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.
College put a halt to my model flying, but by then, I knew I wanted to be in aviation, as my 1st major was Aeronautical Engineering. Since I couldn't afford to continue in college full time, I spent a year at NASA at Langley Field VA as an apprentice model maker in the shop that supported the wind tunnel engineers.
Seeing what the engineers did made me change my studies to Architectural engineering. The change in my major gave me a few extra months to work, and while doing that, I started taking flying lessons. That led me to quit college when I decided to make flying my carrier, and I got a guarantee from the Army to go to flight school if I joined.
Four years later, I was out of the Army and looking for a flying job. I spent five years flight instructing and finally found a job with a commuter airline. This led me to be based in Asheville, North Carolina, where I found an RC club and learned to fly RC and there, I joined the AMA again. After two years with that company, I found a much better job with another much larger Regional airline. My first location with that company had me based at a small airport near Harrisonburg, Virginia, where a very active RC club was located. This was around 1980. I stayed there for two years and upgraded to a larger aircraft and was relocated to Newport News, Virginia. I joined a very active soaring club, and while with that club, I designed a Two Meter glider called the Two Much IV, and the plans were published in RCModeler in April 1984. I finally joined the Newport News Park RC Club and several years later became President of that group. I consider my biggest achievement while there to be having the Parks Department agree to putting in a paved runway. The Parks Superintendent took it on himself to try to make our field there the best in the State of Virginia.
I have since then moved to the small town of Smithfield, Virginia, where we have a nice little lake and I'm now president of the Smithfield RC Float Flyers club. As of now, I have been a member of the AMA for at least the last 47 years. I'm now 84 and still enjoy my hobby and being a member of the AMA .
