Ep 206: Inside the 2026 Toledo R/C Swap Meet & Expo with Hank Rauhaus

[unknown speaker 00:00:04] hello everyone welcome to the rc plane lab podcast i'm ron i'm dave and i am hank there you go hank sorry i was glad you remembered yes sir i'm back that's all right everybody we have hank rowhouse did i get it right this time excellent god wonderful from the toledo rc swap meeting

[unknown speaker 00:00:32] expo the man the myth the legend is back wouldn't go quite that far but man what it what it what an entry thank you sir i love you i mean i'm doing absolutely fantastic man you you are the face

[unknown speaker 00:00:46] of this and you have done so much work to put this on and we like for us this is one of our our highlights of the year like being able to make it to toledo for this swap meet is one of the things we look forward to every year so thank you first off for all the work you put into it and then i also want to find out what is new this year and how has the event evolved since last year well i'll

[unknown speaker 00:01:10] tell you what first of all i i can't tell you how much i appreciate those kind words because as i told you the last time we talked i really thought this was gonna be my golden egg my rags to riches story and it hasn't really turned out that way but it's much much more important to me because it's really turning into something that i feel that this is my way of giving back to the hobby the hobby has been wonderful for me my the friends i've met it's almost like family and part of that was toledo and the thought that here we are in year six i i can't

[unknown speaker 00:01:40] believe i can say we're in year six because i'm still trying to figure out how we survived covet in 2020 in year one it was you know we didn't know what we were doing it was crazy but i will tell you this last year i think was the year everything finally really came together when you take down those curtains and you see 75 000 square feet of over 800 tables full of rc goodness it just doesn't get better than that you know and you have commercial vendors and swappers and you have families and you know that's that's that was that was last year was like wow and then after it was

[unknown speaker 00:02:13] over i'm like oh no that was the wow what can we do this year so going into this show there were some things that we really liked last year that we can't bring into this year and i guess the biggest thing is the rc racing you know we had an oval track last year that was a lot of fun it was a lot of work and in the end the financial decision to not bring it back is what it basically was and it drove that decision we just didn't get we didn't get the support of the manufacturers that we thought we would the conversations i had with them was basically hey let's see how

[unknown speaker 00:02:45] successful we are next year and my thing was well the way we can be successful next year you know you're part of the show and it just didn't work out so you know we kind of we we pivoted and we thought you know we had that big space so we did something we went back to something we tried before and i talked with josh bixler flight test and we've had conversations for the last six years and i'm happy to say that finally this year flight test will be coming to toledo and that is a huge thing for us yeah this is how i say oh that was a big one well

[unknown speaker 00:03:17] i can tell you in my eyes flight test is one of the biggest i'm going to tell you why right now it's because they do something better than anybody else and that's what they do for the kids the families and i have tried i've tried to incorporate that in the schools where i work and i do okay but when you go to flight fest and you see thousands of kids building two channel airplanes going out and flying them with their moms dads it's there's nothing like it and that's what i wanted to happen

[unknown speaker 00:03:47] at toledo so i went to josh in december i'm like hey man we're going to try this with or without you but please i really hope it's with you and i told him i says nobody does it better and i believe that and when they finally said you know what we're on board we've had a lot of talks so i'm really excited because they're going to bring their their build tents more importantly though we're gonna have a stem tent and i tell everybody this you know they are one of our platinum sponsors which is a top level sponsor for us and their gift to toledo is you know these kids are gonna get to take home

[unknown speaker 00:04:18] two channel airplanes and blimps for free you know that's what i wanted right it was sometimes it's like a match made in heaven and money's not always everything i'd rather see it geared towards something we enjoy and so we'll have a stem tent up and the kids will be there and what they put together they can walk right over and fly and then they take it home so i'm pretty excited about that you know that is probably our biggest thing but there's other things too i can tell you by the numbers right now guys we're in for our biggest year ever i know i said that last year but numbers don't lie and we have had an unbelievable amount of registrations as both swappers and even

[unknown speaker 00:04:53] on the vendors we lost a couple of my favorite vendors for various reasons which are excellent reasons you know one family moved back to puerto rico i gotta be honest it's a long drive that was my big big rc trucks i loved and they had the big rc trucks and they oh yeah those were awesome they were awesome and you'll see you'll see one again next year they might not be but you'll see the truck because we actually we talked about purchasing one of them and then in the end to help finance their move they sold it but we're gonna get back together i talked to them all the time they were a great great part of the show and then samson rc hobby

[unknown speaker 00:05:27] was their first year and it turns out i i derrick a great guy they're great to the show and his real passion is also he does interior interiors for custom cars so he is yeah and so he was out at sima which is a huge car show and they're the custom car interior he did one best to show there so they're out in california may have a show that i guess is more important than the toledo show so that's where they're going to be this weekend but the cool thing is they sent some rs up for us you know so that's that's fantastic but a lot of the regulars are back

[unknown speaker 00:06:00] you know andrew jesky's back with his wife page and ag aircrafts gonna be full go got innovative designs you know those are those are mainstays and i love seeing the old schools dubro sullivan rich's brew bnb specialties you know and then this year too which is different

[unknown speaker 00:06:16] than last year we have a lot of professional organizations we didn't have so we have some

[unknown speaker 00:06:20] clubs this year the vintage rc society is going to be there i think that's cool because that's that's something that's changing about our show it's morphing so yeah i i just i i'm not gonna lie to you i'm at that point where i'm anxious and excited all at the same time but there's nothing like day one for me right now so real excited another big change is we're doing the auction friday night because i want to bring back i was gonna say i like that idea i really do because

[unknown speaker 00:06:49] so here's the thing with like like among us like our little group of guys here one of the things we talked about is if you were doing the racing again this year it would have been great to do that after hours friday oh that was always the plan oh is it really well because like honestly when we're there during the day and swapping i mean that we need to be at the tables we want to be able to do that and not have to go do the racing and stuff but what i like about the friday night thing now it gives us something to do friday night we're in toledo we don't go out to eat i mean we will grab a quick bite or something like that but then we just go and hang out in the in the hotel room

