Why do you love this hobby?

So spill it, why do you love this hobby?

Is there a specific event, a certain person, a plane? What got you hooked?



Me, it was RC cars when I was 12. Then planes at 16 and a combo of everything ever since!!!

I'd go into detail, but I did this several times already!





:redface-new:



What's your story?

Started with rc cars maybe 7 years ago, and got bored real quick.



I then moved onto planes, but once agin got a bit "over it" after a few big crashes in a row.



A few years later I got inspired after talking to someone I worked with to get back into it again.



Bought a new plane, sim'ed a lot and got flying okish.



Then, I met a dude where I was flying, seemed nice, so we met up a few more times.

He introduced me to his flying buddy's and so it began; the addiction to planes.



If I hadn't met those guys I probably wouldn't be flying now, as it's 50/50 flying/ social.

I think it's 70% social, if we did as much flying as we do bs'ing every weekend, we'd be flying like joe smith by now!

Pbilt024;16270 wrote: I think it's 70% social, if we did as much flying as we do bs'ing every weekend, we'd be flying like joe smith by now!

Click to expand...

So true, heck, there have been occasions where I have not even unloaded the airplane.

Easy... two words. My Father.

From as early as I can remember, the aromas of Ambroid cement and butyrate dope asserted themselves along with assortments of balsa sticks and curiously large sheets of paper with images resembling airplanes as an indelible part of my early childhood. As a toddler I was encouraged to 'look, but don't touch' as my dad extended his love of model aviation, formed in his teens, into young adulthood. My toddler self gleefully wobbled behind him to various open fields around Charlottesville, VA to watch his creations take flight. His interest ran the gamut from hand-launched gliders, to graceful Wakefield stick-and-tissue rubber-powered free flighters, to rubber-band escapement guided radio controlled screamers powered by tiny glow engines.

My most vivid memory is of standing on the edge of a pasture after being ordered to 'stay,' and balling my eyes out as he ran after a glow-powered free-flight model he had launched. It was a Gullows Super Cub with a Cox .020 that he had meticulously crafted with a very scale red and white scheme. His trim adjustments did not result in the desired spiral upwards, but rather a b-line across numerous fields and fences, causing him to pursue it at full speed until way out of sight. I cried and cried. Not because my father had abandoned me, but because I LOVED that airplane. I thought it was lost. After less than an hour, he returned - breathless, but grinning ear-to-ear, Cub in hand.

Life went on and his interest swung to other hobbies - golf, hunting, fishing, woodworking, photography, etc... but the seed had been planted. When I chanced to discover a friend's father stunting a 'HUGE' .35 Fox powered control line model in the local schoolyard it was on again - for me. This time it was not just look, but touch and BUILD!

My dad and I were very different in our approach to things. It was often a cause of friction between us. He was very studied and methodical, I was more free-thinking and intuitive. Where we found common ground was in the art and science of model aviation. My creative engineering and sense of craftsmanship became a great source of pride - for him in me, and for me in myself. It underscored our love and mutual respect until his passing in 2007.

Dad, with his 'giant scale' FF Comet Clipper powered by a Ohlsson 60 gasoline ignition engine.
I'm guessing he was about 16 years old.


Top Flight Schoolboy, one channel, rubber-band escapement, push-button transmitter,
romping' stompin' Cox .010 Tee Dee in the nose!




Yours truly on the taxi-way at Fort Lee Airport with my Tri-Squire, getting ready for a sortie - about 1972.




Thank you dad, for giving me a love of flying things.
It has given me the chance to touch the face of God.

I love this hobby because of all the wonderful people who fly rc.



Yes, it is cool and a lot of fun to fly toy planes, but all the friends I have made make it great.





I went to a night fly this past weekend and ended up spending 8 minutes flying and 4 hours bs'ing.



The proof that rc is very social is in the events we throw. How many people go to Triple Tree just because the field is great? I personally go for the "Fun, Fellowship, and Hospitality".

It was instilled in me when I was around 8-9. One of my dads buddies would come over to our house just about every weekend to fly his model planes. It wasn't till I was about 14 that I got my first plane. Later I turned 16 and ended up selling everything I owned when I found out drag racing wit my dad was a lot more fun. Now I'm a little older have gotten married and back in the hobby again. I have new employment a little over three years ago and talking with a fellow maintenance employee [MENTION=83]wecoyote[/MENTION] for getting me back in. I'm hooked now and don't see myself ever getting back out of the hobby.

