The reason I do what I do

[RC Storick]

Here is another letter bolstering my motive for what I do.

Hi Sparky,

I hope that this short note is an encouragement to you. I have read the recent posts about the turmoil and the trolling.

I encourage you to put all that crap to the back of your mind and don't let it tarnish your enthusiasm for creating and sharing your works of flying art. For the very many of us that truly love control line models and appreciate the effort and dedication required to build a beautiful model that will effectively fly the pattern your site and your instructional videos are truly appreciated.

The reality is that we all spend more time day dreaming about our next world beating ass kicking model than we could ever spend at the handle. I really enjoy your videos .... even when your sanding. I have learned many things from your videos and that includes sometimes just confirming the way I do things is the way you do it. Watching those videos is part of that day dreaming not at the handle time that we all value.

I did not grow up with a model airplane mentor to teach me how to build or fly. Now through your videos I have a mentor. I have finally cleared off my building bench and am excited to start cutting up some balsa. Your videos have helped rekindle my desire to build something new. I don't want a blow molded Russian machine made of foam and fiberglass. I want to fly a piece of art that I have created with my own hands.

So please don't let the dinks get you down. Give them one warning and if they don't want to play nice .... fry 'em then get back to building that next world beating ass kicking model so I can do some more day dreaming.

Name with held for privacy.

[RC Storick]

One more that just came in.

Thank you for all that you do and give to our wonderful hobby of building and flying control line airplanes. I enjoy watching your building videos. You made a comment that really hit home with me, your build 6/7. You were lining up a stock of pieces of balsa prepping to make a set of ribs. The comment was regarding not being able to buy the best tools/equip to aid you in your building. This brings me to my question for you: It appears that if only minimum number of 'X' pieces of stationary power equip could be used in the construction of model airplanes, what would you recommend? I'm thinking 3 pcs, being a drill press, scroll saw, and a combo belt/disc sander.
Any thought on this and the order would be most greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance for your time,
Fellow Model Airplane Builder,

Order of purchase for me would be sander,saw,drill press

The answer to this question in my opinion is those 3 tools would be the best place to start. Mileage may vary.

[wwwarbird]

 Right on.

[Garf]

I got kicked out of a moderators position on RCOnline (C/L forum) for complaining about change for changes sake. Some call it progress. I didn't, so I was kicked off.

[RC Storick]

Well I am going to monitor it closer and try to make it more friendly again.

[Brett Buck]

Can you explain why you don't like change? 

My thoughts are that we MUST change or our facet of modeling is dead in a few more years.  Continuing to do the same things, act the same way, etc. is not attracting people to our hobby.  We are at, what, 2% of AMA membership?

Change is hard to accept for some, but if it does not hinder the hobby, why not try it?

   Many times, it does hinder the hobby. Many would like to completely destroy the event we current enjoy and replace it on speculation that something else would be more popular. The evidence is abundant that watering down, dumbing down, or whatever you call it, an event on the hope that it is going to be better has *never* worked in any event, and in many cases, appeared to speed it's demise. And face it, virtually ALL of the suggestions are to make the event "easier", more "accessible", "simpler" almost always results in watering it down. Stunt, on the other hand, has more or less held its own over the years - aside from the contests were they dropped BOM to make it "simpler", in which case, participation appears to be dwindling.

   No one is against change for the good, change that provides a clear solution to a clearly-identified problem. The last few rules cycles have had more activity than I can recall the entire 45-ish years I have been involved. I have something like 20 proposals that I have submitted and were passed in just the last 3 cycles. In the last 30 years we have gone from dismal 4-2 break engines to tuned pipes, 4-strokes, and electric, all of which provide FAR more performance and more margin - and is much easier to deal with - than we could have dreamed of before then. We now have graphite props and electronic accelerometer -based active feedback and electric motor, and you can use 2.4 Ghz radio to drop the gear and shut off the engine.


    And, most obviously of all, you have *INSTANT* access to any number of National and World champions to whom you can post any question that pops into your head and get 20 answers, and as many as 3 of them will be correct. No one had that before, and it took years or decades to learn on your own.

   So we have plenty of changes. Stunt has survived as well as it has because it has *resisted* fundamental changes on speculation of nebulous improvement.

    Brett

[Steve Helmick]

I got kicked out of a moderators position on RCOnline (C/L forum) for complaining about change for changes sake. Some call it progress. I didn't, so I was kicked off.

Possibly Phil is referring to software changes? I have noticed that software developers continually want to "improve" something that already works fine, or possibly already works fairly well, but they "stop support" and then don't allow other software to work with it anymore. My suspicion is that it is simply because if they don't, they are soon "unemployed".

Yes, I'm still pissed off that I couldn't upgrade IE past IE8, making XP useless. I bought and paid for XP. It should work and work well, dammit! Yes, I have Firefox and Oprah (sic) and don't see why I should have to use them. And don't. I know where Billy Gates lives. I might fish his dock if he doesn't straighten up.     Steve

[RC Storick]

Anyway, do you have a video or any pointers on covering with silk?  I have not done it in about 45 years.

