Ep 99: Jeffrey Arsenault

[00:00:10] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I’m Ron and I’m Tom. Today we’re talking with jeff arsenalt. He is a friend of the podcast and has been listening pretty much, he says since.

[00:00:20] The beginning jeff how you doing I’m good thank you for having me it’s a real honor to.

[00:00:25] Be here well I don’t know about I don’t know about an honor but okay yeah we’ll go with that.

[00:00:30] But I know we appreciate you being here this should be a fun conversation so yeah for sure can you.

[00:00:35] Tell us a little bit about yourself, sure? So I have the good fortune of having married my, my high school sweetie, so we’ve been together since 1981. We have one daughter, so we enjoy her company with, along with that of my son-in-law, and then our pride and joy is our four-year-old granddaughter. So, luckily, our, our family is all very close, with the exception of my brother down in virginia, but otherwise everybody is within.

[00:01:07] About a half hour of here so we’ll see everybody tomorrow for easter dinner.

[00:01:12] Any kids also in the hobby were you successful in getting the kids no I my I don’t.

[00:01:19] Know my granddaughter is. She’s kind of a busy girl. She absolutely. She’s the queen of the field. She loves to come to the field, fool around, take night nature walks and run around. But her attention span is not quite there yet. I’ve tried it a little bit with my, with my daughter and son-in-law, but, believe it or not, my dad, who’s been a full-scale pilot since the 60s- I bought him a little aeroscout for christmas- and plan on teaching.

[00:01:49] Him this year, so he’s got the bug to give it a try as well. So that would probably be the only family member I can get into the hobby. Well, that’s one more than I’ve been successful with.

[00:01:58] Right, yeah, I’m the same way. There’s still hope for piper. I’m hoping she will be able to get into it as much as I was hoping cody would. But yeah, time will tell time. Well she’s.

[00:02:12] Already been on the simulator. So yeah, she has. She’s enjoyed that. But that’s a start game to her, which is fine it could turn into. Turn into like a life size. Yeah, that’s true, I told her.

[00:02:25] Once she can take off and land we will build her an airplane all right and she wants it to look like.

[00:02:30] A cheetah I don’t think I’ve said that yet so she wants it to look like a cheetah a cheetah yeah okay.

[00:02:33] She’s big in the cheetah, so, hey, who knows orange and black? Two pinkier planes- a result of my granddaughter, so that’s her favorite color. Right on, yeah, do what you can, do what you need to do.

[00:02:44] Even if it’s the worst looking airplane in your opinion if that’s what they like that’s what.

[00:02:49] You go for. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, I built a. I built a little mini Telemaster. A couple of years ago. We had rented a house for a few weeks up in up in maine and I framed it up over the holiday and then I grabbed the hot pink covering material and then my wife took her to, like I don’t know, michael’s or one of those places. She got these big foamy stickers. I didn’t think I didn’t know, but I practically crashed the thing once I put the stickers on it. It was so much drag on the wings.

[00:03:16] That it wouldn’t fly. Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. You live and you learn right. That’s right, exactly so yeah, you said Telemaster. You’re big into telemasters, aren’t you? Yeah, I don’t know why you.

[00:03:31] Know I’ve got a, I’ve got a thing for the, for the big high wing airplane. So I’ve got three of them and I don’t know if, if the 40 or the 60 size kit became available, I’d probably scoop those up as well. I don’t know, it’s just one of those. That way back when I got started in a hobby, I remember having someone having one, just that gentle flying on the wing kind of a thing, and just seemed to have enjoyed it. So

[00:03:55] I don’t know, you like what you like, oh, absolutely yeah, and I’m that way with sticks. I mean, I’m sure you’ve heard me go on and on and on about how such a good airplane, everybody ought to own one, and clearly you feel that way about the telemasters, and I don’t disagree.

[00:04:10] I like ours absolutely, even though it came out of a trash can. But that’s, that’s the best kind, I mean, because we actually you took it literally from a trash can and flew it again. Yeah.

[00:04:22] That’s like the best, best story. Yeah, talk about adopting dogs and saving dogs lives. I saved that Telemaster’s life. I mean I don’t know if that’s something kind of the same, is it really? It was headed for the dump. I mean, there’s a little difference in wood and an actual dog, but that’s nothing against dogs. We have a rescue also. Yeah, so do we. That’s, that’s weird thing to say.

[00:04:43] So your, your biggest Telemaster, jeff, is a 12 foot gas power Telemaster. What, what like? What brand is that? Or is that a like a kit built, or what is it? Yes, so it was the Hobby Lobby and I don’t know.

[00:04:59] It’s one of those. I had eyeballed that for a while back when Hobby Lobby was still around. I think that kit was. It had peaked at about a thousand or twelve hundred dollars for the box of sticks and I just came up, I just came upon it- I think it was on rc groups and I picked the kit up for five hundred dollars. The guy had never opened it up and it’s one of those that when you get that kit, I mean it comes in a box the size of a coffin and the landing gear alone probably the span on the landing gear is got to be two feet kind of a thing.

[00:05:31] So that you’re into something pretty big I mean you’re basically making plywood when you.

[00:05:35] Build it so right yep yeah there’s you’ve sent us some pictures too and that is that’s an impressive.

[00:05:41] Airplane. Yeah, it’s beautiful what size motor you got on that. So it’s funny. I started off. I, as I mentioned, I got back into the liquid fuels over the last few years, so I started off and I had a. I think I picked it up as swap meet. I had a rimfire 50 cc electric, so I went, I set that up, I flew it for the first season on electric. But the problem was is I had four or five hundred dollars of batteries in it for about a four minute flight. It was like flying an edf jet kind of a thing, yeah. So then I swapped it out to dle 55. Since then,

[00:06:15] It was flying on a 12s 8000 pack, something like that. So you’re not going to have six of those in your, in your battery, can? Yeah, no, and that’s. That’s a.

[00:06:25] Good motor too that type of that type of battery scares me to death so yeah well I don’t know why it.

[00:06:31] Scares you it’s no different than a smaller one it’s just bigger I know so I guess it is a little.

[00:06:35] Different but I mean bigger and more capable of death and destruction but yeah exactly.

[00:06:40] Okay so before because I want to talk about a couple of the other airplanes on your list.

[00:06:45] But before we, by the way, before, yeah, I just want to comment on your list. I love it like it’s a. It’s like a great mix of nitro gas and electric. I’m sorry, what was that? Thank you, the last one was what?

[00:06:58] Electric oh yeah you for some reason you didn’t say that out loud there was something to be said.

[00:07:03] I, I like the smell of nitro. The gas is economical. But man, there is something to be said for the, the never worrying about, or really ever worrying about, a dead stick with electric it’s plug it in, it works every time. I mean, we fly here in the northeast. We’ve got kind of a hearty group and we fly 12 months a year. So it’s a little more of a challenge with the nitros to fly that on a

[00:07:29] On a 20 degree day kind of absolutely oh yeah I agree with you 100 yeah you were preaching to the.

[00:07:35] Choir, I mean, like, what you said is my exact thoughts on things like: well, with the exception of I like nitro, I don’t want to own nitro. I’ve said it so many times before: like I like the smell, I like everything about it, I don’t like owning them because I don’t want to deal with everything that goes the mess. Yeah, so get it, but before, okay, before we go any farther, let’s talk about first off,

[00:08:00] What’s your number. So I’ve got about. I came up. It was funny, I actually had to go look around. So I came up with about 25 flyable aircraft. I’ve got at least a half a dozen in storage. I end up as a as a pretty good builder. Guys kind of give me the I’m, I’m kind of past, taking them a complete destruction kind of a thing, and try to rebuild that. But guys end up with airframes. They pick them up.

[00:08:30] Cheap. Somebody gave them to them, yeah, and so I’ve got. So I’ve got a couple of neat ones that are up in the rafters right now. One of them, I Tom- maybe you’ve been around a long time. It’s one of these. It was a scratch built. I’ve got the original sketches on it. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s one of those big high wing must be a hundred inch wing but three channels, the cylindrical fuselage on there. So I’m hoping to get to that this summer. I’ve got a big, big satabria up in the rafters. That’s probably.

[00:09:02] A quarter scale airplane, something like that, that a good friend of mine gave me. There’s a handful of those guys there, but about 25 flyable right now. Yeah, that’s a great.

[00:09:12] Number and that the one you’re talking about like maybe a quaker or something like that maybe yeah.

[00:09:17] That’s it. Yep, something like that I. I wanted to say the valkyrie, but it definitely isn’t that level of matchstick building kind of a thing, but, but similar to a quaker, exactly. So.

[00:09:28] Yeah, yeah, I’ve never actually flown one of those. I’ve. I’ve seen a number of them and I’ve wanted to actually build one for quite a while, but I just it’s one of those things I just never got around to. But neat looking airplanes, look like they’d be a great sunday, easy relaxing, just float around low stress airplane agreed the three.

[00:09:49] Channel stuff is. I’ve, I’ve got a handful of them. I do pretty well with that, but it’s like flying. You fly a three channel airplane. It’s like flying a regular airplane with expo on a hundred. It’s bury the stick, wait for it, wait okay. There it goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. That’s a great analogy actually. Yeah, yeah, no, I’ve had, I’ve got a good friend of mine- that’s a very good 3d pilot and me in on the box for a minute and about 10 seconds later how the

[00:10:17] Hell, do you fly that? Yeah, that’s funny. So let’s, let’s read through your list here, and then I want to, like I said, I want to talk about a couple of these. Tom, you want to take it or you want me.

[00:10:29] To oh yeah I’ll I’ll start here I guess jeffrey do you do you want to read your list it doesn’t.

[00:10:33] Matter I mean whoever oh go ahead you guys go and I’ll I’ll answer anything that you might.

