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My Dad bought me my first model kit, a balsa stick and tissue model, when I was in the fourth grade. By the time I got to high school, I was flying Control Line combat and working part time in the local hobby shop. I started a small club while doing that, which was AMA sanctioned.
I started flying as a young boy around 1963 with rubber band balsa airplanes and much anticipation. I was always trying to find a way to make the flights last longer. As a teenager, I moved up to COX .049 Control Line models. I very much enjoyed those flights, even though I wasn’t very good at loops and such. But trying and many times failing led me to get pretty good at repairing the models.
I started flying ucontrol with my dad and family in the late 1960s. By the early 1970s, we started flying RC models. My dad started with a mrc Cessna 177, and I started on a sureflite Cessna. Upon my dad's passing in 1980, I left the hobby until the 1990s, when my father-in-law got me back into flying. He had models but had never flown RC, so after a few flights and rough landings, I was back flying RC with the help of a flight craft Cessna.
A biographical sketch begins after my day job retirement some 10 years ago.
Since then, my focus has been to encourage and to mentor high school students as they engage in science and technology motivated pursuits. To this end, I have been involved in the creation of workshops and have given lectures for several schools in the area. I also volunteer as a judge for science fair projects locally at Lehigh University and regionally in Philadelphia.
I started model flying with a COX Control Line PT-19 plastic model while my dad flew a bang-bang R/C plane called a Mambo.
Years went by, and I acquired lots of FAA licenses for airplanes, helicopter, and CFI [certified flight instructor.] My pre-teen son took an interest in R/C flying, so after years away from the sport, I purchased everything to re-join.
I joined AMA for the insurance and worked with a model shop to build a Eagle 2 correctly and found a flying field.
I started in 1974 after seeing a '1/2 Time Show' of Early Aviation RC Aircraft at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. It just happened to be taking place when I attended with dad at the age of 12. I couldn't believe my eyes and have been hooked ever since. We picked up a Guillow's cub on the way home and dad said, "If you can build this, mom and I will go 1/2 on an R\C setup."
As a child, our "flying farmer" neighbor's take-off path put him just 200 hundred feet or so from our house, roughly 150 feet in the air. The thrill of seeing him wave to me as his plane roared overhead started a lifelong love of aviation for me. Although I eventually went on to pursue my own aviation career, I began modeling much earlier.
"Graduating" from dime-store balsa gliders to Free Flight and Control Line models around the age of ten, I eventually began to fly Radio Control by the age of 14. Modeling has been my lifelong passion, and I never grow tired of it.
Musician (former performances with Il Divo, Bob Hope, Don Rickles, Frankie Avalon and Trini Lopez) and Aviation and Aerospace investor and historian. 50 year career in the music business enabled Jeff to pursue his love for RC Airplanes and cars and boats, Control line, Drones, Model Rockets and even trains and slot cars.
Jeff started investing in Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics and Curtis Wright for over 40 years fueled by his love of aviation history and a need to create his own retirement plan at an early age being in the music business.
Born in 1952, I started my AMA membership and competitive Control Line scale and rat-racer flying at 7 or 8 years old. My dad flew scale and my older brother flew combat during the late ‘50s in the Lexington/Winston-Salem, North Carolina area. My dad and I attended the 1961 AMA Nationals at the Willow Grove NAS.
My AMA Story
In the early 1970s, my uncle gave me a small (049) Control Line airplane. Knowing nothing about the hobby at the time, we followed the instructions for set-up and fired up the engine. Once it was tuned for peak performance, my brother let go of the little plane. Within seconds, possibly one or two, I was picking up pieces. I meticulously glued all the parts back together. We rechecked the instructions to see if we had missed something. The only obvious thing to do was to adjust the controls to minimize surface deflections.