While silk is a good medium for some I do not use it for several reasons one of them being it takes more dope to fill and I am not sure its any stronger then Polyspan. But It's straight forward to use.

[Larry Borden]

Rusty, in the painting and finishing section. I did a topic on covering with silk. It takes awhile to do, but I enjoy doing it.

[Dennis Moritz]

The site is well moderated in my opinion. There will be hard moments (trolling, obsessive views about what not) personality dueling, the intrusion of comtemporary politics and so forth; internet forums are vulnerable to these excesses. When it gets to be too much, it's stopped. I appreciate how Stunthanger regulates these difficulties. Keeps the sand (for the most part) in the sandbox.

[RC Storick]

Go into your profile and add that person to your ignore list. I saw your post about 9 MM items and the only saving grace was you wanted to trade for CL stuff. It doesn't happen often so we let things slide. If a post is put up and the moderators don't take it down no one that is not a moderator has the right to tell anyone what is allowed. Please report the post to the moderators. We have a system on reports. If a post is reported it doesn't mean it will be taken down immediately unless its really offensive . We wait until there are 3 reports on any one post before its removed. I am not one for censorship .

[Dennis Moritz]

It's people. That's the way we are. People's trigger points differ. At times there's passionate idiocy. The idiocy defined by an onlooker. My passion can look like my idiocy. And the opposite. Depends on who takes a look. Democracy. Conversation. Debate. A rational for war. Our community at Stunthanger depends, at times, on the referees to make order. I appreciate their judgement.

[RC Storick]

Well I believe that just like when its a full moon the gravity pulls all the blood to the heads of many. We are going through a planet alignment causing all the blood in peoples heads to rise to the top. Its getting worse at this time because its a large planet alignment 7 I think. Ask Brett he knows better than I do.

[Bill Johnson]

The question I have is do you want your site to grow where people come here to socialize with like minded people or ONLY to a how to site?  

I, too, think the answer is obvious.

I made this suggestion before and I'll make it again: Perhaps there should be a section on the forum for non-C/L related talk. It happens anyways and is generally in the "General control line discussion / Open Forum" area. Another forum I'm active on calls it "The Cracker Barrel". Another just calls it "Off Topic". As of right now, at 7:40AM, by my count, 30% of the threads on this page have absolutely nothing to do with control line flying.

[George Albo]

Robert keep up the good work and don't let anything or anyone rain on your parade! I'm the new kid on the block, and cannot tell you how much I appreciate your site and what you do. THANK YOU!

[john e. holliday]

Spark, I have followed you on this forum since I found out about it.   This my main go to site and I must say the moderators have done good keeping me in line.  But, I just noticed a few on this thread are not up to date with their badges.   I too am on a limited  budget and makes it hard to donate at times, but I don't want to see the site go away.    Anyway I'm glad we have a gentleman like you and keep it going.

[FLOYD CARTER]

I don't understand why people would want to abandon this site just because a couple members decide to "act up", or maybe they get some perverse pleasure in insulting others.

Leaving these forums deprives you of a wealth of useful information.  I'll continue to look for the "good stuff" and ignore that which I think is superfluous.

Floyd

[Randy Powell]

Sparky, you know I'm with you.

[Doug Moon]

..... I am involved in rc helicopters, planes, boats and cars, in addition to cl.  I frequent the boards for those other groups and none seem to have the hostility toward each other that cl does.  Cl guys, it appears, search for reasons to dig at each other, whether it is if you built your model, use the same prop, types of posts, searched correctly, etc....

I too have become involved in another discipline and I rarely see the kind of constant "stuff" I see here on the other boards.  It is quite refreshing.

There are times though when a "known" troll tries to interject and he will get hammered quickly and then no one responds to him again through pages and pages of replies.  I think most just add to the ignore list and move on. 

I think one of the reasons you see so much bickering/spirited conversations here is the small size of the community.  That tends to give your the normal responders in most threads about all things.  That can create a pretty tight dynamic for sure.

Then there is the same old same old same old same old same old tired and worn out arguments about the same old same old same old same old same old topics. That will never go away... unfortunately...

There should be a "non CL related" section for sure. The drone stuff can go there.  But you know the same community will go there and post just as they do now in the main forum so what is the point?

I rarely if ever go into the Non-***** related section in my other discipline forums but it might be an outlet.  Just a suggestion not telling anyone how to run their show.

There should also be a "non CL items for sale" section as well.  I see those on the other forums and they are quite active all the time. Just a suggestion as well.

Oh yeah, the other forum moderators I watch would never in a million years put up with the BS Non sense Robert has put up with concerning the ongoing issue with one member and everyone else.  Many who have repeatedly joined in on both sides would be gone and gone for good.  They just don't put up with it and don't care and don't have the time for either.  But then again their numbers as of now look like this-Threads: 670,553, Posts: 6,564,456, Members: 223,772

The remedy for this from the casual user such as myself is self control not to go into threads that I know will be a huge waster of my time and absolutely not help me or provide a positive experience for me in any way and or use the ignore function and move on with life...... just my worthless .02

Thanks for reading