I started my model airplane hobby at the age of seven, as I was fascinated by model airplanes at the window of a Hobby Shop in Mexico City.
Dad did not purchase a model, but challenged me to design and build one, as he purchased some 1/8" balsa sticks and Japanese paper, along with a tube of Ambroid glue, and the challenge was that my design had to fly/glide a minimum of 20 feet. I and a neighbor worked and read a Flying Models Magazine to learn as much as we could. After some time, a wobbly contraption with flexing wings took to the air, and it managed to make about 25 feet before going into a stall and breaking into a zillion pieces as it struck the ground.
The screams of joy could be heard far away and dad purchased a Scientific Models U control "Mercury" kit, where a .049 Thimble Drome was installed, and at altitude had not the power to fly the craft, so he got me a McCoy 09, and there is where I had my first experience of a true flying model. I kept growing and building U Control, Sterling Yak 9's Ringmasters, Noblers, but then Free Flight took its turn. This was a challenge, Zeek's Kiwi's, Fu-Bar's, etc., until I started to design my own at age 11, and one of my creations won first place on the .049 category, a plane that my Mother saved and I still have with the tattered covering waiting for restoration.
Time went by, school, college, marriage, and then the bug came back. Along with a dear friend, we went to U Control with our own designs and some kits, K&B's Fox35's for stunt, until we discovered Super Tigre's and started a friendship with George Aldrich. What a wonderful man he was who at the time was living in San Antonio, Texas. He introduced me to another great man, Rex O'Connor, who had a wholesale hobby shop by the name of Randolph Hobby Distributors, and at this point, I started with R/C. My first airplane was a Jensen Ugly Stick, and my friend started with an RCM Trainer 60, and we learned. Later, I moved back to the USA for good and met a very enthusiastic man in the town of Mc Allen, Texas. He was Arthur W. Brock, a retired Lt Col. from the Air Force. He had his private R/C group and a hobby shop he ran out of his house. We traveled as supporters for a few F3A world Contests, Acapulco Mex, Holland, and Avignon France. With my association with F3A, I met and made friends with wonderful people, Dave and Sally Brown, Steve Helms, Don Lowe, Hanno Prettner, Wolfgang Matt, and the unforgettable Luis Castaneda, with whom I became very close.
I moved from F3A to Scale and managed to win 1st place at the AMA Nationals in Lake Charles, where I met Bob Wisher and his wife.
I have been in the hobby for a long time. At a time, I purchased a piece of land and with a group of modelers and we formed the South Texas Model Airplane Society, a club that we pushed to AMA Gold Status, but internal disputes terminated it.
I have seen the AMA grow and the hobby becoming more complex and technological, along with more expensive for older modelers, as I am now 82 and with a limited income. I have been thinking to spend my last years building Free Flight models that are poetry and a challenge to fly right.
I have tried to encourage kids to build and create, but I have found younger kids are interested in immediate satisfaction, pre-built models they can damage and not repair. I hope that there are still a few left somewhere that enjoy the challenge of building and the immense satisfaction of watching their creation fly, and sometimes fly away.
