Biographies

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 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.

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.

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.