How did this addiction start for you? YOUR story!

[SleepyC]

Hey guys... I was thinking about this last night... so lets hear your stories...
How did you get into RC, and how did it become the addiction it is today!

For me... my dad built CL models and kind of stopped before I was born, but from the time I actually have memories I remember a few planes laying around.
I spent my youth drawing airplanes, and playing with the few "matchbox" planes I had.
Then at about 12, my dad got me a COX CL mustang... I flew that thing in circles everyday for a year... and this continued for another year or so...

16 - 24 - Girls, school, bands, beer life...

At 22 I was doing music full time, and had a lot of afternoons free (musicians work at NIGHT baby!) and the airplane bug reared its head.
I got a trainer and started to head to the local field to try and get some help.
After 2 months of unsuccessfully trying to get someone to train me, I said screw it and tried to fly myself... I got the plane up, and got it kind of turning (very scary) and then after 3 min, dumb thumbed it hard over and straight into the ground. THUMP... R.I.P.

In stead of getting mad, I got even more excited.. and got another plane...
This process lasted for around 4 planes, until the 4th plane I actually flew many times before killing it... At this point I got the BUG bad, I discovered swap shops...and became the collector of many mnay crappy planes... (I was THAT GUY who bought anything with wings that was under $50 and was kind of big.... MAN some of these things.. I wish I had pictures! I continued to fly for 6 years. (skills getting slightly better each year, but still no one around or flying with me that was a mentor, so still learning on my own)

Then in 1998 the field by my house closed and I was kind of stuck...
So I traded in my wings for tires and started to race RC cars.... On road 1/8 and 1/10 scale and carpet during the winter.. Got good, and picked up a few sponsors.. and from 1998 - 2003 raced almost every weekend.

My daughter was Born in the summer of 2002, and it started to cramp my racing schedule,
so I had to calm down... calming down = no practce = no wins = no sponsorships = ARRGGHH.

Said screw it and quit... sold all my racing gear and banked the money.. (For what I didn;t know.. but I stashed the loot in a "ME only" hobby account)

I made it about 6 months withour a hobby and was miserable...

I started thinking about planes again, and how I missed them AND how there was no "3 day weekend races" every weekend that I HAD to attend... (little did I know about fly in's )
SO bam grabbed a Funtana 40 and went back at it...

Funtana 40 turned into a Funtana 90, which turned into a GP patty, which turned into a 85" YAK, which turned into a H9 33% extra, which turned into a 35% PANZL... add in a pile of other 33% - 35% planes, and I would say my addiction is in full swing.

I can't wait for my daughter (if she wants t) and my little son to be of the age to possibly enjoy this hobby with me, and I think I will enjoy it for a long time to come...

SO fellas lets hear your stories!

[Redneck Shaun]

Lets see, from 16-21...Well I didn't get put in jail for any length period of time. Got married a 21 and things stared to change,A couple kids and more coffie and less other stuff, I'm almost reformed. Ha! Well on day I got my wisdom teeth taken out and I was down for a few days. When I got back home from the dentist I found a Sig Kadet that my now X-wife had bought me. That was 19yrs ago.......The rest of the story is just gas/nitro stains, and a few of prop bitten fingers, and a bunch of crushed balsa!!!!
Redneck Shaun

[RustyTumbles]

My addiction started when I was 12 years old. A mate of mine had a 2m brolga glider with a SC.15 on the front of it. I used to go down the field with him and watch. One day he let me fly it while it was way up high. He showed me the basics and I flew it for 15-20min. (got to love the thermals in northern Australia). Anyway the next week I went and brought a RC plane magazine and saw all these glow powered planes, just like the full size. I then spent the next 6 months delivering 210 papers a week to buy a trainer, radio gear and field equipment. Once my dad and I had build the model we went out to the local club and I joined and spent the next 3 months learning to fly. I was lucky and went solo on the same trainer I started with, mind you it and a few dents and new undercarriage. I flew the trainer for a further 2 months before going to a low wing pattern model. I flew that for quite a while before finishing school and leaving home. Found girls, alcohol and got my licence which caused a break from flying of 18months. Got back into flying after that and have never looked back.