[00:10:38] Like so, so. So yeah, you got the. Got the list broken down here by flyable and then kits. So we’ll. I’ll run quickly through the flyable ones. We’ve got the 12 foot Telemaster, which is gas. I’ve got an 8 foot Telemaster, or mini Telemaster. You have the pilatus porter, which you have.

[00:10:53] Nitro what do you got power in that one what size is that one is I think that’s a os.

[00:11:01] 52, Four stroke on there and in full disclosure. I actually gave that airplane away to a good friend of mine. I had forgotten I had even given it away. He’s kind of transitioning from foamy’s to something a little more substantial. That was a. That’s a great little flying airplane, honest. I don’t know what lands relative with no flaps on it. It lands a little hot. So it’s a good transition airplane, yeah, but I

[00:11:30] Love the four strokes on there. This you can’t beat. That sound me. I agreed you are correct. So next, we’ve got an s-boc, which is also nitro. We’ve got a peat and poke, which is a great plane’s take on a.

[00:11:42] Peat and pole, right? Yeah, exactly that one is. That’s a fun little flyer that’s you don’t want to fly that on a windy day and that needs as much rudder as a helicopter to get around, kind of a thing. That’s lots of yore on that one. So, yeah, but that’s a cute little, cute little plane. I.

[00:11:58] Built that about 10 years ago, yep, and then we got a SIG mini rascal, which, if everybody’s familiar with the rascal, the mini version flies just as good as the bigger ones. So, like what’s a wingspan on the?

[00:12:10] Mini one. Oh, 40-ish, 45, something like that. I think that they started off. It was. It was supposed to be like I don’t know what was it? Tom, the old brushed speed 400, I think that one has a. I think that’s got like a little 450 size. It’s sized up for a little.

[00:12:29] Brushless motor in it. Okay. Okay, we’ve got a bruce tharp delta vortex, which is a delta wing, obviously, given the name bruce tharp flying wing, which another flying wing, that’s the straight.

[00:12:41] One right, oh no, that’s the, the flying king, that’s the in the photos, that’s the, the coast guard one. So it’s got, like I think they call it, a trihedral wing on it. I’ve got a little drop box for parachute guys in that one. Oh, really, oh, that’s awesome, okay, yep.

[00:12:58] Cool, all right. So next you got a 60 size stick. Everybody ought to have a stick. You’ve got the calypso. Is that the? The calypso, is that the? That’s the sailplane, right.

[00:13:08] Yeah, sailplane, exactly, and I’ve got that one. I’ve had that for years. That thing’s got hundreds of flights on it. That’s another one that I use for night flying. I know we’re going to chat about that a little bit, but basically on that one I just hot glued and stuck leds all over it. So there’s no, you can’t get too much mischief with that airplane. It does everything you want it to do when there’s not a lot of emotional attachment to it at.

[00:13:33] This point. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing. Well, you’ve had it so long, how can you not have an attachment to it? Yeah, see, Ron and I differ on that. Like I, I get attached to things, especially the longer I hold on to them, the more I get attached to them, like my contender I’ve had for years, and Ron is one of those. If it’s old, I got to get rid of it. No, that’s, age doesn’t necessarily have

[00:13:55] Anything to do with it. It’s condition. And how much do I like it? Oh okay, if it’s something that needs a lot of work and I don’t want to work on it, then I’m fine, just passing the buck to somebody that wants.

[00:14:04] It. I see that’s me. Yeah, it’s funny, you’re talking about work. I spent the last few weeks in kind of repair mode. So I’m typically in build mode and I had- I don’t know to make that 25 list on there. I had seven or eight airplanes that they probably didn’t need any more than a half hour or an hour of attention and it’s like, oh, I’ll get to it. I mean that the stick. Actually I had a bad servo on that. I didn’t fly that last year for the sake of the four screws.

[00:14:32] And a electrical connector for a servo. So yeah, oh, I hear you. Yeah, and funny, you should say that- because the past few weeks I’ve been putting air or getting airplanes ready that I haven’t just, for whatever reason, gotten giving them the attention they need. And yeah, half hour work and I’ve got three airplanes ready to go that I didn’t haven’t flown for the last three or four years because I didn’t have 30 minutes to spare. Yeah, yep, I know what you mean. All right, so next we got a turbo timber. Yep, we all know what that is. Two,

[00:15:01] Blade 450s helicopters- yeah, so I haven’t touched those in a while. So the guys that I hang with there’s a lot of peer pressure. So a bunch of those guys have recently gone hog wild into helis and I’m sure I’ll get sucked into that vortex very soon that. We all went through the fpv racing quads a couple of years back, spent a whole bunch of money, went all crazy with that and yeah, and then I don’t know kind of

[00:15:31] Wore off kind of a thing so I’m under I’m under severe pressure to step up my heli.

[00:15:38] Game this year, so we’ll see how that goes. Well, good, good luck put standing up to the pressure. We, we, we all know how like our buddies sometimes can influence our spending. Yeah, don’t give in bullies. Yeah, yeah, we got a hobby king albatross here. What’s the world war? One bird, right? No?

[00:15:56] That’s the, the, the twin engine like I think that’s like world war ii, so that one I hit. That’s another peer pressure, peer pressure purchase. I’m seeing a trend here. Yeah, so we got a nitro eindecker. Which one is that? Oh, that’s a small one. I picked that up at a hobby store up in up in maine last summer, so that’s got like a I don’t know 35 or 40 size, so it’s.

[00:16:24] Probably a 60 inch wingspan. It’s three channel. Yep, cool, 60 size cub. We got a quarter scale cub, an assassin, assassin, combat wing. That’s the one I was looking at. Her, that’s one with the two tails.

[00:16:38] Right, nope, that’s the. The assassin’s a foamy. That’s the. What is that? Crash test hobbies or something like that. They show it flying into a brick wall. The, the delta vortex was the one with the. The twin tails, that’s a. That’s a screamer. That flies. Very, very well, okay, all.

[00:16:57] Right so then we got a blade mantra fpv wing yeah I don’t know what that is at all do Ron.

[00:17:06] Yeah, I don’t know. It’s probably like a 40 ish inch wingspan, something like that. It’s got probably the only airplane I have with safe on it, but it’s a. It’s a nice fpv platform. So I’m trying to think what’s that? Like 4s 1500 pack, something like that, but nice flyer, just flies right out of your hand for a hand launch kind of a thing. So piece of cake that way. So the fpv I have

[00:17:33] To ask. So I’m older, right, and so I’ve tried the fpv thing with the goggles and stuff and I can’t do it. It makes me nauseous. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have the reference, the peripheral. I’m assuming you must do okay with that because you’ve you’ve got it was it was.

[00:17:49] Funny. So myself and a good friend of mine, we decided to try it out. So I think- actually I think the first plane I had it on was the, the timber, and just stabbed up a mount on it and I don’t know- we tim and I picked it up in a matter of an afternoon kind of a thing, and we’re able to take off and land under the goggles. I have to sit down to do it. I really I can’t stand up doing it. I get the, I get the leans, but I don’t know, I seem to have picked that up right away, and then we were flying the.

[00:18:20] Race drones. We were clocking over 100 miles an hour with no problem at all. In fact, we used a joke. It’s like if I had one twice as fast I could still fly it. It was, I don’t know, just one of those that I’ve never been prone to motion sickness, so I just seem to have gravitated to that pretty quickly. It’s not something I do every weekend, it’s something I like to do it for fun. The other good thing is that if you get visitors, kind of a thing is to give them a ride along, so let somebody else wear the goggles, sit them down and then you fly line of sight and let somebody enjoy the view.

[00:18:52] Kids especially like that my granddaughter loves it so sure well that’s one thing I’ve not done.

[00:18:57] I’ve not actually tried it sitting down, and I absolutely I understand completely what you’re talking about with the leans, because I got it too. So all right, so maybe I’ll try it sitting down one of these days. I mean it might work. Yeah, we’ve got a robin hood 80. This is a tri motor. That’s the red one right, yep, in the front. Yeah, that one right there. Yeah, that was a bash that actually came.

[00:19:16] Out pretty nice. Yeah, funny quick story on that one on the maiden day on there. So it’s got kind of rotating on motors on the wings. I think that’s got like three 32 size motors and I didn’t know it. But I spun a prop on the left engine on takeoff just as it came up. In fact my friend had actually recorded it. The prop spun up must have gone 100 feet in the air and so, maiden flight, I get it up and I’m like, oh my gosh, this is a handful. I mean I need so much rudder to get this around. Well, yeah, when you only got two of three engines turning,

[00:19:50] It was a handful. Now I know that you guys are big and talking about it. That airplane literally flies like it’s a gyro. I don’t know whether it’s the, the, the, the gyroscopic procession from the outboard motors on there with that center one on there, but that’s super stable. It’s that. One’s a lot of fun to fly. Sounds pretty good in the.

[00:20:13] Air too, with all three spinning. So yeah, we have a. We have a tri motor project too that we’re gonna put together one of these days, so hopefully we have the same. I mean, do we really? It gets pushed.

[00:20:21] Off so far well are we gonna I mean balsa gotta get some balsa yeah I guess you’re right old school.

[00:20:27] Model works javelin and then a gremlin I think I know what a gremlin is but I’m not gonna say it this.

[00:20:33] Time. So why don’t you tell us what a gremlin is? Sure? So that is. That’s actually. What is that ra cause? Jim, jim heath. He’s actually a local guy up in massachusetts. So that is a foam wing. You cover it with packing tape. It’s designed for combat and the fuselage is actually a piece of square pvc tubing, probably three inches in diameter, and then you slap the fins to it. On the photos that I had shared, that’s the airplane that’s sitting on the workbench. Okay, so

[00:21:07] That’s the one that’s on the bench, okay, and we’re calling that a gremlin, as we all. Yeah, we’re all shuffling here. So the, the one with the green tails and the and the blue wing, exactly, okay, exactly, sir, yep, well, it looks like it would be a lot of fun to fly. And you do this. Do you do this combat? Yes,

[00:21:24] Yep, I haven’t that one. We’ve done combat with the assassin. There’s two of us that have the gremlins now, so we haven’t tried that combat. Flying is ridiculously difficult to try to, even when you. Even if I line up and say, hey, come get me and I’ll hold the steady line, it’s almost impossible to.