[unknown speaker 00:07:23] this gives us something else to do which is going to be awesome i'm really looking forward to that

[unknown speaker 00:07:27] well and we're well and again like everything we're we're always constantly changing and and i i loved the auctions the week singles had not gonna lie you you know we're not gonna have it over at the hotel because we can't afford it but we got that big open area in the back we pull cars in so we'll be back there and i can tell you this there'll be some things you've never seen like at our auction we're bringing in a real auctioneer this year we've got a great guy coming out indiana i'm very excited for and then another thing we're doing for sure because my biggest thing about the auction is fun it's like you said it's the brotherhood the sisterhood is doing what we're

[unknown speaker 00:08:01] doing but my team the clito rc swap and expo team we put together over a dozen different arfs with donated engines electronic parts and they're all being sold at no reserve whatever they go for they go for and partial proceeds that's going right to the ama foundation so the foundation is going to be there i really want people to see somebody win something and walk that cash over and put it in the foundation's hand and this is this is it i mean this is what supports what we do so we're putting all that together i'm not going to lie to you though i am bringing back the cash bar

[unknown speaker 00:08:32] that was my idea and it will be open after the auction because it gives us a place to do what what you just said you hang out in your hotel room let's all hang out together sit down talk because that's what it's about so the auction i'm so excited for yeah and hopefully i'll get to

[unknown speaker 00:08:47] snag a few good deals we'll see yeah that's how we're all hoping or what we're all hoping for so yeah and i like things we haven't seen very often so that's that'll be cool too

[unknown speaker 00:08:57] well it gives us a way believe it or not you know we it helps us generate money because we're always looking for ways to generate money because this might shock you it didn't get cheaper this year good no it didn't it didn't get cheaper oh it didn't i was like wait a minute no right off the bat the the glass city center hit us with our new contract and you know they're 4 000 bucks just to rent the place you know this is nearing a 50 000 budget which if my wife knew that well

[unknown speaker 00:09:28] it wouldn't be good because if people don't come through the doors lordy lordy you know so but that's just another way we can bring in revenue got some big raffle prizes again this year giving away 103 inch plug and play aj slick the da 120 beautiful 75 inch t34c mentor the 20 cc engine donated from value urc you know so we got some nice raffle prizes again it's the vendors we got great vendors man but it's just it's i'm i'm very excited and i i also excited to let you know

[unknown speaker 00:10:02] that tyler dobbs our ama executive officer the guy he'll be at the show this year and i i don't know if you guys have talked about it much but we're i'm a little leery my my group is a little leery about the fcc ruling that just came down yeah back in december yeah and i think there's a lot of conversation and not a lot of good conversation so hopefully we're going to talk to tyler about maybe talking about that a little bit too so we can get some things clear because you know depending on how that's taken and what happens with that that could change the face of the hobby yet again

[unknown speaker 00:10:35] and not necessarily in a good way so you know hopefully hopefully we can get some clear pictures from that too you know and then for you sponsored pilots guys that know how to fly we do have that fly area if you're not sure if you're good enough for the flyer just go back and watch for about two minutes you'll figure out right away whether you can or can't fly in that space because we have some unbelievable sponsored pilots from futaba high tech aj aircraft ra corps a bunch of guys back there flying so everything's looking good i hope nice so then it's going to be set up the

[unknown speaker 00:11:08] same way this year as it was last year as in we'll be able to drive in the night before with trailers and stuff and actually unload in the building and actually something different again

[unknown speaker 00:11:17] this year because i wasn't ready for last year's numbers on paper it looked one way when they started coming i'm like oh my it grew so much last year i mean when you grow almost 250 swap tables that's huge

[unknown speaker 00:11:32] so this year i'm actually opening up swappers not just commercial vendors can contact me directly on they come in wednesday if they want to because we have security starting wednesday and it just kind of just frees up thursday you know so because last year believe it or not by the end of thursday 75 of all attendees already had their stuff in you know so we don't call it a three-day swap

[unknown speaker 00:11:57] you know but it is what it is you know so i'm gonna send a note out hoping to get some guys coming wednesday just to make it easier for everybody because i know leaving got to be a little tricky last year but man there's just no way to we got some things in mind but there's no easy way to get thousands of people out two doors you know in about two hours no it just doesn't work the physics is not good so hopefully some of the holiday spirit will still be around we leave because sometimes she's a little grumpy on the way out you know because they're leaving the show

[unknown speaker 00:12:29] and you know they want to get home well nobody wants to be leaving so that's what puts you in a bad mood yeah i agree i agree so i want to ask you a little bit too so you this is now you said you're sixth year of doing this so you've got a little bit of experience under your belt what what do you have difficulties with or what's the hardest part of putting on an event like this with so many tables and with the the more people showing up every year and with how much it's actually grown

[unknown speaker 00:12:58] that's a that's a fantastic question and i joked about here i i joked about year one year one was survival it was all about survival and i made some poor choices along the way and you know getting ready and during and you know i'm growing i mean it's gonna be tough for me this year but i think the biggest change for hank the hank that everybody knows is my wife even said that i gotta dress a little different next year and she's right so this year i won't be wearing my traditional colito rc swap and expo t-shirt i do have some green more dress like shirts i think because i have to

[unknown speaker 00:13:32] i have to transition from hank the swapper and then hank the guy that's running the largest expo left in the country i don't want to say boss necessarily but right and last year i got caught you know i'm always buying deals and you know we bought 600 kits at the end and my team alone had almost 100 tables and four guys and with that racetrack i had to stay back to the whole time and i felt terrible at the end of the show because i didn't get to do what i i didn't get to do what i love most and that's talk to my vendors so i told myself at that time i took one week off i got right back into it and i think that's another thing that really helped usually i take a couple months off

[unknown speaker 00:14:05] i can't anymore the show starts the next day when i went down to joe and all i'd like to tell you i was just there for fun nah i was there i was there knocking doors too first of all i went to every commercial vendor that came to toledo said hey man i'm so sorry because at the show this year i didn't i don't think i paid enough attention to you and i i will never let that happen again because our vendors are so gracious so of course they they would disagree but that's how i felt so i think you know i'm growing up understanding my responsibility in the show you know that i i love swapping but i go to 30 swaps

