When I was 12 back in 1976 I got my first c/l plane, a Cox Fokker DVII RTF. I had no idea what kits were available except plastic static models. I was in the Air League then but I bacame friends with a guy at school who was in an aeromodellers club. He convinced me to quit the Air League and join his club and build real flying models. Kits were frowned upon by the areomodelling club members because the only way in their eyes was to scratch build from plans. So that is what I did. Mind you here in Australia back then the only kits we knew about were from Aeroflyte and we didnt consider them to be very good because the balsa was heavy and poor quality. We built control line models from plans for what is now called "sport flying" and Free Flight models from plans for competition and we designed our own control line combat wings because all we really wanted to do as kids was go fast! When I look back now we really had no idea, but at the time we thought we knew it all. (typical teenagers).
We went to the Australian Nationals as Juniors in 1977 and flew Free Flight A1 Sailplane (now F1H), Open Rubber and Hand Launched Glider. I came 4th in all three events, just out of the medals. As part of the deal for our lift down to the Nats we had to chase models for the older members of the club in Open Power and other senior events, so our time to enter in other events was limited.
Anyway, at the end of 1978 my friend moved away and I eventually lost interest and started playing other sports with new friends. Years later, I went back to my old club and had a rekindled interest and built a Flite Streak Jnr (from a 1/2 built kit) and a couple of 1/2A Mouse Racer models, but again my interest waned, manily because of the noise complaints about flying in local parks and the fact that the guy who ran the club had become a cranky old man.
Even though I stopped flying and building again, I kept all my models and engines. Last year in February 2006, I had caught the eBay bug and was looking for things to sell from my garage. I had already sucessfully sold screen printed T-shirts and old motorcycle parts and was looking for something else to sell. My wife suggested I should sell all those old planes hanging up in the garage. So I got them down and cleaned them up, then remembered that I had a heap of old engines stored somewhere.
While cleaning these up and taking photos of them to sell them on eBay, thoughts of the past kept coming back to me. With each engine I picked up there was a different memory that would come flooding back. Like the time I crashed my original fokker DVII and totally destroyed it when I was looking at the engine from that plane. I decided "I can't sell these" these are too good! I should be flying them not selling them.
I came inside and looked on eBay and Google and discovered the world I now live in. I found an 049collectors forum on yahoo which led to Stuka Stunt forum (aka "the other site"). On eBay I discovered Sams Stuff & Hobbies
http://www.sshobbies.com selling 049 model kits which led me here to Stunt Hangar after Joe and Sebra's recommendation to check it out. I also found a lot of engines for sale on eBay and started turning my motorcycle parts that I had just recently sold into more areoplanes and engines.
Along the way I discovered also a few of the people I knew as a kid back at the aeromodellers club and tracked down my old friend from school who I hadnt seen in 29 years! Funnily enough, he was just getting back into flying and building as well. So now in 2007, here we are back where we were 30 years ago going flying together with our old flying buddies from the days when we were kids, only now we have 12 & 13 year old kids of our own who just happen to like building and flying as well.
The main difference is, these days there is the Internet. There is so much more information available from forums like this one and loads of online stores and good ol eBay to buy from. The Internet really has made the world a much smaller place. I could never have dreamed I would be able to talk directly to people who design and make world class areoplanes, like Randy Smith, John Brodak, Bob Z and others. Plus I was totally freaked out when I found out I was talking to them man behind the Cox Black Widow, Larry Renger. As kids we idolised the Black Widows and Tee Dee 049s as the best 049s you could get and we saved our money hard just to buy one! I eventually got one of each and I felt like a millionaire back in 1977.
Luckily these days I'm much more wealthy and I can afford to buy lots of engines and plane kits. Yes I build kits now. But I do still scratch build too. I have a lot of ground to re-cover, and things to learn that I never did know. Remember I only got back into this about 1 year ago and each model I build is better than the last. My flying is also improving, so much so that I went to the Australian Nationals and entered in my first Control Line F2B Advanced Competition in December 2006 and came 8th out of 10 entrants. I feel like a kid again, and some of the questions I ask here might seem like I'm a kid, but that is because I am asking about things I should have learned then I was 14 or 15. It has been a steep learning curve, but I am a fast learner and I just love what I am doing now and I would have to honestly say I've never been happier in my life!
Even having my car stolen in August last year with _all_ my old Cox engines from when I was a kid and 6 of my best models including the old Flite Streak Junior hasn't phased me. The support I received from fellow aero modellers, one of them being Larry Renger (who sent me a generous care package from the USA), gave me the strength to continue on and strive for excellence in control line building and flying...
Anyway, thats enough of that... here's a pic of some of my models taken today while cleaning up the garage.
Cheers
Topic: What an age we're in for U-control! (Read 4231 times)