[00:21:43] Run into someone. So it is I agree- I’ve said it a few times on the on the show before- it’s extremely difficult to intentionally fly into another airplane in the air, but for some reason it’s extremely easy to run into one on the ground or on your approach and landing or whatever, or when you’re.

[00:22:00] Flying around five midairs to my credit and just all just all how did that happen.

[00:22:08] It’s it’s always a surprise yeah exactly never expected all right so that’s a grim one okay.

[00:22:14] And then and then the last one is just a stupid airplane. So a friend of mine and I- I think we chipped in- I don’t know- 40 or 50 bucks a piece a few years ago at joan now. So somebody had built a SIG cadet, put a big old balsa nose on it and then put two, two edf motors on the wings. Oh so it makes a lot of noise. It only it’s got needs it eats batteries like crazy. It only flies for about three minutes, but yeah, it’s a conversation piece. Yeah, so we usually take that out for fun flies or something, just because it’s it’s. It’s a goofy balance set up on.

[00:22:48] There, I think we fly it with that. It sounds wild, it does, it does and I think it. It takes two like four s four thousand packs to get your three minutes of flight. And then you gotta jam another- I don’t know another 6s pack in there for weight and balance.

[00:23:05] It’s kind of a kind of a different setup on there yeah so what edfs did you use for that like what I.

[00:23:11] Have no idea what’s on there. Whatever you had, it was like I say it was. It was literally in a pile of airplanes and we looked at it. My friend and I, joe, were just like, yep, we got to have that and 30 or 40 bucks a piece, saying that it’s the guy. And then we, we flew it down there that week and it flies good with the with the two edfs on there, flies like a cadet. Yep, no kidding, yep, it’s not. Even with all a cadet will hold a heck of a load. I think so. Even with all those batteries on it, you don’t notice that it slows up. Nice for landing.

[00:23:42] That’s awesome yeah I love it all right moving over to the kits then quarter scale champ.

[00:23:51] Which kit is that? So that’s a, a wendell hostetler kit? So that one is that one? Is that’s a big one? That’s been a challenge. That one’s been a challenge, so I don’t know. Let’s see, last winter I framed up the, the wings, the ailerons and the tail feathers, no problem at all. I snuck a couple of kits in and then I jumped into the fuselage this winter and I don’t know, I’m a decent builder, but every stick I glued on there I was second guessing myself. So I’ve got the fuselage done.

[00:24:23] It is a absolute work of art. I mean it’s. It’s one of those that I hate to cover it’s. It’s just absolutely gorgeous, with the curves and everything that you get, and the construction is super light. So I had just somebody had mentioned- I don’t know, maybe it was on your show or one of the other shows- but about using a fish scale to weigh things. I didn’t own one of those, so I bought one for 15 bucks or whatever. It was kind of a thing, so I weighed up all the pieces on it and the airframe. Right now this is just sticks only.

[00:24:55] But four and a half pounds for 109 inch airplane. So yeah, that’s just insanely light. So that’ll get- I don’t know, probably a dle 20 or something like that, perfect this summer. I’ll get working on it and it’ll be. It’s a lot of work for an airplane of that size, for certain.

[00:25:12] So yeah all right and then we got a great plane stinson the great planes t-34 oh did you want.

[00:25:18] To say something about the stinson. No, no, those are just the. Those are those big master builder kits on there. So this, those will, those will be a couple of year. Labor of love, certainly for that stinson. That’s a quarter scale airplane as well. Right, we got.

[00:25:32] A couple of lazy bees a giant one and a regular one is this the clancy design exactly so I had.

[00:25:40] One that I ended up giving to a friend. That’s another one. It’s that three channel. Wait for it, wait for it. That’s with that, that crazy wing on it, it’s actually pretty maneuverable. So looking forward to getting to that guy. Yeah, that’s good to know, because Ron has.

[00:25:56] One now. I just bought one at the toledo show and have not had a chance to fly it yet because there’s a lot that has to be done to it after getting it home and carrying into it. But is it?

[00:26:06] The small one, Ron. It’s 36, 40 inches, something like that, probably 60 inch or so, wingspan, I would guess. Oh, okay, the bigger one. So yeah, but they’re a handful on the ground. On the small lazy bee, I used to typically hand launch that just because it was. It was so it’s so close coupled with the gear. It was a handful on the ground for sure. Yeah, I can imagine.

[00:26:29] Just by looking at it. But what’s weird about this one- and we’ve tried to figure out who made it- like it looks like an ARF to me, or it does. Yeah, it doesn’t look like it was scratch built, but the windows, instead of the normal round windows that you get on lazy bees, these are molded plastic, like they’re. They’re molded plexi, but they’re I don’t know what. Do you think that is inch and a half tall by five inches long, square, square windows, yeah, and there’s three on each side, yeah, so it’s odd, yeah.

[00:26:58] We can’t. We can’t place who. Who made this one, but I mean, it looks just like every other lazy bee, except for the square windows. Yeah, so anyway. Anyway, good to know, then we got a p51 kit here. Which one?

[00:27:11] Is that. I’m not sure what that one was, so that came partially framed. I think I bought that as a at a swap meet. Oh it is. Oh, it’s going to be a 60 amp, so I don’t know what that would be- six scale, something like that it was. It was partially framed up, so that’s just in the in the collection for the.

[00:27:31] Moment yeah I gotcha a gentle lady that’s a gladder we got a SIG cobra that’s one of my.

[00:27:37] Favorites. I got a bunch. I, I, I just didn’t have a chance. You probably would have appreciated it. And then around that time, when I bought that, I bought a bunch of kits. They were all had to be made in the 70s and 80s- balser sheeted foam, core wings kind of a thing. Yeah, you’d probably recognize them better than better than I would. Well, I don’t know, I’ve I’m not doing too.

[00:28:01] Well, here on identifying some of these airplanes, I’ve noticed that you’ve been. So yeah, the SIG. Cobra. Like I said, the, that’s the small one, then they do a king cobra, which is the 60 size. I used to have a king cobra that had retractable gear and, man, that thing was like awesome, it would go exactly where you pointed it. It was fast too, at least the one, the one I flew anyway. Cessna 182, SIG. Liberty sport. Yeah, that’s a great biplane. I’ve had one of those. Yeah, so that one. So I cut a.

[00:28:34] Deal, or my friend cut a deal with me. So I have a dear friend that is not a builder, so he picked that kit up about a month ago and made a deal with me and said: hey, listen, if you put, you, put the labor into it, I’ll provide all the materials- the motor, the covering, the servos and- and we’ll go hapsies on the airplane. So I’m looking forward to dig into that. I have not built a biplane previously. I’m not overly concerned about the, the framing it up and putting it together, it’s more the rigging that gives me a little night sweat. So see how that goes. Well, the sick liberty.

[00:29:08] Sport is not as difficult as some. But yeah, there is, there is. You do have the guy wires and all that stuff that you got to put on there and they are functional, if I remember correctly, on that airplane. So that does add to the time it takes to put together at the field, but when it’s together, boy is it pretty okay. Half a cub, we got a balsa usa stop with pup, that’s good to see, and many more.

[00:29:30] Here at the bottom, I guess, writing stuff so many more. Yeah, so a little story on those kits. So I kind of- I don’t know, about three or four years ago I kind of went on a buying spree and I must have picked up at least 20, at least 20 kids. I was buying them on ebay and rc groups, and then I was like many of us- we never bring home the receipts or anything like that- so I was having them shipped to my office, so I had a little hidey hole at my office on top of our little it room.

[00:30:01] That we have. It’s kind of like a almost like a tool shed within the building, and I was. I was hiding them up on the shelving over there. So during covid I got kicked out of my office and was required to work from home, which was fine. And then one day I got a call from our operations manager and it’s like: jeff, you got to get these things out of here. I’m like why, what’s? Who’s bothering? He goes: no, no, he says we had. The fire inspector came in. He, he went nuts. He saw that box, a pile of balsa wood. So now I had to load the back of an f-150 full of full of kits. So

[00:30:33] That’s one bad thing. The other thing is find a place to put them and then share with your bride of nearly 40 years that you’re just peeing away the retirement fund on balsa kits. So just all worked out in the end. Yeah, to me the fact that you had a hidey hole at work.

[00:30:51] Just so that she wouldn’t see them. That, to me, is awesome. I just like the, yeah, the. The wheels are turning. In my brain it’s like: oh, that’s genius, why didn’t I think of that? Where could I put some?

[00:31:05] Well, see, we just use the excuse of that’s not my airplane. I’m storing that for tommy or another friend of ours or something like that. So, yeah, you could use that one sometime. Yeah, yeah, you’re.

[00:31:15] Welcome to use any of those ideas, by the way, and I’m probably going to incorporate some to some degree. The idea of hiding stuff at work, that’s, that’s a new one and that’s genius, I’m telling you. The other one you can use is: my friend gave it to me, yeah, yeah, I’ve used that one, absolutely that one’s.

[00:31:34] In the in the repertoire. So, yeah, you can’t use that all the time. No, because then it becomes unbelievable, right, exactly so every now and then that’s a oh, and actually that’s happened in real life too. So

[00:31:45] It’s not always stretching the truth sometimes it’s completely true yeah and we don’t.

[00:31:51] Need to know which ones are completely true and which ones are yeah not so jeff I’d like to.