[unknown speaker 00:14:37] before toledo so i guess i can take one off even though it is the greatest at least the greatest up here so i think that growth is important i was gonna say that was one thing i was gonna ask too so

[unknown speaker 00:14:47] you're not just the toledo rc guy you are or the swap meeting expo guy you are you guys put down a lot of well don't put on you go to a lot of different swap meets and stuff throughout the years we saw you up by chicago a couple weeks ago three weeks ago whatever it was you had a bunch of tables up there i said or i know you said that you were going to i saw online you're going to date in this weekend that went out to iowa lebanon ta yeah well you hit a lot of the main like the bigger swap meets how is that going like how do you what do you get away from what boy i am

[unknown speaker 00:15:20] i got you brother what are your takeaways from that like what what do you get out of that and what is

[unknown speaker 00:15:28] the the goal of doing that well we started you know we started just a small swap in toledo our small swap was bigger than most but still just a small swap and like i choose to run the toledo show i am very personal about it i know your table numbers i know where you guys are located i know where my vendors are located i'm the only one that can say that i mean and this we're talking hundreds of tables but it's important to me you know when i saw you i'm sure i asked my wife just

[unknown speaker 00:15:58] raised her hand she knows them too because she's the one that checks them with me to make sure they're accurate but you know i'm sure within the first 30 seconds like hey mandy coming back to toledo that's how i am because that's when i check you off and you know what if you guys don't pan line your word is good with me and that's one thing that i like that personal touch some businesses don't do that anymore you know i choose that's how i want to do it so i think i think that's important which is why we go to the small swaps if i want you to come to my show what should we be doing going to the small shows and on top of that these small you know these small shows

[unknown speaker 00:16:32] you know we have two main clubs we have the tiffin rc club and the valley cdrc club they're just a group of 50 guys my buddies we do this for you we those clubs you know we try to give them some money a little bit this isn't about making money anymore this is much bigger than that and we go to these other swap meets it's those clubs are trying to make their money so we can help you know we enjoy it too but the advertising is key but i'm not going to lie to you this year 33 swaps we're feeling it right now because we have dating this week then we go for four hours up

[unknown speaker 00:17:03] into michigan and then we have toledo so we're gonna re we're gonna actually do a little reorganization there because i don't know if my team can keep up with this you know we have four main guys right now that do a lot of the swapping and we love it but it's it's a grind yeah no

[unknown speaker 00:17:19] matter how much you love it sometimes it gets a little overwhelming right and that's like even like

[unknown speaker 00:17:23] going to joan all last year putting on a pop-up swap shop what a what a corny idea because i don't want to bring my own stuff and you know what it actually worked out fantastic because what i got it wasn't a plane it was a it was a museum masterpiece that brought many conversations you know and that's why i say make offer because the offer i got about fell out of my chair but anyway you know that's but that's what it's about that's what makes it fun so that's why we do that we go to the swaps and why you know it's funny though you go to joan all you go to

[unknown speaker 00:17:55] iowa you go to chicago you see some of the same guys and i'm not gonna lie to you but i i like being hank the swap guy you know but i also feel we do things right now and there isn't a swap we don't go to where they sit me down and say what can we change how can we get more people through the door to the point where i'm i'll let you in and you're the first one to know this so i'll share some information with you we hot gossip we are we are going to officially apply to become a a special interest group with the ama for swap meets and expos in the country because i think

[unknown speaker 00:18:30] i think we have what it takes and i think we do a lot for that arena and again it's just giving back

[unknown speaker 00:18:36] and i enjoy that yeah that is so cool you should be proud of that actually that's that takes a that takes a lot of work to get to that point i have a very loving and understanding

[unknown speaker 00:18:48] wife who will be running the raffle booth this year yes sir so with with all the different swap

[unknown speaker 00:18:56] meets and stuff you go to you you really kind of see what is going you see what's being sold you see what's being collected you see everything that's kind of going on do you notice any differences in in the the several years that you've been doing this as to what has been popular is it more vintage more foam you know you see more giant scale stuff getting sold what's the hot item here's the thing

[unknown speaker 00:19:19] the first thing we bring to get rid of here's the interesting thing that shocks me and we saw it the last two years and i i think one year is a fluke two years no way but different pockets still love their nitro airplanes and most swaps selling what i call flyers they aren't that they aren't the beauty queens they're flyers they're the ones that have been flown sometimes flown hard it's getting harder and harder yes sir it's getting harder and harder to sell those there are a couple swaps pot of gold out in iowa or excuse me pot of gold in indiana and then the swap out in iowa and even chicago the

[unknown speaker 00:19:54] nitro stuff was huge and it was used this year again so i think that's trendy you think nitro is making a comeback no no i think no i think it's just those are pockets you know what i mean like this is going to sound out in iowa they've got a lot of fields so it doesn't make sense chicago i have no idea why i think i think nitro is going to level off though i think the electrics you know electives around it used to be oh he's got electric it's something new i mean that was 30 years ago you know so i think that levels off i think foam well i think it's hard

[unknown speaker 00:20:30] what we see is foam is foam you can buy a brand new airplane and try to sell it the next day you're getting 60 70 that's it and you know everybody might not want to admit that but the market is only bears what the market will bear so you know it's it's a wherever you go it's going to be a buyer's market you know even down at parry this year some some people were frustrated because sellers are trying to hold on to their things but you got to understand they remember what they paid for it to lato rc swap and expo we're all about getting rid of get something else you know it'll all it'll all wash out one thing i did notice that we've all noticed kits you know kits were had a

[unknown speaker 00:21:06] wonderful run over the last dozen 10 12 years you know we sell on ebay rc groups they're starting to level off to the point now we're being able to sell kits at swap meets within 25 30 percent of ebay pricing which we know anything about ebay that's almost even money with less hassle so we're doing you know we're starting to sell kits a little easier that way oh i forgot to tell you that reminds me just to let you know i got some really unique things coming to i want to go i'll come back to that i got something else sorry okay yeah that's trying to go yeah i do i just remembered

