You know, this is not by any means a new subject. I have read about this "problem" in model magazines going back to WW-2. The Youth Problem, New Blood, pick your moniker for it, it has always been the same basic theme. For the better part of my adult life, I have been involved with trying to interest kids in the hobby with flying demonstration, Boy Scout meetings, one on one while working at a local hobby shop for over 35 years, and over a 16 year period, having somewhere between 4000 to 5000 kids on the handle of a trainer at the KidVenture circles at Oshkosh. I have spent countless hours at mall shows (when they still had shopping malls!) talking to people and talking with fellow club members about "the problem."
In this day and age it is a lot tougher. There is a vastly different type of 'kid" these days. i'm like a lot of you in that when I was a kid, if I heard anything that sounded like a model engine running, I was off like a shot to find out where and what it was, and was often disappointed that it was just a chain saw! If I run an engine, and there are kids playing in the street, they never give it a second look. And as far as electric goes, I play around with some electric park flyers in the circle under the street light on calm evenings. even with them still playing or riding bikes, they never pay it any attention. We have a generation of kids now, that any kind of airplane or aviation in any form, just doesn't catch their interest. Sean will tell you, that when he was in AIT training, he was the only one that knew what the various parts of an airplane were!
I think that in today's world, we need to look at this in a different light. Forget the kids. If you get a kid interested, he still has to have his dad buy stuff for him, take him here and there for supplies and unless the kid is your next door neighbor, (in which case you just became the free baby sitter,) you have to try and snare the dad also.or at least hope he has his kid's best interest at heart, but that's not likely.
I think the thing to do is to work at attracting the Dads and/or the Moms. They are the ones with the bank account and the minivan. If you get a parent seriously interested, you'll get the kids also. By the time a guy is in his twenties, he's already dealt with all the distractions that a lot of us gave up models for at one time or another, he's settled down, has a job and an internet connection, and maybe likes to watch YouTube. He's matured enough to understand what he's seeing, and in some other way may be interested in a motor sport of some kind. models and motor sports have always been intertwined. Depending on his upbringing and DNA, he may evolve into a true gear head, or be a techie and prefer electronic stuff. Either way, there is something out there to satisfy their curiosity and interest. Then he will go out and buy the kit or get the old model down that was his Grandpa's or Dad's and give it a whirl. I have seen this in the club I belong to. Guys that are twenty or thirty somethings that had never had an interest in the hobby before due to other interests but are now settling down and finding an attraction to it. I have for a LONG time said, that you can not hold a gun to someone's head and make them like and want to build a model airplane. It has to be something inside you, and it can come to the surface at any time, better late than never!
As for an airplane, I have mentioned on the forum before about the model that we evolved into at Kidventure, the Toughbaby. After years of flying the Bratco Skybaby and using up a large supply of those, Bob Arata and I came up with a design using the Norvel .061 from the Skybaby, and the air frame made from coreplast plastic yard signs. We talked about it a lot on the long drive home on what the airplane should and should not be. The result was an airplane that was almost indestructable, could fly on almost 50 foot lines and handle the winds of Wisconsin when it needed to. After going through literally hundreds of SkyBaies, we built 5 ToughBabies and took them to Oshkosh in 2010. As of last year, I think four of teh original five were still in service. It was not only a tough airplane as far as crash survival, but with the way it was laid out, you could let a kid hold it and play with it and he wasn't going to break a thing. The only items that came from a hobby shop were the engine, lines, handle and bell crank. Everything else came from the hardware store. If a kid of parent was interested in the airplane, plans were given away in the form of a file that was emailed out after the AirVenture convention was over. After who knows how many sets of plans were set out, by the time i did my last stint at KidVenture, I think maybe one or two people brought built airplanes back for us to see and fly.
Larry Renger and his club have a similar program with a similar coreplast airplane in a pusher configuration and use an electric motor set up. I think they have a remote cut off on their airplane. You have to limit the number of laps that a kid or parent does at first due to dizziness, and if you have lots of people to handle. you need to keep the line moving! This set up has a lot of merit and if the supply of Norvel engines ever runs out, they may have to look at it at KidVenture. But I will have to say that the there seemed to be plenty of interest in the little engines and how they worked and ran.
That's just my take on the situation, after working on the endeavor for about 30 years in one way or another. You just can't get discouraged, and just have to keep putting things out there for people to see and experience and be ready for anyone that shows interest. Good luck to you all that are working on programs and projects. The best advice I can give you no matter how you go about it, is to just keep it simple for your students and for yourselves.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee.
Topic: The key to getting youngsters in? (Read 2992 times)