[00:31:56] Know we- we talk about it occasionally on the show- your first memory, or that of the rc or what kind of, prompted you to get into the hobby? I’d be interested, because you, you and I- I feel like we’re- we’re kind of brothers in the in the sense that we like kind of the same things. I’d be interested in knowing, like what your first memory of the hobby is or what maybe prompted

[00:32:18] You to get into the hobby? Yeah sure, so it’s. It’s kind of funny, but me like it’s, it’s got to be what. Now it’s got to be over 50 years kind of a thing, but my dad’s poor, bloody fingertips so he had bought me the little cox pt-19 control line trainer that had to be. I was just a little boy, so that had to be like 1969, 1970. I can’t even remember where we flew it. It’s a local highway here that was not completed. We were flying it on an off ramp. I can never be worried that somebody was going to come and arrest us, kind of a thing. I don’t guess I was a nervous.

[00:32:51] Kid but I remember flying that so he’d fly it and I’d watch it. But I’ve always had a love of aviation. My dad, as I mentioned earlier. He’s been a full scale pilot since the- I don’t know- 1966 or so, something like that, so hung around at airports most of my life. So he still owns a 1941 aranka chief- no electrical system hand profit. He flies it as often as weather allow him.

[00:33:22] So, so, like I say, I’ve had the aviation bug my entire life, yeah, and then as a kid I had literally every cox and testers, those control line models that were available. We lived on a, on a nice cul-de-sac and it was, I don’t know- you hate to date yourself, but it seemed like a different time. There was always 20 kids outside and there was a couple of us that had them. And we fly at this little cul-de-sac at the end of the street. The neighbors didn’t mind and everything was good. Yep, I so go ahead, sorry.

[00:33:54] Tom no I’m just agreeing with the good old days yeah yep you hate to say you’re old but yep it.

[00:34:01] Was good all day. So, yeah, so bloody fingertips I’m familiar, I’m familiar with, with the affliction trying to start those little cocks, little bastards. Man, those things I’m telling you.

[00:34:16] So I, yeah, my, my memory doesn’t quite go back as far as yours, so, but yeah, that’s quite a memory, like almost a almost a memory that would like come back and haunt you, right? I mean, like if my first memory was of somebody getting injured in the hobby, maybe, hey, maybe this hobby is not for me, right, but when you’re a little kid somebody gets a paper cut.

[00:34:42] You think they were amputated. So it’s my granddaughter’s. The same way today: if you have a little nick, she thinks that you’re ready to lose the finger. So part of the other hobby back then- if my dad listens to this he’ll he’ll probably be upset- is that we had this other. It was a cox messerschmitt something or another and it had all kinds of tail elevator deflection and had a foam wing and I think I got that for probably my 10th or 12th birthday. I wasn’t quite ready to fly it. He tried it.

[00:35:13] Went up and it met its very timely demise in pretty sure it was just too it was.

[00:35:20] Just too squirrely. So, yeah, I never had any luck flying, flying the cox control line stuff. If it wasn’t the for the, if it wasn’t the engine, then it was. I didn’t have anybody to help me launch the thing, or I just, so I like I got right into rc, I didn’t have control line.

[00:35:37] Kind of as that jumping off point. Yeah, surprisingly we went to the joan elephant a couple of years back and remember it was 2019- they have a control line set up and we went over and tried it and I was shocked and picked it up like I had been doing it yesterday kind of a thing. So I mean still got dizzy. I mean you can’t walk out of the ring. I don’t know how those guys do it, but the actual controller, but I think, after doing rc for so long, I think that we toned down our, our stick deflections, as it were, and we had

[00:36:12] No trouble at all. There was four or five of us that tried it and we all picked it right up without issues. So, jeff, do you belong to a club? Yeah, so I. Actually I belong to three of them today. So, yeah, so rhode island is a pretty small state. We’re only about 30 miles wide and 50 miles north to south, so I belong to three of them. So I belong to the rhode island quarter scale modelers south county radio control club. That was my very first club when I got into the hobby in the mid 90s, into the seaside of it, and then I’m most active with

[00:36:45] Rhode island aero modelers. So I serve as the club’s vice president and the instructor. We’ve got about 80 members. Probably half of them fly on a pretty regular basis. It’s a good. It’s a good club. We reinvest back into the club with our dues. A few years back we probably became the first club in the area that actually brought power into the field, which is really nice. I mean that you can charge and work at our work tables. We have a extension that we one of those big heavy duty extensions that we bring out from the

[00:37:20] Utility shed and we’re able to bring the power right to the tables. And then this year, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be putting a second shade structure in. We bought these nice permanent. They’re actually carports, are like I don’t know what they are- 12 by 24 or so, something like that. Yeah, and that was our big purchase for 2022. Those structures are about three thousand dollars a piece, so we put one up last year, we’ll we’ll put the other one up this year. We have a special club rule. Nobody’s done it yet, but if somebody puts an airplane,

[00:37:54] Into the top of one of those structures, they have to sign their name on the inside of the side of the structure for all to see forever. So, so far, so good. We haven’t had, we haven’t had one of those incidents, but it’s kind of kind of a fun group to

[00:38:10] To make up a little rule once in a while. Well, yeah, it’s nice to have those shade structures there too, because sometimes, yeah, you’re out there, it just gets hot. Yeah, it does. Yeah, and I mean that at least in our field. If I fly nitro, so it requires a certain amount of tinkering and I don’t have an amount. I don’t have any hair on my head so I have to wear a hat, but if I forget my hat, and yeah, it gets burned pretty quickly out there. So having those shade, that’d be nice.

[00:38:36] What I’m impressed by, though, is you. You’re a member of three clubs and vice president of one of them, yeah, but that there’s that amount of people that close to where you can support three separate clubs, yeah, that’s pretty awesome. I mean, like, how, how far of a drive is it for you to get?

[00:38:50] To the like to your main, so I can get the, I can get to two, I can get to the two of them within, I don’t know, seven or eight miles. The, the, my, my primary club, is what’s that like six miles from here. The other one is probably 15 miles away and in reality I don’t get. I probably spend 80 percent of my time at the, at my primary club, and in reality these are smaller clubs on there, flying fields being as difficult as they are to come.

[00:39:21] For the 60 or the 80 kind of a thing. It’s like: okay, let’s make a little contribution, keep them in business, make sure that we don’t lose a flying field as a result of a few dollars on there. But they all the clubs- typically have nice fly-ins. They do a nice job with a couple of nice cookouts a year. So for 80 bucks a year kind of a thing you have a couple of fun flies. It’s for me. I have the good fortune to be able to afford that and it’s certainly

[00:39:50] Worthwhile to me, yeah, well, yeah, that’s nice having that may. So we have one really around here. That’s even an option and that’s a 20 minute drive for us. Yeah, 15 ish for me, 20 for Tom- yeah, I mean.

[00:40:02] It’s a nice facility. I mean we have, we have the advantage of having that huge runway and it’s. It’s an active. It’s an active airport with a grass strip, active private airport. Well, I mean so, yeah, I mean it’s on the maps and all that sort of stuff and anybody- yeah, you don’t have to have permission.

[00:40:16] And stuff to land there but I’ve not seen anybody except the guy that owns the place with a couple of.

[00:40:21] His. There’s a few of the few of the friends that have space there, but anyway, yeah, it’s not to take anything away from our club, but it is kind of inconvenient occasionally, like if we want to just get a quick flight in, especially with some of our larger airplanes. It’s.

[00:40:38] A half hour minimum by the time you load the car and get there and then unload the car and you’re.

[00:40:42] Ready to fly, so it’d be nice to have something really super close like that. Do you guys fly off of grass or do you guys have a at your primary club? Do you guys have like? So? So all grass at all?

[00:40:52] Of them. So kind of the funny thing with my primary club, red island air modelist. So we have they’re not the longest runways, I don’t know, the long runway is probably 400 feet, but they’re actually elevated runways and we’re able to find the story on it. So we’re on state land, so we have a we lease. We lease the land from the state for minimal fee. We take care of the improvements to the, the property, the cutting of the grass and everything right. But supposedly the story on it is that navy seabees, many, many years ago, had come in.

[00:41:27] And they basically built a quarter scale airport or I don’t know whatever scale. 400 Feet would be kind of a thing, maybe it’s a 10th scale and so we have two runways, on a, on a t, and it was built up and it’s probably- I don’t know, it’s probably- a two or three foot elevation from where you stand for the flight box up to the runway, so that creates some challenges until you get used to it. Just that line of sight thing, the fact that you’re probably about a two foot elevation, something like that, but it’s kind of interesting.

[00:42:00] It was built by the cv cbs back maybe in the 50s something like that it’s it’s been there as long as.

[00:42:05] As long as anybody can remember so. So when you say built up it’s, it’s mounded with, with dirt, I’m imagining, okay, yeah, because I was imagining just like a wall at the end. Yeah, that’s what I was.

[00:42:16] Thinking first too I’ll be darned huh you don’t want to miss that like you don’t want to land short.

[00:42:22] No that’s a bad thing and landing long is a bad thing yeah I guess so for as much as we say.

[00:42:29] Our field could be better. That is one nice thing in the fact that. So cut really short for the rc guys is about a 600 foot runway, yeah, right in front of where we fly, but then the whole runway like all from end to end as well, it’s 5 000, it’s almost 5 000 feet, okay, so that’s, that’s a lot of beautiful.

[00:42:48] Approaches. Yes too. So, yeah, yeah, no tree, but the problem is that our runway runs almost due east west, which hardly ever do we have winds directly out of the east or west. Usually we have southwest to northeast winds. So if they could have angled that runway about another 30 degrees or so, that would have been awesome. But yeah still. But we have that, we have.

[00:43:11] The length for dead stick landings or missed approaches when which we use frequently.

[00:43:18] Bring your hiking boots, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the disadvantage to having a long runway: it’s a if you have to use it, it’s a long. It’s a long walk to go down there and get your plane, at least most.

[00:43:28] Of the time you can pick your plane up in one piece and it’s not yeah in multiple pieces with.