[unknown speaker 00:21:42] and everybody always asks this question and you might get it too what's the best swap is that a good swap to go to my response is always the same i don't know i don't know what you're looking for because i've been to some small swaps and found the coolest things i went out to chicago last year and finally landed that triplane rf i've been looking for that i could afford you know under 800 bucks 300 bucks i mean that was a great swap for me might not have been for you but it was for me you know the one of the best little swaps i've ever been to is down in west virginia

[unknown speaker 00:22:13] 25 tables i mean i had some of the coolest buys ever i still have a lot of that cool buy but you know i can't tell you and i hate i hate saying well this swap is bigger this swap is better no such thing that's like you know people want to compare dayton and toledo like we talk about dayton has 350 tables we got a little more than that so what that's a big swap perry has 1200 tables that's a big swap i'm going to swap in a week that has 80 tables but i might find something whether it's just as good you know you can't compare we're all in this for the same reason

[unknown speaker 00:22:46] man i'm there to beat you to whatever that good deal is so and we're all looking for something

[unknown speaker 00:22:52] different too so that's right that's the hardest thing you could be so excited about seeing something where i'd be like why would you why would you spend any money on that that's what makes it the

[unknown speaker 00:23:00] coolest i mean if you think about it isn't that what's like awesome yeah we fight we don't fight over the same things i don't know what you're fighting for i have a lot too look at what i got i'm like wow but for you man and same with me so and that does remind me by the way talking about i know you're gonna say i was just waiting what what what am i gonna say you are gonna say hank last year you promised me something to bring to joe null i forgot it well i will bring it wasn't just joe

[unknown speaker 00:23:31] null it was to toledo and journal but that's okay that's okay i i still have it there's the worst thing is i had to take it off the high shelf got down to packet level it's been there since last year so i i've seen it quite a bit it'll make the trailer this year okay it'll be well worth the wait i promise it will okay that's fine okay it'll be sitting on your table you just have to decide

[unknown speaker 00:23:54] how much you want to pay for it hey real storage fees i'm sure for the last for the last year so

[unknown speaker 00:24:00] i'm sure the price went up right about ten thousand dollars anyway real quick man i got to share this story with you it's a cool you got a second for a cool story i have all the time in the world for you hank so four years ago i got a strange little email from a nice young japanese lady up in new york and she's telling me about her father's rc airplane and engine and another engine i'm like you know i hear this a lot i hear about collections all the time but the interesting thing about this particular story is her father owns two of the six zimmerman four-cylinder inline

[unknown speaker 00:24:38] four strokes one was a there were quarter scales and six scales he has two of the quarter scale ones and they were built that specific engine was built by mr zimmerman for the tiger moth it gets better there are only six he has two one of his is actually in a tiger moth built by mr zimmerman who designed the engine he has that he bought it quite a while ago he paid a lot of money for it and this year it will be at toledo we'll try to sell it at auction it'll be advertised on ebay and

[unknown speaker 00:25:11] rc groups probably within the next week but to think that i have something like that to me is there are only six in the world i'll have my possession two and one is built by the guy who built the engine and all his private notes the specs on the engines i'm not doing it justice right now but when you see it you'll be like holy moly i have a i have a what is it mp3 file from 1987 of the maiden flight grainy as all get out but that engine when you hear him fire up that engine

[unknown speaker 00:25:39] holy moly it's an absolutely beautiful situation so i'm really excited for that to come anybody who comes to toledo hate to say this it's worth the price of admission just to see those things and ultimately i'm trying to help the family sell them and we started this journey four years ago and then the dad got sick and then something else happened and this is the year we still have what 19 days but everything's in place this year so hopefully the family makes it in the beautiful airplane so i'm excited about that and when you see it you'll understand i'm not doing it justice right now but it's and again it gets back to that warm feeling about we're helping a family

[unknown speaker 00:26:12] you know we're and we're showing something that you ain't going to see anywhere else

[unknown speaker 00:26:16] yeah those are the things i love the things you won't see because i mean you have such a stage to show off things to to get the word out about things that a lot of people don't have so being able to help people out like that is one of the things i think is really cool about your event because you do draw a large crowd to it and it's well known and it's a diverse crowd yeah

[unknown speaker 00:26:41] diverse crowd and grows every year so last last year's last year's paid attendance was 3 284 you know which is pretty good we needed every penny of it but imagine that airplane just described and then you know we had the static model competition this year that i'm still trying to figure out you asked earlier i'm still trying so this year we're giving away a thousand dollars in cash prizes we figured cash was king everywhere else why not on these models static models and we actually have a category like 3d printed i don't think you'd ever think about seeing that a few

[unknown speaker 00:27:15] weeks you know so you know we had you know we had a little disagreement last year and i think you could appreciate this you know i had an organization judging airplanes and they didn't want to judge the foam airplanes as scale airplanes yet when you go to the ama website and pull up the rules that we use there's nothing that says you can't judge foam like a you know boss a build airplane and so you know this year i've i have a group of judges i'm the only one that knows who they are the judge will be done you know nobody else will know they'll hand me over the winners we have like 14 categories

[unknown speaker 00:27:50] so i'm really hoping this year i could promise you already know some things coming it's gonna be really some really cool stuff that again you haven't seen i got tether cars coming from the 30s most people have never seen them i mean think of and you're like well why would you display it because we can right when it's your own show you can display what you want and they're going to judge like everything else so you're going to have your beautiful scale built models there's 3d printed models i got a quarter scale truck coming these are ones that i know i mean and that's again i love stuff like that no more do i have to put my stuff on the table and that's good for all

[unknown speaker 00:28:26] of us i had some airplanes out come on that well what was that the other year you had out there

[unknown speaker 00:28:32] the 10 foot lazy bee with four jet engines i wanted to say mud duck but i knew that wasn't right yeah