[wizard]

I actually got started into model aviation in the mid to late 70's. My brothers were into CL airplanes. My first was a cox pt-19 CL trainer. Then Sprite did a promotion where you could send in the linings of bottle caps and get different things. We got a couple of glow powered cars that ran on a string, and a couple of CL planes. (Man I wish I still had them, they would be worth some bucks) Needless to say I drank a lot of Sprite in a couple of years. I did the control line thing for a while even had a couple of stunt planes. Then I decided I wanted to try RC.

I talked my parents into getting me an RC plane for Christmas when I was 15. It was a Cox 2 channel with on .049. After about 3 wings, and re-gluing the firewall many times, I found a friend to help me learn to fly. The man was about 20 years older than I was but had been flying RC since the Early days with tube type one channel radios. He taught me how to fly and sold me my first decent radio and plane. It was an Andrews H-Ray with a Futaba 4 channel radio. I flew the wings off that thing (literally) I was almost better at rebuilding than flying. I also had a Butterfly with on .049 and a gentle lady. I flew as much as I could until my daughter was born. That was around the time that the FCC changed the assigned frequencies. I couldn't afford a new radio at that time so I got out of the Hobby. Hell I still have the engine off the H-Ray and had the wing up until about 3 years ago.

When I got back into the hobby I went all out. I have 4 radios, more planes than I want to think about, including trainers, sport planes, powered sailplanes, true sailplanes, up to my new 30% AM yak on the bench right now.

During the last year I started going to different events around the Midwest and even a trip to the Joe Nall. Meeting new friends and having a blast. Now I am here, sharing my love of the hobby with the rest of the Giants crew.

[mikeyj86]

I've always been interested in planes since I can remember, then I found out about r/c. dad bought me a hanger 9 easy 2 trainer when I was like 12, did the ol' "we'll just teach ourselves" method, that lasted a whole 30 seconds, the damn thing chased down the runway then crashed, that was 8 years ago. Sports and other things took priority after that.

This Christmas I got G3 and figured I'd mess around with that for a little bit and try the real deal out again. Bought a parkzone typhoon in March, first flight went great, crashed on the second. Even though I crashed on the second flight, I was completely addicted. I now have a 25% WildHare edge540t and a Raptor 30, plus an OMP Fusion on the building table, and I'm already looking for a gasser

[KrisW]

5- Father gave me a plastic toy model of the B-58 hustler for Christmas. Thinking the Red engines were actually missiles, I pulled one off, and hit my little sister in the eye whilst doing so. Given her current Bit**iness, I still smile at that memory!!!

6- Received a glue-together model kit of the B-36, used to go to the airport to watch my Father fly off on business trips on the prop planes of the day.

11- Received Cox Stuka CL -plane for christmas. . got one flight and ripped out the LG. Replaced with Cox L-4 Grasshopper High winger, that lasted a lot longer, and taught me what up, down, and Deadstick landing, were all about.
12-18 Progressed to building balsa RC models from kits, preferring Combat planes, got my first RC setup at age 18 with money I worked for at my first job. EK-Logictrol 5-channel. Put it in a Falcon 56 with a Fox .35 RC on the nose. . 6 somewhat successful flights, with NO instructor, before I splattered it due to control reversal.

19-28 USMC. . more fun working on the REAL stuff.

29-present. . Became a civilian, finally gave in to the RC bug in 1999 and got back into the hobby. . JR 8103 and Sr. Telemaster gave way to ever higher performance and more expensive planes, radios and engines.

I have a Cat. . no woman would put up with me now. . and I certainly would not want one to. . .

[why_fly_high]

My dad was flying control line when I was born. He started flying Rc when I was 5. When I was six he would take a 1/2A control line plane to the model field for me to fly while he flew RC. He nknew it was time for me to get an RC plane when I would be watching the RC planes while flying the control line plane.

For Christmas when I was 7 I got a 4 channel radio and a Piece'o'Cake powered glider. The .049 came off the control line plane and onto the glider. That lasted about 3 months and then I wanted something faster.

My dad being fairly new to flying and crashing from time to time he had enough trouble keeping himself in planes much less build planes for me 2. This was long before ARFs. My dad was a preacher of a very small church so we didn't have much money either.