[00:43:33] Not walking as far. Yeah, it makes it worth the walk. Speaking of picking up airplanes at the end of the runway, for reasons that may be good or bad, we always like to hear about crash stories, no matter how painful they may be. Have you got any that like stick with you, jeff? Yeah, I got.

[00:43:52] A couple. So the first one was: this was back in the mid 90s, so I had I joined the club, they, they did some training I, I picked it up fairly quickly and I just got my wings and then we had you get the, the go fly. Itis kind of a thing. So we’d had some several weekends really lousy weather. So all of a sudden, sunday night comes, we got a just a dead calm evening. So it’s like I’m gonna go and let’s see if I can sneak a couple of flights, and so

[00:44:25] That was kind of strike one, because I really shouldn’t have been flying nitro by. I mean, I really nobody should be flying nitro by themselves. That’s true all alone. If something happens, just things can happen. So back then the club had two fields that we had access to. We had the main field, which was on a turf farm, so unlimited runway kind of a thing. There was no issues. And then they also had the secondary field. So it’s like, well, I’ll run over the secondary field, nobody will bother me, I’ll be by myself. So I’d never been there before. So that was.

[00:44:58] Probably strike two with that lack of experience. Yeah, so off I, so off I went. I put the little I had. My first plane was a SIG lt 40 little os 40 up front on it. So I fired that up, got it going. I made a couple of circuits around the, around the field, and then I was like I’m probably gonna have to land this thing. So then it was time to kind of survey the field. I wonder what the approaches look like here. And I was just so, just so new and not such a novice that I didn’t think about the approaches kind of a thing. So you just wanted to.

[00:45:31] Fly. I mean exactly, exactly, so kind of strike three on that one is that I really should have looked around and figured out, had a plan before I took off, where you took off. Yeah, so I’ve only had two of these, but it’s kind of amazing how quickly a tree will just reach up and just grab an airplane out of the sky. I’m sure you guys have experienced that. Oh yeah, oh yeah, a few times. Yeah, so I so at this point now I’m all by myself on a sunday night, it’s probably- I don’t know how to be- 7, 38 o’clock at night, so it’s.

[00:46:06] Starting to we don’t have on the east coast, we start losing that daylight in a hurry. So back then I had this little geotracker convertible so I was able to drive it into the woods and it wasn’t really deep into the woods but it was, I don’t know, probably up 15, 20 feet in the tree. So I drive the, the geotracker, out there, I climb up on top of the frame of the car and I’m a pretty big guy and I got a stick and I’m poking the heck out of this thing to get the plane out of there and really kind of hoping not to get busted by some.

[00:46:37] Other member coming in. Yeah, so not because you’re in trouble, just because it’d be embarrassing, exactly so I get the thing out of the tree pretty much in one piece and I broke everything down, put it back in again. I slinked out of there and then, as I was driving out, I noticed that I cracked my windshield from standing on top of it to add insult to injury. Yeah, exactly, oh man, I don’t think my wife had even remembered that. And then

[00:47:09] And then my most memorable crash. So this one here, this one is easy to validate, lots and lots of witnesses on there, so it’s pretty funny. I don’t know. I’ve told the story before to even non-flyers and they kind of peed their pants a little bit. But okay. So we talked earlier when we’re talking about the list and that, that big old 12-foot Telemaster. So I had about 300 hours of labor hours into that thing and a lot of money. So it came out beautiful. So it was finally on a nice august morning on maiden flight day. I invited a few friends.

[00:47:45] And my mom and dad, my wife, were there and I wanted to get it done as early as possible. I didn’t want to have 40 people watching this maiden flight. So it took off. It flew beautiful. That thing is 38 pounds, so my legs were shaking so I did the typical maiden stuff. I really didn’t have to trim it much and I’m not bragging, but I absolutely greased that first landing. I mean it was absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, so because it’s just a big old trainer at this point, sure. So once I calmed down, I

[00:48:18] Charged up the whatever- it was four or five hundred bucks worth of batteries to fly it a second time. Everything was, everything was pretty good and no problem on the second flight. And then I don’t know, we had lunch or whatever, and there was now there was the full. The full grouping of the club was there and everybody was like I’d really like to see that fly. So I was, I was willing to show off a little bit, but the wind had picked up. So at that field we have- we just have the single runway, probably a similar condition that you guys have, and

[00:48:50] There’s always a bit of a crosswind, and I always consider myself to be I’m. I live by that adage: if you can’t fly in the wind, you, you’re gonna struggle. So it was like: yep, no problem, I’ll take this thing off. So I flew the plane for the third time, put it through its paces a little bit. Everybody’s hemming and hoaring and iron, yeah, and it’s a big presence, this airplane. It is, oh, it absolutely is. I mean, it’s a spectacle to watch. Yeah, balsa overcast or whatever you might want to call it, kind of a thing.

[00:49:24] Right. So I’m sure you guys remember the, the old ads used to run in the ama magazine: nothing flies like a Telemaster and I’ve always said nothing floats like a Telemaster master. So and I admittedly I mean even to this day with you’re flying an airplane that costs that much and it’s that big, and I always worry about the safety of it when you’ve got something that big. So I had a bit of the yip still flying this big thing. So I showed up a little bit and it was okay, it’s time to come up and land this.

[00:49:55] Thing. So I line up on final and we’ve got a decent approach and the power’s off. This thing is just floating and floating and I don’t know. I just it’s the first time, it’s probably ever happened. But I just kind of got into like paralysis mode and it’s floating and it’s drifting towards me, it’s drifting, it’s drifting and by the time I realized what was going on, the thing was lined up on a collision course with the club port-a-potty. So for the, so for the.

[00:50:27] Whole world to hear. I actually did hit the port. I hit my truck, the fender on my truck or the bumper on my truck and the port-a-potty and then even funnier still is that literally my old high school teacher was in the port-a-potty when it happened and he came out wondering what the

[00:50:44] Hell went on. So I was just gonna ask: was anybody in there? I thought my story of flying into a guy’s butt was good, but this is, this is way better, yeah, so I gotta give a shout out to mr walter phillips.

[00:50:59] I don’t know whether he. He taught it at wallett veterans memorial high school for many, many years. I had him in the in the late 70s, in the early 80s. He came out no worse for where, so god bless them. So the little moral to that story is that there were at least 20 guys at the field that watched this happen and not one of these bastards said: go around.

[00:51:23] Yeah, thanks guys. Well, they were all so mesmerized as at your amazing flying skills. There you go exactly majestic airplane going around. Well, like I said this, this is a huge airplane. It is there’s, there’s and, yeah, in the air, I bet. I bet, whenever that thing is, especially when there’s no power applied so it’s quiet, probably all you could hear was maybe a little bit of prop noise, the windmill, exactly. I bet. It was a beautiful sight, honestly. Sure it was. That’s wow. It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me to say go around either.

[00:51:57] It’s one of those that you figure. Well, he knows what he’s doing. That’s all I could assume. And then one of my, one of my dear friends, offered to design porta potty kill stickers after the incident. So yeah, I would have gladly put it on the airplane if he had, if he did come true. But yeah, at the end of the day, if you can’t laugh at yourself once in a while, life’s going to be very hard for you. So agree, yeah, we’ve all.

[00:52:23] We’ve all had our mistakes so did it destroy the airplane I gotta ask it did does it.

[00:52:28] No, no, luckily it. It broke up. The broke up the leading edge a little bit in two spots actually, on each wing now that I think of it was on each wing because it hit the- it hit the bumper of my truck and then kind of peered around and then the, because I was right next to the porta potty and then the leading edge on the other side got dunked. But luckily it was it.

[00:52:51] Could have been way worse, way worse. Oh yeah, yeah, wow, that’s that’s up there. That is, I mean, that’s one of the better. In my opinion, it’s one of the better crash stories. I mean, you’ve heard all the crash stories about re-kidding an airplane or whatever, but if you can end a crash story by saying, yeah, I crashed into the porta potty- that’s that’s up there, with somebody in it, with somebody, it was your teacher, it was your teacher. Yeah, that’s even that. I mean, I’m not.

[00:53:18] Sure, you could write a better one. So you talk about the, the different people that are always around when you’re flying and stuff. Do you have a normal group of guys that you like to fly?

[00:53:26] With, or is it just whoever’s at the field? No, so there’s. There’s a core group- and that really puts a smile on my face because I’m a 58 year old guy to it’s. It’s difficult to make good friends as you get older and I’m blessed to have there’s certainly a core group of six or eight of us, kind of a thing that we socialize very regularly. We know our spouses, the grandkids, their kids, kind of a thing. So just very, very fortunate to have that group and

[00:53:59] Overall, at all three of the clubs there’s a really a good group, a good group. I really can’t say anything bad about anybody at any of those groups on there. So I don’t know. Pretty welcoming group of people. But yeah, I’m blessed to have a handful of really.

[00:54:15] Dear friends. So, yeah, that’s awesome. Generally speaking, that’s something I’ve noticed about this hobby. I’m a member of several different hobbies, but the but the rc community seems to be, in, in my opinion, the most welcoming, no matter where you go. What I mean? Like you go to a swap meet. We went to toledo. Everybody there was friendly. I’ve been to various other fly-ins here within the state and they’ve always been very accommodating and very friendly and

[00:54:40] It’s probably because, let’s be honest, these are toys. This isn’t something that you can really. I guess you can, but you shouldn’t take too seriously. It’s just something to have fun with, that’s true. So it’s not like riding a bicycle with a bunch of people that are trying to get fit, stay in shape. This is all about just having fun. So well, and that group and that.

[00:55:02] Group is kind of the, the reverse or the opposite of that. Unless you’re part of the, the in group or click or whatever you call it, maybe not as welcoming to that particular.

[00:55:16] So, so, so, like a bicycle gang. That’s just not cool people. I don’t want to, yeah, but I mean, I think that has something to do with it, though it’s just, you don’t do this for anything but fun, right? You don’t do this for anything but what you get out of it. There’s no end goal of, well, this is going to make me lose weight or do anything like that. This is solely. They’re cool, fun toys that we all like. So, yeah, I want to look at yours, you look at mine and we’ll- we’ll see whose wingspan is bigger.