[unknown speaker 00:28:37] that was an airplane yep i love that airplane and it it it was i was trying to spur the others to want to bring their airplanes i think they're starting to feel that the show isn't just about that unbelievable scale build you know what i mean so and then you know boss usa stepped up there the sponsors this year of the static show it's nice to be able to put cash on some things i'm hoping it just it gets people interested some people like well if you're getting money for this why are you not you know there goes i guess you could say our some of our possible profit again

[unknown speaker 00:29:10] we're past that this is about you know i'd like to make a little money it is what it is longer in the black last year we paid for our hotel rooms that was a big bonus you know that was the big thing last year right we paid for hotel rooms in the van yeah well well some people maybe not me i'm getting too old for that you know so but yeah that the static i forgot about the static mile contest so that that it will be are you going to have a people's choice award you know it's funny

[unknown speaker 00:29:42] that you mentioned that i did the first two years the first year we had 14 people vote the second year we had almost 30 people vote and to be honest in the end i don't want to say nobody cares because there are people that care but it i don't have a way i can't figure out a way to do it where if you want to make sure somebody wins they win so that's why this year the way we're structuring it is we have all these different classes right and then in the end we have a fifth

[unknown speaker 00:30:14] place a fourth place a third place a second place those are all cash prizes we have a best finished film best finished paint and then we have the joe david memorial award which is best to show but anybody can win it's not it's not geared towards anything so there's no reason that believe it or not in a 3d print plane if on this judge's scoring sheet shows that it wins it wins now i can promise you there are some things on the scoring sheet that 3d printed planes we have difficulties with you know but that's okay because whoever put those planes out there they just want people to

[unknown speaker 00:30:44] see them and how cool is that here we are 2026 you have scale models 3d printed models foam models aluminum models from the 1930s i mean that's just wild you know and that's where we're at so

[unknown speaker 00:30:58] yeah that's it's always neat to see the the different airplanes and different models and stuff that are there because you know i haven't been in the hobby for all that long it's only been 14 15 years now whatever so i wasn't around two years yeah i know right so i wasn't around in the in the in the heyday i guess of nitro of you know of all the all the stuff that's kind of phased out so it's it's neat to go to some of these places where there are displays of things that are are what's what i'm looking

[unknown speaker 00:31:30] for for lack of better term nice models i mean they're not junk they're not things that you know have five pounds of mold growing on them that somebody's trying to get three dollars out of it's an actual model that was flown 30 years ago and in good shape and and to me it's neat to be able to see that kind of stuff almost like museum pieces and that's what you know last year we had

[unknown speaker 00:31:51] joe david we had some of his airplanes there and everybody the feedback on that these planes some of these planes are 50 years old the feedback was fantastic they loved it you know and that's good because we you know we surveyed people and that was good and i agree with you but i also i think that's what's cool about swap meets you know we always talk about what one's best how many times you've been a little old swap meeting there it's like holy moly there's this beautiful something sitting there you know and sometimes they're priced okay sometimes not so much but i agree it's it's finding the stuff you don't see anywhere else you know the heyday of these shows

[unknown speaker 00:32:24] swap meets and the expos there was no internet there was no tv that was it right and we can never go back to that but the static display is one of those things that whether you love or whether i love or hate it it doesn't matter i'm telling you people love them and that's why i wish i could figure out how to make it better and this year i've gone all in i mean we spent money on it we've got a sponsor we have classes i've talked to personal people there's a gentleman coming up out of kentucky named william jackson he he builds some unbelievable he takes foam you know just a

[unknown speaker 00:32:59] regular foam airplane and by the time he's done from three feet away it looks like it's a piece of glass it's unbelievable art you know i don't know how he can fly it i could because well you know

[unknown speaker 00:33:10] sometimes bad things happen with foam but it's it's stuff like that so i actually i reached out to him like hey man you want to come up here he goes okay thanks for asking you know he's got a facebook group you know three four thousand people and he flies turbines but he loves doing these foam airplanes just some cool stuff so yeah fingers crossed fellas we'll get some nice stuff you know ron you can put some stuff in there too nothing says you can't we don't have anything to put in

[unknown speaker 00:33:39] well there's still time that's right i sold i sold what i sold what you had last year at jonal that's right you did you did a

[unknown speaker 00:33:50] good job on that one that was that's impressive so there are with the different swap meets that we go to throughout the year i consider some of them buyer swap meets and i consider some of them seller swap meets toledo is unique and that it's both like i can i can tell you right off hand two swap meets we go to where i know i'm going to find something that i like and i know it's going to be cheap i can also tell you other ones that we go to where you go to look and you're probably not

[unknown speaker 00:34:24] buying anything but if you have something to sell it's a good place to go so having said that as a vendor not just as swappers what kind of feedback do you get from the guys that are showing up every year about how toledo compares to other events and this is the i'm just going to go to the

[unknown speaker 00:34:42] numbers because the show like i said it's going to be bigger this year and i can promise you when shows grow like let's talk about perry perry is an unbelievable swap meet you ever been to perry you've been out of perry right i have not no that's a bucket thing but well let me tell you something i tell everybody it's worth the drive one time at least to see it because it's it's 1200 1300 tables and i i talked to the guy that organizes it you know when i was going through some of our growing pains and it's the same conversation down there it's just the buyers that is sellers and it's

[unknown speaker 00:35:15] everyone's different for toledo you asked about so it's all about numbers we're in every year we've increased at least 15 percent in swappers and attendance last year was almost 20 percent in swappers this year i don't know the numbers yet but i promise you it's more the only way that happens is everybody's happy you have buyers that are happy you have sellers that are happy it's it's amazing thing if you're on some fun and maybe you do this just sit and watch the transaction because as they walk away you know the buyer's like man i stuck into that guy the seller's like

[unknown speaker 00:35:45] man i stuck it to that guy and everybody's smiling you know what i'm talking about what's the best trade in the world where everybody's happy and that's all the only right price is the one where

[unknown speaker 00:35:54] you're happy for selling it and they're happy for buying it and that's i i and that's the one