I just started flying his planes and flew the heck out of them for about 4 years with out ever taking off or landing. He didn't want to risk his only plane for me to learn. At about 12 years old there was an older guy in our club that I would help clean his plane and go get it off the field and such. He was the type of guy that would never get off the trainer cord but had been flying for 5 years. My dad would help him every weekend. One satruday he showed up at the field with one of his old trainers and said here, it is time for you to learn to take-off and land. A few weekends later after putting an old engine and my radio in the plane I soloed.

To make a long story short I have been flying continuously since the age of 7. I couldn't wait to get my driver's license so I could go to the field by myself and not depend on my dad to go flying.

Some of my best memories are going flying with my Dad. It was a Saturday morning tradition. I just wish we could get together more often to fly together. I have a 6 year old sone that is showing more interest hope he gets into it. It sure is nice these days being able to get a Firebird or Airhogs plane and let them play around.

Dan

[bodywerks]

My dad and his friends tinkered with u-controls and gliders back in the day, and my formerly astranged grandfather(he deserted his marriage and family in persuit of non-stop modelling bliss some 40+ years ago - I first met him about 10 years ago) has been obsessed with model aviation, well, practically since it was invented! I guess you could say it's in my blood, but what actually got me into it was winning a raffle at a car show at El Toro AFB when I was 10. Cox was there letting kids fly their u-controls and I won a Stealth Fighter. The thing flew like crap, but the fuel smell and noise attracted me. I got a buddy into it and we built a couple combat kittens and started doing aerobatics with them.
Loops and wing-overs weren't enough for me, so I came across an R/C glider (HOB 2T), but the only radio I had was a KOPropo pistol-grip car radio...of course I used it! I went straight to the highstart and let'er rip - it was an interesting experience to say the least! I had no clue what CG meant, and it showed because it was tailheavy as sin! It only got about 30 feet before it pulled off the histart and went right into a loop! Have you ever flown a plane with a pistol-grip radio? Try it, it's a friggin' riot!
Anyway, I moved on to a Gentle lady and a real airplane radio; the Hobby Shack Aerosport 4. Took it a little more seriously this time and managed to teach myself how to fly. I did slope, powerpod, thermal, everything, and started getting into aerobatics. It was right there that I got hooked, and the rest is history!
I actually had that Gentle Lady for well over a year and never wrecked it. I gave it to a friend and he wrecked it 15 seconds into it's first flight!

[Uncle Brett]

I also have always been a plane junkie for as long as I can remember. My dad was a captain in the Army Air Corps during WWII and continued to fly after the war untill he got married. I remember as a little boy, going through his old photos and fantasizing what it would be like to be at the controlls of one of those beautiful, powerful, deadly planes, facing off against the hated enemy. At the time my dad was building CL and freeflight planes in his garage workshop after us kids were in bed. I'll never forget the first time he let me help him out building one of his planes, I was 6 yrs old. Up untill then my only help was sweeping up the balsa shavings in the shop. I got more glue on myself (Ambroid I think) than anything else, but he said I did a good job and I went to bed that night happy and proud and dreaming of one day building a fullsize P51 out of balsa.
By 8 yrs old I was building and flying, or I should say, building and repairing my own CL and freeflight planes. My largest CL plane was a Ringmaster with a McCoy 25, I think I still have that engine in a box somewhere. When I was 10 yrs old I was out in the desert with dad flying our freeflights and there was a man flying RC, which I'd never seen before. Well that was it, I kept bugging pops for a radio controlled airplane, to which he'd reply we couldn't afford it. That following Christmas, after all the presents were opened and dad and I were alone, he quietly told me there was one more present for me out in the workshop. We both went out to the shop together and there sitting on the clean workbench (I still had the job of keeping the shop clean) was a present. With great anticipation I tore into that present to discover a brand new transmitter, so new in fact, it hadn't even been put together, it was a Heathkit. For those that don't know or are too young to know, Heathkit was a company that made Do It Yourself electric stuff like transistor radios and alarm clocks etc. I wonder if their still around? Anyway, dad showed me how to solder and read schematics and left the rest up to me. It too me about 6 months to put that thing together, and of course it didn't work untill my dad went through everything again, but at least I learned how to solder really well. Over that 6 months while I was working on the transmitter, dad built the reciever, acquired the servos and beefed up one of his freeflight models for RC.
After we got everything together we went out to the desert to fly. Now mind you my dad had never flown RC before and I could tell he was a little nervous by answering my questions with one word answers. But he fueled up, started the engine and took off. I'd never been so proud, it looked like he'd been flying RC forever. After a few minutes he landed to adjust the trim with the clevis' and took off again. On the second tank I got to fly, with my dad doing the old reach around technique. By the forth tank I was flying solo (however he was still landing it ) and I've never looked back. Wow I just realised how long winded I'm getting so I'll make it brief..
In the mid 70's I got into gliders and put down the power planes for a while, in fact I still have two original Hobie hawks I bought new in 1975. I stopped flying for a while after my first son was born in 1980 untill he was about 5yrs. then got back into my gliders again and about a year after that back into power. I flew on and off over the years untill the " powers that be" shut down my flying field. After that I sold off or gave away almost all my glow stuff and just stuck to slope. About 4 years ago I started getting into electrics and still do that now. I would love to electrify a large scale plane but I just can't justify the battery cost. I never had very big power planes, certainly nothing like what I see here on the Giants, but after watching all the videos and going out to watch the great pilots fly at the OCMA field, hopefully that will be changing in the near future. I'm a member of 3 other flying websites but FG is definitely my favorite, a great community of like minded people with a great sense of humor and to me that sense of humor is what's lacking on the other sites.
Sleepy, great thread you started here bro, you've brought back a lot of good memories. Thanks.