[00:55:46] I don’t know nice crack yourself up sometimes I do sorry about that yeah so jeff you mentioned.

[00:55:54] Joe knall. So you have no aversion to traveling for rc events and things like that. Do you put the same sort of, or would you? Would you travel for swap meets, let’s say, did you?

[00:56:08] Enjoy what it’s funny. I heard you guys over the last week or so talking about toledo. I had actually thrown that out to the guys that I hang with because I think I don’t know, I’d done the math and I think toledo was 10 or 11 hours for us and I travel quite a bit for work, so I’ve always got a ton of hilton points and things like that and I was up for toledo and I couldn’t get anybody to bite on that one, so I would that.

[00:56:39] The perry show. I drool over that every year down in georgia when they when they have that in fact as a practical joke. A few years back we had a small local swap meet and one of our good friends- I couldn’t make it and was texting: geez what, what do they got, what do they got, kind of a thing. So we went online and we found some pictures from the perry the perry show we had in a little vfw hall kind of a thing, and we sent my friend joe pictures from the perry show showing it’s.

[00:57:11] 10 000 Airplanes for sale. Yeah, just to tease him, he caught on pretty quickly, but I certainly would. I don’t know, maybe next year, if you guys are there, I’ll I’ll strung on a couple of guys. I think the biggest complaint that the guys had is that unless nobody’s got a vehicle, bring big enough to bring back a lot of stuff, you go out. So to a show like that and it’s like, okay, you put two guys in the car, how big.

[00:57:39] Stuff can you how much stuff can you bring back oh you’d be surprised yeah I’m gonna be honest like.

[00:57:44] We, yeah, I have a lot in there. Yeah, I have a fairly small suv we put now. Granted, they weren’t large airplanes, true, but we did fit a lot of stuff in the back of that car. So if you’re strategic about playing tetris and getting it all in the back, it can, it can be done. But no, I totally. And the way, the way gas prices are right now, nobody can afford to drive a suburban 10 hours across the country to just to go buy a toy airplane. But I’d do it, yeah, I would do it.

[00:58:12] Tomorrow. I would do it again if we could, absolutely I, I would love to go back to toledo. I would like to do perry, there’s a lot of things that yeah, I just well, for me, make the plans and make it happen, jeff I.

[00:58:23] Don’t know about you, but, like you’ve been in the hobby for quite a while too, for me, going to these swap meets and seeing an old top flight kit that I had when I first started, it just kind of brings back the nostalgia and it just makes me feel good what I mean? I mean, yeah, you could get the same thing looking through ebay listings or whatever, but going in there and being able to lay your hands on it and get that, get that old feeling back to me and maybe buy it and maybe buy it right, but for me it’s that, that’s a big

[00:58:54] Part of the of going to those swap meets. Yeah, the closest thing that we had out here in the northeast- I think the ama took it over for a few years- was the- trying to think it was in new jersey. I’m trying to remember the club under westchester or something like that and they used to be a big, a big meet up there. The ama took it over for a couple of years and I guess the attendance wasn’t there. It was probably a very expensive venue. It wasn’t like a convention center. So they haven’t had that the last few years, but that was typically in february. That show.

[00:59:28] Went back to the I don’t know as long as 70s 80s kind of a thing probably 30 or 40 years so.

[00:59:35] Any time I see even local small swap meets, I think it’s worth trying to go to them. I totally agree. You never know what you’re gonna find. Yeah, well, there’s no way to predict. Yeah what.

[00:59:45] What you’ll see. You may, you may go there and be completely disappointed, but if you have low expectations, then you don’t get disappointed. Well, and all it takes, all it takes.

[00:59:55] Is one airplane to make the whole trip worthwhile or one part or one piece or one thing you don’t.

[01:00:00] Have that you want. Yeah, yeah, and you said it well, Tom, especially if you’re kind of interested in the unique, if you’re, if you’re a guy that’s going to have the, the latest extreme flight extra or whatever kind of a thing. You probably you might not find that there, but some old goofy 70s, like you say, quaker kid or something like that- yeah, that’ll ring the bell. So, yeah, yeah, we came back with a lot of that.

[01:00:26] Stuff, that kind of stuff. For me, I think the lazy bee was probably my favorite. Just I’ve liked it for a long time. I’ve wanted one and here is one. Let’s buy it. I mean it’s you don’t know.

[01:00:39] Reasonable price too absolutely so I mean yeah I like I like going to swap meets and we’re still.

[01:00:46] Looking around because I don’t have everything put away it’s still all scattered it’s still all.

[01:00:50] Scattered here in Ron’s basement but one of these days one of these days all my stuff’s put away I’m.

[01:00:55] Just saying you didn’t buy them. By the way, that lazy bee will do like an go to full rates on it. Bury the elevator and the rudder. It’ll do this. Not quite a spin, I don’t know what it is, but just this insane looking spiral. You’ll scare the crap out of people that’ll watching it come down, kind of a thing. Make sure you’re plenty high, because it’ll.

[01:01:16] Lead up a lot of altitude in a hurry I was gonna say it’ll probably scare the crap out of me too so.

[01:01:20] I can’t wait to watch Ron do that practice on the simulator first. Yeah, yeah. So I think I know the answer to this one, jeff, do you prefer to build or to fly? I kind of break it up into.

[01:01:35] Third. So a third fly in a third building and then I don’t know a third. Let’s, we’ll use a nicer word, but socializing with friends at the field kind of a thing, no, that’s, I get that.

[01:01:46] Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. It’s. It’s fun to razz your buddies that are out there when they’re flying and yeah, just give them heck right, right, I agree, oh, totally agree. And the

[01:01:57] Building part of it for me. I’ve got a little a little shed in the backyard. My friends call it the, the prison cell. It’s fairly small and I’ve got a lot of equipment in there but it services me well. But we’re empty nesters kind of a thing. So if you’ve got a hobby that puts you 100 feet from the house on a on a cold winter day, you

[01:02:17] Can’t get in too much mischief. So that’s true, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I’m right with you on that one. This is, this is such a great hobby to be in, just for, I mean, family, for everything. It’s just I don’t know yeah.

[01:02:31] I can’t say enough about it. I enjoy it. Yeah, me too. I, as, as most folks probably would agree, I, and I don’t make any bones about it. I, I prefer the building and the tinkering and stuff. But I can, I can readily. When somebody asked you prefer to build or fly, I, I can go right to well, well, I’d build, I prefer to build. When you’re not sure, like if you would rather build or fly, I think that’s a great, a great mix, because then you really enjoy the hobby in its whole. Yeah, do you.

[01:03:01] Know what I’m saying as a whole. As a whole, I mean, yeah, well, in its entirety, I guess is what I was trying to say. But yeah, I, I feel like, just because I prefer to build, maybe I’m missing out on the, on the.

[01:03:14] Part of flying. What I mean? So I don’t know. No, I get what you’re saying, but everybody- well, I shouldn’t say that everybody, you, you can have a preference and still enjoy flying if you prefer to build, but you just get more out of the physical act of building than you do flying. It doesn’t mean you don’t like flying, doesn’t mean you don’t want to fly. It just means that seeing something put together that you put together while you’re working on it is more fulfilling than flying it. But no, we had

[01:03:44] Kind of a cold. We had kind of a cold winter here and it’s crazy. I’d get up on a saturday morning at be out in the shed at 6: 30. I’ve got a little wood stove out there, depending on how cold it is. There’s not a lot of insulation. It might take an hour or two to get it warmed up so you can work. But I have no problem being out there at 6: 30, get a fire started and then out there for the day at 8: 30 in the morning.

[01:04:07] And just having a ball out there so very nice yeah jeff do you have a favorite airplane.

[01:04:15] Yeah, so probably the- probably my favorite has to be that eight foot Telemaster. I’ve had that thing for years, so when I, when I built it, I had, I built it with transparent covering, which I love this airplane- actually, I think Ron hates transparent.

[01:04:35] Covering as he does. Well, I’m. You, with your lighted Telemaster have given me a reason to like transparent because of that. So, in general, with no lights, with nothing. Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of transparency, but I’m I’m coming around because of that. So I, like I said, I want to get back to this lighted thing and stuff after we talk about this, but you are the one that is starting to change my

[01:05:02] Mind because of that airplane. Oh, thank you, that’s awesome, yeah. So when I so, when I was doing that, I don’t know why it had popped into my head. It was like, geez, this would make a interesting night flyer. So while it was in its bones I- I really never I- struggled like crazy with soldering and just one plug is that buy a good soldering, a little solder station kind of a thing, and then teach yourself that way you try to do it with something from walmart or radio shack. You’re gonna struggle like crazy. But so what I did on this guy is that I wired on every, on every.

[01:05:38] Rib on the airplane. Throughout the fuselage, every rib and the tail feathers. There’s a strip of led lights on there, so it really it really glows pretty well and that Telemaster it’s guys. Guys harass me a little bit. Geez, you fly in the trainer again and I don’t know, it’s just one of those. It’s not a difficult plane to fly, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s floaty, it’s sloppy, I’ll say it’s not the easiest plane to fly. Well, but so with the flying on there, that was the first time I had ever done it. So

[01:06:14] Sometimes we have our, our club meetings. We’ll move those to the, to the field in the summertime. Yeah, and that was my very first night flight experience with that and there’s some factor to that. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how many lights you got on them, they all seem to. Everything I’ve flown at night today all seems to have some angles where it’s gone for a second and it’s with some experience. It’s like: okay, I know it was going away from me, give me a little left turn, it’ll come back. Oh there, it is again kind of a thing. But

[01:06:45] The. The night flying is definitely a challenge. These guys that fly 3d at night and things like that- it’s nothing but, nothing but kudos to those guys like the.