[unknown speaker 00:35:59] thing i i believe and this is just my belief i think that these shows take on the aura whoever runs the show i believe that and people that know me i'm a fun loving guy i like to have fun i like to make a little money i like the family you know my wife just said very little that hurt a little bit it's true but you know the thing is though when you go to toledo you feel that you feel that warm and you see smiles everywhere i mean i i told my wife i'm having a my buddy who's a he runs a

[unknown speaker 00:36:34] little he makes those hats with those cool leather patches he'll be up front i can't remember tony's business lanyards by tony lanyards by and he he made these sweet hats last year only made five of they were sold about two seconds so he's bringing one for me just so i can give it to this gentleman who comes with his brother from turkey every year they always come they always barter we beat each other up everybody's happy they give my daughter candy from turkey and last week gave me a club hat so i want to repay him this year and that like to me i can't wait but i mean i remember we and in the

[unknown speaker 00:37:07] end we're both smiling you know i can't tell you what i sold him i don't care it's he was happy i was happy everybody's happy and i i remember when i sold the week single show i don't know ron if you ever came upstairs but i used to sell at the old week single show i'd have 55 tables of swap biggest biggest swap in the area we literally would post signs everything's for sale we sold the trailer and by the time saturday evening came it was all gone hundreds of planes you know i gave planes away

[unknown speaker 00:37:38] it didn't matter because there's a point where you're good everything's good and that's what i love they would come to us because everybody would tell you you can buy from us you know we call ourselves liquidators but i can promise you we make our money too but that's what it's about everybody's happy you know so i just wish i'd be i wish i'd be a little make a little more money being happy but it's still good sometimes you don't need a lot no you buy sell to curb your appetite

[unknown speaker 00:38:05] of buying that's what i tell people oh i i get that completely because you never know what you like

[unknown speaker 00:38:11] until you have it that's why i started turbine jets i wish i would have never started that one no my wife just said me too i love turbine jets my buddy who sells the swaps whenever i barter with him he just looks at me goes jets are expensive that's why i got to pay up so i feel it

[unknown speaker 00:38:28] now yeah see tommy is is a turbine pilot now so am i and we're trying to get dave to find something

[unknown speaker 00:38:35] we'll get in one of these years well i got a i got an old school turbinator with a 120 on it i absolutely love it old wood kit built retro you know in the 160s that's fast enough right now but

[unknown speaker 00:38:48] maybe something else later great yeah oh i love it yeah so how do you balance okay so going to toledo you have a good group of vendors and you also have a good group of swappers how do you balance where that line is like it used to be the front part was all vendors back part was all swappers now it's morphed into one area as it grows and also a second part to this wow follow-up what happens when

[unknown speaker 00:39:22] you outgrow that place i wish you would have asked that let's go back to the happy question the first one believe it or not i always felt this bothered me because the toledo week scene was when they would have their show even as the show shrunk you have to understand the last year the week scene those had their show you know the black curtain area we have now it was about the same size you know what i mean but we were always upstairs the swap me was always upstairs and it drove me nuts so i told myself if i ever do a show i'm gonna be on the main floor so you know six years later

[unknown speaker 00:39:54] we're on the main floor but we have vendors in with us too you know some vendors want to be with the swappers you know i love the curtain area i do i want that area but i love guys that want to sell wherever they want and i hate to say it like this and i always tell everybody we're always going to have enough room for everybody well i'm going to be honest with you eventually i guess if we have that problem where we're getting too big we're gonna have to make decisions i don't foresee that right now i mean if our projected growth continues on the path that's on we probably still have another

[unknown speaker 00:40:26] four or five years we have to breach that decision i don't have an answer right yet you know we'll come up with one but i really love everything being on one floor i love there being no wall dividers i love it just wide open but we still have a lot of space back there i don't know how to get all the people in and out without that big open area to turn around in you know so that's something we lose that you know what you didn't know is last year before everyone came we mocked it up with tables we brought our own trailers and to see how small we could get to where it was still workable so we

[unknown speaker 00:40:58] we do have some space but believe it or not it's not a lot on the other side of course we have more so i i don't have a good answer yet if i come to that problem what a wonderful problem to have you know because i really want to keep it two reasons i want to keep it one room one because we control who pays admission which i say tongue-in-cheek but we need that admission number two i just love it because you feel like it's all together i love that feeling when you start putting things out in rooms like at dayton i love dayton swap but one thing i don't love about

[unknown speaker 00:41:30] dayton is you have the two buildings and if you're not in the main building you're in the other one it doesn't matter that main building is the main building even with perry you're either in the main building or one of the other ones you know what i mean that's that feeling and i like it all in one area or we could go to smaller spaces instead of an eight foot table we go to like lebanon does five foot spaces that's no yeah lebanon pa actually they line their tables up like we do and they're five foot spaces 30 bucks a five foot space no chairs oh the chairs are not i mean

[unknown speaker 00:42:03] they're you have to yeah especially for a swap it's two days you have to have the first year we

[unknown speaker 00:42:09] went to lebanon we didn't know the no chair thing got out there like oh my lord so we learned

[unknown speaker 00:42:15] somebody to bring you somebody go to the store and buy some folding chairs we actually did that we

[unknown speaker 00:42:19] went to a gas station so i got some i got some of those camp chairs we actually it was pretty comfortable you know but yeah that's that's for real so no no good answer yet bud but i i hope to

[unknown speaker 00:42:30] have that problem and we'll solve it like that every year we have been so this will be if this is your sixth year of doing it this will be our fifth year of going right yes right so because we missed the first one first year it was just tommy and i and we went just to buy stuff we didn't have tables or anything like that but we've had tables every year since then and yes it has grown and it has gotten to be much more impressive let's put it that way since we started going yeah and

[unknown speaker 00:42:59] that's what i'm hoping i'm hoping this year is with flight tests there i want to i want to i want ama and flight tests to have conversations again because they had i mean if you go online you can see flight tests at the old ram shows up in the east coast and the nice thing about toledo is there is one politic it's the politic of toledo you know we're all there for the same reason and both flight tests and the ama talk about community well if you talk about community you should probably

