.  I found out what had happened to Mike when I spoke to his Dad in Sept of 1996.

Jim Pollock