[MrKiwi]

I got into the hobby wen i was about 9. I saw a glider fly at the local park i thought i was really cool. so i tried building them outa carboard paper, twings and all kinds of other things. wen i turned ten, i found little airplane at toysrus and thought they were the coolest thing in the world. i went threw about 6 if em and a fly he crap out of them. then, 6 months later, i bought my first trainer. it took me 3 years of allowance, extra chores, and lawn mowing but i got my first real rc airplane. i soloed in about 2-3 monthes and i started doing aerobatics with it. i did blenders, snaps, inverted flight, HOVERING, then i got my first real 3d airplane. a laser models laser 3d. it was the funnest airplane i have ever fflown. it sits in my garage now waiting for some servos and an engine. then i bought myself a funtana 40 and put on a tower 75. it wouldnt stop deadsticking on me. so i swithceed to a my first 4 stroke, a saio 72, and i lived the sound of it and that got me even more addicted in the hobby. since then i have been flying the heck out of it. thats basicly my story.

[FLY330]

Well for me after a nasty divorce that left me with with less than half ( LOL ) I sold ( gave it away ) all my RC stuff to kids at the local club. Years later my son Josh ( 6 at the time ) at the breakfast table asked this CRAZY question, "Dad when are you going to get back into RC"? My CRAZY answer was, " son, as soon as we finish breakfast"! We went to the local hobby shop and picked up a trainer". The rest is history!!! Now I have the privleged and oppourtunity to enjoy a hobby ( ADDICTION ) with my son Josh. For those that don't know Josh he finished 2nd @ last years Nats Sportsmans class IMAC (13 yrs old), and this year he finished 5th in intermediate. Josh is a great flyer, but i wish he had more time to practice. Wait a minute, no I dont!!!! LOL.... Note to Josh and my wife Pam. Josh, thanks for all the memories we have made together, your a great kid ( young man ) I'm very pround of all your accomplishments, " I LOVEYOU".. To my wife Pam, thanks for all your support. Who could ask for more. She loves R/C, loves going to contest, flys herself, and she's HOT. I'm a lucky guy. Let me not forget my PUMPKIN, my daughter Lyric. Thanks for helping put my airplanes together, and cleaning them. Your the best. " I LOVE YOU".. Anyway, yes an addiction it is, but what an addiction to have. Flying is just the half of it. The many friends I've made along the way is what this hobby is all about. To all I know, Thank you, Thank you, we miss you guys, we love you all, Hope to see you soon...... Pedro & Pam

[xtremeRCpilot]

Three years ago Christmas, My wife bought me a toys r us air hog and that cold January was the begining of an addiction I no longer have control of. From their I bought a GWS slow stick and have graduated to larger planes including my prise 30% yak 54.. An "xtreme" 3D enthusiast, I have now designed a few electric foamies that fit my style of flying and try to encourage any one even remotely interested in the hobby. My 2 year old is already having fun with the sim and will soon be up there with the best of them. Thanks for all your inspiration as this is my home away from home.

John C.