In about 1974 I was living in New York and my father came home with a magazine. I was 14 and remember it like yesterday. It was a Model Airplane News. I believe it had a picture on the cover of Larry Wolf's A-4 Ducted Fan Jet. I sat up all night and read that magazine cover to cover and by the weekend at least ten more times. I remember I went to school and told my friend about this magazine and how it was full of these things called Radio Control Airplanes. He told me that another kid in our class actually had one.
I hunted that kid down and we were instantly best friends. He invited me over to his house and sure enough he had a Midwest Tri Squire. It was finished but he had not flown it yet. Well now I had to have one. I asked my dad knowing that they were very expensive. To my surprise he said that he knew a place in the adjoining town that sold them and we would visit and see. We went that weekend and it was this little hobby shop in a small town called Elmsford that was loaded floor to ceiling with everything R/C. The owner talked my dad into buying a Midwest Cessna Cardinal and an OS 15. Maybe a month later we went into Manhattan to another hobby shop called America's Hobby Center.
It was packed with people and all kinds of modeling goods. The salesman was very nice to us and we left with an EK Logictrol five channel system. Well as it turns out as I learned more about the hobby I abandoned the Cardinal even though it was finished and bought a Sig Klipper. I managed to get it built and covered, and then managed to cobble enough money to buy a Sig Kadet and a K&B .35. I was able to assemble it and get it covered - which was a miracle because I had never even seen another Radio Controlled Model let alone even seen one fly. I heard that there was a group of men that flew planes at a local High School in a town called Harrison. My dad and I took my plane and they were quite welcoming and looked everything over. They made sure I had my FCC license and an AMA card, gave some suggestions and I returned the next weekend ready to go. We got the engine running and one of the men took the controls and pointed my bright yellow Kadet into the wind. The airplane shot across the grass when the throttle was advanced and to my absolute astonishment, it took off! I couldn't believe it - I built something and it actually was flying! After a couple of passes he brought it around and landed it at our feet. He gave me some trim suggestions (it wasn't like it is now) and said to take it home and make sure nothing had shaken loose and to bring it back the next weekend and he would let me fly it. I went home with my father and we could not believe what just happened. That had to be 50 years ago and I have been an RC junkie ever since.