I always had an interest in aviation. My dad used to bring stick and tissue models home for my brother and I to build all the time. When I was in high school a friends dad was in the local RC club and we used to drive out and watch all the time. My love of cars out weighed the airplanes then and all my money went into speed parts for my cars. In 1980 I met a guy named Tony at the local car hangout and over that years we became good friends. We both loved cars and at one time we both even had supercharged street cars. That was before superchargers were little under hood things you couldn't see, but instead were giant aluminum pieces sticking out of the hood with two giant carburetors. Not very subtle.



Tony ended up getting a helicopter and since I thought it was pretty cool I got one to. After a while Tony sold his heli for an airplane. I went out to the field to watch him fly and thought, man that looks like a lot more fun than trying to hover that heli in my backyard so I traded mine in at the local hobby shop for a trainer. Tony taught me to fly an airplane in two days after he had only been flying for two weeks. We weren't very popular at the club for a while because of that. We almost always went flying together and teamed up many times to build airplanes. We built all kinds of airplanes for ourselves and eventually got paid to build for others, mostly ducted fans and turbines.



When Tony had kids he stopped flying and not to long after that so did I. It just wasn't as fun without having a friend to share it with. That was some time around 2000. Tony started flying again in 2005 and tried to get me back in, but I was in the middle of restoring a car with another friend so I didn't get back into it. In June of 2011 Tony called me and wanted me to do some painting on his newest airplane over the 4th of July weekend. He had done a little damage to it and needed me to touch it up. The night he brought it to my shop I was shocked. When you had been out of it as long as I was and someone brings you a Composite ARF 3 meter Sukhoi SU31 with a DA200 to work on, It gets you interested in airplanes again in a hurry.



I ended up getting some of my old stuff going again and soon bought a 50cc gasser and have been neck deep in it ever since. Tony and I go flying together every weekend. We constantly push each other to learn new things and love to sit around and BS about the planes. I've meet a lot of great guys in the club we're in and just love to be there, fly and BS.

No interest in my family in anything RC but I bought a used grasshopper car from a kid when I was 12 and rode my bike 15 miles round trip to the hobby store to get some gears and tires for it. That's when I saw my first RC airplanes. Looked around and rode out there once a week all summer just to look but did not have any money.



Then the next year I traded a dirtbike for a control line plane. It was plastic and had an .o49 engine. I got some fuel but could not ever get it to run. So what do you do with an airplane engine that you can't get to run (and your parents don't know you have). Why you sneak it into your room and mount it to a stand on a desk in your bedroom so you can work on it!!!! I fiddled with it and mostly just looked at it thinking of all the cool things I could do with it. Till one day, all the stars aligned (and the glow plug was not flooded) and that sucker lit up right there in my room. You know what....an .049 is really freaking loud in your bedroom.



Well, the control line never took off and I got into cars. Fast forward 20 years to Spring 2007 and I have a business, built a house and sold all the classic cars. Then I googled RC airplanes and realized I could go down and buy a foam super cub with a transmitter and batteries and fly that same day. I was off, bought five more batteries and flew six NIMH batteries every morning before work and every afternoon after work over the driving range. Taught myself to fly and handle wind, trees bushes and even bounce off the house a time or two with that three channel plane. It all spiraled from there.



Never really flew at a club until one day I was flying my OS .55 Somthin' Extra on the driving range and this guy [MENTION=130]Robbins[/MENTION] came pulling up and said "Hey, what channel you on?". Turns out he worked at the golf course and was flying and saw my plane flying at the same time!! I joined a club after that.



At first it was fly fly fly, burn gas, tear up the sky!! In the past four years it has progressively become more about traveling to new places, making new friends, learning new things. The past four years we have met more wonderful people than ever before. This is an amazing hobby for sure........glad I googled "RC Planes" that day:encouragement:

I grew up seeing my grandpa's planes that he had built years ago collecting dust. Always asked him to go out and fly them but he never would and I later found out that he never really learned how to fly and didn't want to crash the only two he had left. Any ways, it had peaked my interest at a young age and kinda stuck in the back of my head. Fast forward about 20 years and I started working offshore which leaves me plenty of time at home while I'm off. I went and had lunch one day with a guy I used to work with and told him I was thinking about getting an rc plane and he told me he used to work at a hobby shop when he was in high school and fly planes which I never knew about him. On a whim we decided to go by the shop where he used to work and I think I left that day with a simulator. From that point on I was hooked and started going to the field and the rest is history.



What I like most is tinkering and "assembling" a plane. I can disappear for hours to work on a plane or put one together and not get bored with it. I also enjoy meeting all the people and making new friends. Like most people said, I think we spend more time sitting around and talking about airplanes rather than flying them. Its also fun helping out new pilots and passing on the favor as many of the OG's did when I was starting.