[01:06:57] Fact that they can fly 3d anyway kudos to them because I at my age I’m not even going to try but.

[01:07:03] Yeah, doing it at night? I can’t imagine. Nope, absolutely not. And this guy here being such a favorite, I actually have skis and floats for this plane, so I was without exaggerating that I could very well have a thousand flights on that airplane. It’s just one of those that I you get a dead calm sunday morning kind of a thing. Guys will be yelling at me- you’re done yet. Kind of a thing, because I’ll, I’ll shoot 20 touch and goes with that in a row and

[01:07:34] It’s just it’s just an honest flying airplane so yeah that’s enough on the Telemaster oh no it’s not.

[01:07:40] I really think that the that the flying at night is something that I think it adds a whole new dimension of something else we have interest and something that we haven’t done until just recently, until you got the shiny. Well, that was dusk, that wasn’t even night, like right, but I’m not comfortable enough at night. That’s the latest I’ve ever been out and tried to fly an airplane.

[01:08:02] Yeah, I agree, same with me and I can’t wait to do it. Our field butts the main north south highway, route 95. So we’re I don’t know a third of a mile off of that highway and I always have to think how cool it must look. Or we have to expect a 9-1-1 call kind of a thing for ufo or something like that on those nights from highways. Well now,

[01:08:24] I’ve seen. I’ve seen some of the some of the youtube videos and then when I was flying with the club down in texas a while back, some of the guys had the flying wings that just had the strip lights basically where a spar would be, yeah, and that would change colors and all that and would do all these crazy things that flying wings can do electric. And I always thought the same thing is like man, if I was, if I didn’t know what that was, and I was somebody living over here in this cul-de-sac and I saw this thing buzzing around, I mean, and they’re quite maneuverable, I would have thought that, wow, man, I should probably call somebody this thing.

[01:08:57] The aliens are coming to get me, or something exactly, maybe. I’m saying. If you’re not accustomed to seeing something like that, I mean it is, by definition, an unidentified flying object to you. You are correct, so I think it’d be cool. I can’t wait to get more into that. Yeah, me too. What were you saying?

[01:09:15] Jeff, I’m sorry we got you off. Oh, I was going to say on the. So I’ve got that little assassin combat wing and we buried lights in that thing and that plane flies well at speed but it stalls. It falls out of the sky when it stalls. So at night we really struggle keeping orientation with that. Luckily they can. They can fall out of the sky without worst damage on them is the. The o-ring that holds the prop safer on there. But

[01:09:46] Those are extremely challenging at night so anybody that’s really flying that well god bless them.

[01:09:51] Yeah so back to the Telemaster not to go back to what first off what motor do you have on that what.

[01:09:57] Are you running on it? That is, you’re talking about the lights. Yeah, that’s probably, I think, a rimfire 55. It’s funny when I built it the guy says, oh geez, that’ll never fly with that motor. So that’s a rimfire 55 and I think I use a six s 5000 pack in it and, okay, I’ll get eight, nine, ten minutes out of it. Kind of that’s not bad. No, I

[01:10:21] Wasn’t sure if it was electric or if you had a nitro. Yeah, that’s electric. And then with your lights, they’re all white lights. Or do you have colored ones in there? Based on, no, they’re all white.

[01:10:32] Lights, but with the, with the red and blue transparent covering, you get your orientation change that way. So, okay, awesome, and I just use a little simple. I got it on a switch in there. That’s a. You’ve got a big battery area so I think those are all 12 volt lights. So you put a little 3s 1300 pack in there to run those lights all day, kind of.

[01:10:55] Thing, so I was going to ask you too if you had a separate battery for that, because you’re probably safer doing it that way, probably, yeah, so that’s awesome. I would not want to think about the lights.

[01:11:03] Going out oh it’s getting dim oh it’s gone where is it why I hear it’s over there somewhere yeah.

[01:11:12] Fly by ear. It doesn’t work very well. So, no, that’s pretty cool. Like I said I, I think that’s something we want to get into, yeah, just as something new in the hobby. So, and then you said you also have the, the clip, so is one you use for night flying, yep, yep. So that one I just

[01:11:29] Like I said, I’ve had that playing for years. It’s. It’s pretty war weary at this point. And you can buy them on amazon. You can get a strip of 20 feet of lights for 10 kind of a thing. And then you got the little. You cut them in half at the, at the copper tabs, and just wire it up accordingly. So I laid lights top and bottom on the wing on that and along the fuselage and it just with the, with that foam on there, it almost it illuminates the. It can illuminate the wing a little bit, so actually works pretty well, yeah.

[01:12:02] I have the perfect airplane at home for that. I think, do you what do you got what’s a kit, but it’s a laser, works 40 size, it’s a long john, but it’s basically a stick and I was going to go with.

[01:12:14] Transparent covering on that anyway. So there you go, see I was. I was thinking about getting a night radian, like I think that would be something that would be cool, kind of cool to get to. They’re not too expensive, so I don’t think so. A couple hundred bucks maybe, a little more than that, that one has.

[01:12:27] The color changing lights right that’s the whole design yeah which that would be cool to do your own.

[01:12:33] Also yeah, but yeah, like I said, I, I’m in love with your telemasters. I mean it’s, it’s a plane that now, because of what we did with the trash, can Telemaster does hold a.

[01:12:46] A little special place in my heart. Wait a minute. Are you saying that you are feeling sentimental about the trash? Can Telemaster? Well, yeah, well, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that you were sentimental about any airplane. See, I disagree with that. I’m very.

[01:12:59] Sentimental about the yak oh well that’s true so there you go that’s true but flyable airplanes.

[01:13:04] I mean, well, it will be. Oh, you got to take that dick, don’t you? Well, so, jeff, I have. I’m a huge proponent of the stick airframe, so that’s my like. Whenever I go flying and I know I don’t have a lot of time to prepare, I know the stick is always ready to go, so that’s my go-to. Do you like? I’m thinking it’s the Telemaster, but do you have like a go-to airplane that, hey, I’ve only got 20 minutes to get ready to go fly? I’m gonna grab this airplane and go fly.

[01:13:31] Yeah, I’ve been flying. So let’s see, it was last year I guess I built a little SIG four star, 40- I don’t know- 50 size, four stroke up front, and I love the big airplanes. But there’s something to be said for that 40, 60 size airplane that you can. It’s two screws, one aileron connection. You’re off to the races, zebra pack. So and I, I like you, I love those, I love those classic airplanes. So that’s been kind of my

[01:14:01] Go-to. I flew that on skis this year as well. That’s, that’s worked out pretty well. That one I cheated a little bit. I know that you were talking about it, I don’t know, over past couple of shows, that one I actually I had a little trouble on my low side on that one. We just couldn’t seem to tune that to get it to idle that well, and I put one of those sullivan remote glow drivers on it that you program with the radio and that’s as reliable now as an electric.

[01:14:30] Motor kind of a thing. Oh, I’m sure. Yeah, I’m sure in operation it works fantastic. Just be careful of the of the, the three pins exposed on the back side of the control panel. I heard that story, yeah.

[01:14:43] Expensive, very fast mistake. Anyway, yeah, that is a great flying airplane I’ve had. I think I’ve probably had two or three, four star 40s over the years. Excellent flying airplane. It’s actually a great second airplane, like if somebody’s great. I agree it lands nicely. It slows up. Well it does. Yeah, it has no real bad habits. It stalls straight ahead and it. It doesn’t do any weird tip stalling or anything like that, unless you build wash out into the wing accidentally.

[01:15:14] But anyway yeah that would be a great to go to almost as good as a stick.

[01:15:21] I’m just teasing. My granddaughter selected the colors on that one as well. So we have neon pink, neon green, neon orange and black. I it’s the it’s. It’s kind of goofy looking, but it is absolutely the best colors. I mean, fly it on a gray day, fly it on a blue day, it doesn’t matter, you can see it no matter what. So it’s actually kind of fun that way. Yeah, yeah, anything that helps with.

[01:15:45] Orientation, yeah, who cares what it looks like on the ground? True, I’d rather, I’d rather see it, yeah, than lose it. And sometimes you never, you never truly know if a, if a color palette is going to work together until you actually see them together and you’re like I never would have imagined that pink went well with green, but man, this looks really good. Sometimes you never know until you actually put it into existence. Well, like your stick with the, the yellow covering with

[01:16:12] The transparent orange underneath sounds hideous but it actually looks pretty good I think it looks.

[01:16:17] Pretty cool, yeah, but I like transparent covering too. So well, and I had a lot of that working. I’m making my way. So, jeff, what are you working on like right now? I know you said you hearty group of flyers, you fly pretty much all the time, but well, do you have a building season and, if so, what do you?

[01:16:35] What are you working on right now? So, as I had shared earlier, I’ve been working quite a bit on that, on that quarter scale aranka champ. So that is my frame is complete at this point. I just borrowed a, a wire bending setup from one of our, one of my friends, club members, so I’ve yet to. It’s kind of. The best part of the hobby is that you, as you do different builds, you end up learning another technique on there. So I have to fabricate the.

[01:17:07] Landing gear on this guy, so it’s out of 316s piano wire. I haven’t bent anything like that, so that’s kind of the next project that I’ve got going there, as I spent the last couple of weekends just cleaning up and getting ready for the for flying season, so I’m in pretty good shape there and now I’ll probably get back into the champ. So with the nice weather like this, a lot of times I’ll I don’t have to light a wood stove or get things warm, so I’ll typically build quite a bit during the summer as well. Go out after dinner.

[01:17:38] And get an hour or two in the shop out there. So I’m kind of hoping to get that guy done this year and then next up behind that will be that SIG liberty sport that I talked about.

[01:17:48] Earlier yeah what do you what sort of covering you’re going to go with on the aranka on this.

