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Christmas 1965, my Dad wanted to get into aeromodelling. Mom and Dad were raising four boys, and there wasn't a lot of extra money, but Dad new that if he got me and my next brother down included in the deal, Mom would go for it. So they got my brother and I a Cox PT-19 trainer complete kit. Well, we had to wait till spring. I was very enthused about all this, my brother was just so-so.
Model airplanes, including flying a drone as well as being a soaring pilot (with 68 hours), have been a great hobby, which my Dad introduced me to.
I was nine years of age when we drove in a VW bus from Lima, Peru, to Buenos Aires, to visit my Mom's family there. While in Buenos Aires, we visited a store, which offered a great variety of Free Flight gliders. We took a couple kits to my grandparents home while there and ended building one small kit and also purchased a A-1 kit (Jetstream), which we took back home to Peru.
I built stick models, drugstore gliders, and solid wood kits in the 1940s.
Late 40s neighbor introduced me to Control Line models, taught me and my brother how to build and fly them. Joined Propsnappers Club and flew in several contests, receiving trophies!
Long gap after high school, US Army, College, working, marriage.
I have been active in modeling since early childhood. Started building model aircraft while in elementary school. Active in Control Line flying in high school then Radio Control until present. Over the years, I have also built a few models from scratch, including a Control Line T-28A and a Control Line Dauntless that was based on some 3 views from a WWII manual. The T-28 was developed from some 3 views in an Air Force manual I borrowed from my Dad who worked at a local Air Base.
When I was 12 years old (1971), my father (RIP) took me and my younger brother to Jacob Riis Park in Rockaway, New York. At that time, the Pennsylvania Avenue Radio Control Society (P.A.R.C.S.) was using the beach parking lot as a runway. I saw a beautiful, incredibly detailed P 51 Mustang waiting to fly. I was hooked. I said, then, that I would get into this hobby.
I’ve been flying RC since 1978. I flew glow engine sport and pattern.
I continued flying on and off between 1985 through 2015. After a bit of a lull, I got back into flying EDF Foam jets and aerobatic planes. I’ve been dabbling in 3D for the past 5 years.
My interest in airplanes started at an early age, with two cousins and an uncle who were pilots, and my Dad who was a machinist for Eastern Airlines. He would take my brother and me to the airport in Miami to watch planes take off and land. First plane was a Cox .049 PT-19 control, which crashed almost immediately.
I started in this hobby when I was about 7 or 8, when my parents got a large thermic towline glider. It was way beyond what I should have started, but I put it together and it actually looked pretty good. Skip ahead to when I was 15 and became friends with a man and his wife who had opened a hobby shop not too far from where I lived in Glendale, California. Bill and Roberta Coleman became my second family. Bill was an ex Navy pilot and was a Captain flying a Lockheed Constellation for a West Coast company. His wife, Roberta, was a Stewardess.
A Modeler’s Life
In the early 1940s, when I was an infant, my mother frequently sang me to sleep. One of her lullabies was "Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover," a popular song at the time. I thought the song was about birds. Much later, I learned it was about warbirds over the English Channel.
Got hooked on R/C at the young age of 10 years in 1965. Got serious, having money, in 1982. Went from trainers to scale to 3D aerobatic to warbird. Love it all!!!