[unknown speaker 00:43:31] all belong at least some part of the community and the one thing that i think ama really struggles with is the education department i mean sometime i'll share with you my personal stories because remember i'm a middle school teacher you know and this year i got a whole bunch of grant money to go out and buy things i went to the ama first well i ended up with flight tests for a reason and it's okay you know i'm i know that the ama and flight tests had a little falling out but it's been years ago and it's time and i'm hoping this year at toledo maybe we can at least have that first sit down

[unknown speaker 00:44:02] because you got tyler there you got josh there why not you know let me be bygones and we need kids right you know i don't i don't agree with everything anybody does i'm sure you don't either but we have to look at the greater good sometimes like if i looked at you and said everything about toledo is perfect just how i want it i would be lying to you i've done things already i've talked about things today that i don't like but you know who does like them the people that go my family members the community and that's why you do what you got to do so the stem is important to us because

[unknown speaker 00:44:37] if we don't start getting kids involved they don't have to worry about toledo you know because there won't there won't be a need for toledo and i think for flight tests i think clubs are important you know they have that big huge family but it's time to think about getting these kids in clubs too so yeah you know that's a side gig but yeah that's one thing that the two clubs that i

[unknown speaker 00:44:59] belong to we are lacking in younger participants let's just say the the average or the mean age of members is and mean is real yeah is high and getting older every day so yeah you're right i mean there needs to be a lot of outreach and i think the new president of ama we talked to him that greg stone before he was elected yep i think that's one of his goals too is to actually get out there with stem and get some of the the younger kids involved so yeah and this is the thing

[unknown speaker 00:45:30] this is where yeah and i agree stem is important and this is where i know the ama understands they understand the importance if you know anything about the ama and how a lot of their they have partnerships with some fantastic organizations you know and and it would take to me building a stem program from the inside out it's going to take years it will that's if you start right now when there could be an organization around that has a turnkey system that works just fine and i would say better than fine so that's i i agree we we got to get that going man and i

[unknown speaker 00:46:02] hope to leo could be the place where it all starts that would make me happy it truly will shall be set

[unknown speaker 00:46:07] up and you will feed them and you will give them drinks and you will make i will give them more drinks yes have you ever been to play fest you've not been to play no i have not all right we got i'm gonna be honest i'm i was i was gonna say i'll be honest i'm probably one of the the minority and in the hobby and the fact that i have never built or flown a flight test airplane well if

[unknown speaker 00:46:30] it makes you feel better i am with you in that minority now okay i have flown i have never built but at flight tests because i wear the green toledo rc swap and expo shirt i'm immediately an expert oh okay flown and tried to fly many many many different things after checking for cg making sure the props been in the right way making sure the receiver's set up the right way but i will tell you what i want to invite you guys right now you ever want to come to flight fest just let me know and i will set you up my team i'm just telling you you will leave it'll change it'll change your

[unknown speaker 00:47:04] mind about something i don't want to say change your mind you just you can't the feeling is something that i can't explain i didn't believe it like it can't be this good well it is you know so i would love and and the best thing is everybody's sent around flying what we love to do anyway and so i i

[unknown speaker 00:47:23] hate to compare but for me to wrap my mind around things i need to compare it to something i know so compare flight fest with what you and i both know as joe and all good question that's a great

[unknown speaker 00:47:39] question okay the biggest joe and all is in our hobby is the grand am all they have what i think they're gonna see that of six seven hundred pilots no they say 600 pounds get their plaques i think

[unknown speaker 00:47:54] this year they have a thousand right yeah i thought last year was like 11 or 1200 registered pilots i could

[unknown speaker 00:47:59] be wrong great nope and you have everything all over the board you have from you have your 3d line over here you have your jets over here you have the electric and the water here so it's to me joe and all is like pockets of great things and then you have those demonstrations it's all fantastic

[unknown speaker 00:48:18] flight flight fest is not like that flight fest is something a little different they do do their parades of airplanes but they're different things it's not it's a whole it's and the weird thing is like at flight fest you see very expensive airplanes fly you don't think you would or like we sold the swap meet this is our third year selling then there's a swap you know what a swap tent and we finally started bringing you know normal airplanes non-flight test stuff we killed it man shockingly they don't just fly flight test and we thought i mean we started two years ago with foam they love

[unknown speaker 00:48:52] foam but this last year dude we brought everything including balsa yep all of it we had nothing left to sell we were done a day and a half early we ran out of stuff to sell and we had probably almost 100 airframes you know and so it's just they're too it's hard to compare because and this is monetarily you have to look at joe and all joe and all is for anybody is not a cheap venture it really isn't i don't think no it's very expensive even for what you guys did you guys if i were to live at joe and all for a week not with tgk connectors i would definitely be down the electric line by the

[unknown speaker 00:49:26] water i love that stuff that's my it's my people you know but i know people over in the 3d land but like let's talk about that way in the corner you have 3d and that's a great community but they kind of pocket off a little bit just and there's nothing wrong with that where a flight test is just one big pile of people not good or bad it's just too it's hard to compare and the other thing is of course there's no it's all electric at flight fest you know but it's not i had the same thing you're thinking when i think of flight test i think of cardboard airplanes build fly crash repeat right

[unknown speaker 00:49:59] here's the funny thing though flight test now has build fly don't forget to get your aurora 5 gyro and our little free sky radios because we can keep it from crashing do you know what i mean so even they're understanding a little bit of change but there's two different worlds and it's but like i had a great time with joe and all but if you would ask me right now where i'd rather go flight fest but that's me you know i love the kids the families i'm an educator that's what i like you know and and that's not that i don't like joe and all i like joe and all too but it's just

[unknown speaker 00:50:32] that's just something different man and now i don't remember did you stay on site at joe and all

[unknown speaker 00:50:37] i did oh oh man they set the they set the vendors up i mean the way i got to joe and all is charlie who owns tgk i'm like i'm not going i'm not going he goes i'll pay for everything i'm going i'm going i'm going to i'll go to general with you sounds good so he literally paid for my my tent space for the toledo swap and expo and with that we got a real nice premium camping site literally i had a golf cart but even i can walk it you know just just i don't know 100 yards away so very okay so