[01:17:53] One here. I’ve got a I. I went kind of crazy and I bought a ton of the solotex covering there was. I actually double purchased it, but I do enjoy that on the larger airplanes on there it’s. It takes latex paint very well, so that’s what I’ll use on that. But I’ve got- so I don’t know, I’ve got a nice stockpile of that so, but it is a bit heavier than ultra coat or MonoKote, so you may want to use it on something with a little bigger.

[01:18:24] Bigger airframe, yeah well, but like on a champ, it’s really not supposed to look like a plastic film. True, that’s my feeling, exactly so, exactly so. I think that’s a. I think that’s a great choice. I.

[01:18:36] I think that’ll be kind of kind of eyeballing some, some warbird colors for that with the invasion stripe. So we’ll see. Yeah, we’ll see what happens with that, but that’s kind of where I’m leaning at the moment. So the nice thing with building is that you get so done, much time to think about it, that you get plenty of time to sit with the ipad and look and see what somebody else has done or what the full-scale versions look like. So, yeah, lots of time. It’s not like a, an rf, where you put the thing together in three nights and you’re up to the races, right, yeah.

[01:19:05] Yeah very true and then with an rf you don’t have a choice on what it looks like so exactly the nice.

[01:19:10] Thing about a kit you make it your own. Yeah, exactly yeah, and I think that’s why most guys who choose to build kits, that’s usually the reason they give you: it’s because I want to make it my own. Yeah, so yeah.

[01:19:22] So any big plans coming up? Yeah, so as of tonight- like three weeks from as we’re recording this- I’ll be making the my second trip to the joan all event down at the triple tree aerodrome that’s down in woodruff, south carolina. So we talked a little bit about it offline. But if you haven’t been, just make plans to go. Yeah, as an aside, my wife will probably listen to this afterwards and I’m going to tell her to pass forward a minute.

[01:19:53] Or two. We’ve had the good fortune of visiting a lot of great places throughout the world on vacations. That’s kind of our, that’s. Our other hobby is traveling a little bit, but I gotta tell you, joan, all week it’s the best vacation I’ve ever had in my whole life. It’s just, you’re just there with you, you’re there with your buddies. All right, it’s you do what you want, kind of a thing. So I’ve only been the once, back in 2019, we were outside literally 15, 18 hours a day. Our, our campsite was right near the 3d line, so you

[01:20:29] Know they allow the, the big entrance, to start up at seven o’clock in the morning, so you’re woken up at seven with a, a 200 cc screamer often running. Yeah, fly down there. They do demos until 10 or 11 o’clock at night, so we’d hit the pillow, we’d be gone 10 seconds, yeah, and as a group that whole, that whole setup down there, right it just you couldn’t feel more welcome while you’re.

[01:20:59] There, everybody has. They give you a little name tag to put on your hat. Nobody walks by without introducing themselves, so it’s, it’s really a special event. Yeah, we’ve got to go. Yeah, I mean.

[01:21:11] It’s just because of the, the shows, the, the actual model and hobby expos have sort of dried up and that. And that now leaves us with things like joe noll and, and florida jets is another one I’d like to go to someday. But all these big events and- and we just you never know when their final show is going to be- yeah, so we just, we just need to do it.

[01:21:35] Need to bite the bullet and make it happen yeah I agree oh please do so yeah because we.

[01:21:40] We went for the first time in 19 and that was supposed to be a once in a lifetime bucket trip, a bucket list trip, yeah. So we, we checked in, we got settled arriving, my good friend joe and I we took off in the golf cart and I know we weren’t 200 yards from our campsite and we’re watching this. I mean, it’s some of the best 3d pilots in the world flying there, so their main road is perpendicular to the, the 3d runway. So we’re driving this golf cart.

[01:22:11] And here comes this guy, big giant airplane, he’s rifle, rolling at a foot off the ground 100 miles an hour. And we both looked at each other and said, yeah, we’re just coming back here every year. Yeah, unfortunately copic changed those plans the last couple of years. But we’re we’re reverend to go and can’t wait to get.

[01:22:30] Back down there. So yeah, yeah, that’s yeah, I mean we just have to do it. I mean that’s all, that’s all you got, because, like I said, I mean the toledo was a lot of fun, but that was a swap meet it.

[01:22:43] Wasn’t the toledo expo that everybody I feel like, honestly, the joe knoll like experience, like for what you’re going to be going to do, jeff, would be like an episode of its own. Oh, absolutely, I mean, I just think that would be, maybe we could have you back and we could talk about, oh yeah, maybe we could have you back and talk about your experience for this year at joe knoll and that would be enough to get us just raring to go for next year. Yeah, because there’s.

[01:23:12] There’s something for everybody there. There’s a, there’s a helicopter line, it’s. It’s kind of funny that you get to that main flight line. I mean there’s some guys with just some big iron there. You get jaded, you’re literally stepping over. Here’s this guy with a 30 000 havoc jet and you step over another one and then for guys that like classic airplanes- I mean there was works of art that were there and they’re flying these airplanes- I mean I don’t know. I talked to one guy he had like 3 000 air hours into a, into a model. I mean you’ll never see anything like that. And then

[01:23:46] You’ve got an electric flight line. You’ve got an electric 3d line. You’ve got a pond, you’ve got the main 3d line. I mean the pond. We absolutely we enjoyed that. I mean, look, our first visit down there, we went one night. They have like a nice steak fry and they pay 25 bucks and you get to burn your own steak. And we got our planes, we went to the, went to the pond and geez, we look up, there’s like 15 airplanes circling the pond. My friend was all set to fly and then he handed me the radio. He goes: no, I don’t, I don’t want to do.

[01:24:20] This, yeah, so literally it was like nascar. It’s like, okay, pick your place and you find a little bit of air space. Yeah, they have a boat of shame so that if you do crash or put one in the water, they got a little john bolt with an electric motor on it. So there’s.

[01:24:35] Really something there for everybody. That’s awesome. Yeah, well, let’s, let’s set, let’s set that up. We’ll we’ll have to, like I said, seriously have you back on after you go and do that, and we’ll, we’ll have a follow-up with you on that one. I think that’d be. Yeah, and it gets you.

[01:24:50] Know it gets busy later in the week and we were befriended by some local guys down there. So blue ridge radio control club down in piedmont, south carolina, they invited us down for a day of flying at that club. Put on a nice barbecue for us. They’re planning on doing that again one day. So I mean it just couldn’t be nice for people down there. The whole time you’ve you gotta pry a smile off of your face for sure.

[01:25:15] So yeah, yeah, and then, like I said earlier, that’s that’s what I love about the hobby. It’s just seems like everybody, no matter where you go, they’re just always very polite and friendly and accommodating. A bunch of nice guys, yeah, I mean people, like-minded people, exactly.

[01:25:31] Playing with toys yeah that are awesome that are awesome so well is there anything.

[01:25:36] Else you want to talk about, jeff? Yeah, I guess the only last thing would just be a little public service for, especially for the guys that belong to the clubs- is this isn’t a young man’s hobby- I mean, most of the guys I fly with are 40 to 70 plus years old- is be an ambassador to your club and to the hobby. I get pretty excited when family pulls into our parking lot. Always make a an effort to wave, walk over, introduce.

[01:26:09] Themselves get the kids out of the car, let them come take a. Come take a peek at what we’re doing. We do have a couple of club trainers, but they’re not always charged up and ready to go. If you can get a kid on a buddy box, or get a kid and his dad on the buddy box, that’s a really great way to introduce them into the hobby. Even if you, if that’s not available, if you’ve got something that’s not crazy difficult to fly, I will invite them up to just kind of watch me, just take the mystery out of what we’re doing up there. It’s a good time to get into the hobby. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s.

[01:26:46] Pretty affordable, right? You can get that little aeroscout with a radio and everything for 300 bucks. And if, if that isn’t, if that’s too high. We have a number of members that are big fans of flight tests and they you can build an airplane for 100 bucks. Quite often we’ve had young people have gone into the hobby and we’ve put out a message on our own facebook page: hey, somebody got an old radio that we can give this kid so that he can get him into it. So yeah, just I just ask everybody to reinvest when you can into the hobby, not

[01:27:20] Necessarily money, but just with your time and your attitude towards new people. I haven’t personally experienced it, but I’ve heard horror stories of people that were turned off by basically by the, by the members, kind of a thing. So, no, just be a good citizen, yeah, yeah, I could not have said it better. Yeah, that’s.

[01:27:42] Well stated. So I agree completely. There’s. There are some times where you hear about some people that feel like they like they own the place, like I’m, I’m flying an expensive plane, get your cheap little one out of here. There’s, there’s just some entitlement to some people. Not that I have dealt with a lot, but yeah, let’s not do that. I think let’s let’s be as good ambassadors, as you said, as we can, just to bring everybody in because it’s fun, it’s cool.

[01:28:16] There’s more people, the better, I think. And here’s the bottom line. I mean they’re toys, right, I mean they really are awesome toys. They are awesome. I’m not going to take that away, but yeah, yeah, well, thanks, jeff.

[01:28:28] Those were words, well spoken. Yeah, it was a thank you, a lot of fun. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, this was fun, our pleasure. Like I said we will, we will definitely schedule a time here for a joe null follow-up and then you can kind of make us salivate on what we missed and what we, yeah, what, how we want to make sure we make it to next year or the year after. So, yeah, well, maybe I’ll see if a few of

[01:28:49] My friends would be willing to join us as well I don’t know if you can have multiples on.

[01:28:54] Us on a given evening. Yeah, that would be. We’ll have to look into that. I think that’ll be fun. Yeah, if we can make that work, I think that would be. That would be fantastic. I will. I will do my best.

[01:29:04] To make that happen how’s that excellent all right well once again thank you very much until next.

[01:29:09] Time I’m Ron I’m Tom and you and I’m jeff arsenal god bless thank you all right thanks jeff good.

[01:29:16] Night. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either Ron at rcplanelab.com or Tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time. May your landings be gentle.