[unknown speaker 00:51:06] you guys you guys are up behind that barn then just off to the the one side of the swap right yes

[unknown speaker 00:51:12] yes if you know where my tent was if you look at the front of my tent and look out left those campers were right there it was fantastic i got you still don't worry though four inches of water but fantastic i will be bringing those rubber boots this year that i heard about and thought how bad could it be oh was i a fool yeah it's bad yeah it always happens you get one or two days

[unknown speaker 00:51:31] of rain when it's rain it's not sprinkles you need boots yeah it was and i charlie and his dad

[unknown speaker 00:51:36] were so happy and i was happy but wet so but i i learned but yeah it's just two different things man but i i i would tell everybody go to both things because again flying's flying and you know like the amazing thing is like last year you see some crossover because like kiki flex innovations you know when they come they put on demos lane walker who's an aj aircraft sponsor pilot he has his 100 cc big and down there he ripped it around you know so you you have crossovers and the other thing i didn't i this is my ignorance i didn't realize that flight tests would have pilots that

[unknown speaker 00:52:10] can fly like precision 3d oh they do you know and some are 10 years old yes and it was i was the same way that makes me so mad i i can't i do that either but like last year we're selling balsa electric airplanes for money more money than we can sell it you know a swap like we have stuff in my hangar right now that's safe for flight fest because we know we make more money but to see these kids buy it from us throw a receiver and go fly it within 10 minutes and then fly it all weekend this one dude

[unknown speaker 00:52:42] bought a cute little 450 size e-flight sukoi put it all weekend on the last day you destroyed it and it made us feel so bad you know and he looked at us goes why because i had probably 100 flights on this thing it was fantastic you know that's a 13 year old you know i'd have been crying he was like this is what it is man i guess i shouldn't have pulled so hard the wing fell off i'm like oh i saw it full speed snap full speed snaps do not do well and it didn't so you know but yeah it's

[unknown speaker 00:53:10] it's wild yeah well we'll have to keep that in mind i don't know about this year but maybe next year

[unknown speaker 00:53:16] we can try and hit yeah seriously i mean we i'm not going to say we have a pretty good end but we're we have a pretty good relationship and you don't have to feed yourself we'll take care of all that you're going to figure out where to sleep you but depending on where it's at there's always hotels but it's worth it if you have a place to go and that's what i mean i have a team down there last year we had nine guys between rc swapping x but it was kind of funny they all said the same thing if you wear this shirt they think you know things so even if you don't it doesn't matter just stand around look cool the kids come up you know and we flew in the combats too i'm not gonna lie i love that stuff you know we flew a two meter e-flight trojan in the combat and and it was it was

[unknown speaker 00:53:53] a guy at our field flew it so hard the whole front end came off so it was a it was a beast anyway but we we got her all back together and it was fantastic we got some special ones for this year but that's just fun we were taken out by a little 12 inch foam wing that's all those do the best in those the pusher wings yeah there's yeah it can't compete with them well we have we put skewers on our leading edge which look really cool but if you really think about the design of a wing having things that can stick things not good because we caught that wing

[unknown speaker 00:54:29] and lost all lift on one side became a spin it was awesome and then we get out there i'll never forget the kids like i gotta get my picture with you i took you down he's like a six-year-old mike

[unknown speaker 00:54:40] man you did good call brother you know so it does sound fun i'll i'll give that to you

[unknown speaker 00:54:47] all right i'm holding you know what maybe i'll take your shiny with me i'll make you come to a

[unknown speaker 00:54:51] flight fest you can get it there no don't do that but we'll see like that it's something we've talked about before it's it's i want to say it's only like eight or nine hours away from here of a drive so i mean it's not where are you coming from we're in stringfield illinois so central illinois

[unknown speaker 00:55:10] so yeah that's a drive i was only 12 for us perry is only a lot worse than that i was gonna say i

[unknown speaker 00:55:18] think perry for us is like 18 or 19 yeah i keep forgetting you're way over there well when we go to joe i was gonna say when we go to joe and all we're we're about 13 ish hours 14 13 14 yeah

[unknown speaker 00:55:29] yeah actually perry for me was 12 12 okay yeah don't know farther east yeah yeah a little farther north but you know it's just it's only a drive you got buddies too you can drive oh i know there's

[unknown speaker 00:55:44] only so many years oh trust me i know i i will i will probably hold you to that just just so you

[unknown speaker 00:55:52] know i might regret it that's all right i won't regret it i promise that that's what makes it all fun

[unknown speaker 00:55:58] i know right it's the people you meet and the things you get to do with them that's like i

[unknown speaker 00:56:03] remember seeing you though i laugh because i get to joe and all i'm like i'm out of my element i was out of my element for like three seconds and you were one of the first people i saw i'm like you're here and then all of a sudden i realized something it's all the same players just a different location and that was the most wild thing and then like eric eric from national ball so i had no idea the guy could build i've never seen his stuff and he has some of the most beautiful big airplanes absolutely gorgeous i didn't know that you know i had no idea i'm like because you

[unknown speaker 00:56:36] see him you know i see him at toledo selling balsa wood selling kits wait he actually builds those kits he's an unbelievable scale builder no idea and he can fly who knew that i didn't

[unknown speaker 00:56:48] yeah it's like said when you see people in their element and you kind of start to realize that you see the same people and over and over again it's pretty cool and that's even all these swaps we go

[unknown speaker 00:56:58] to you know we had people who went out to chicago last year it's a nine hour i'm sorry chicago was about a six hour drive for us we had guys in toledo then come and say i said if you come to the show let me know i had a dozen guys go hey we came out to chicago we had to check this out this year they're bringing a bus out a literal bus of people are coming to toledo pick up from the chicago show

[unknown speaker 00:57:17] that fox valley i think that's just wild man that was a good that was a good swap meet there too yeah

[unknown speaker 00:57:24] love that swap i we i wasn't gonna go back because it was far but i love it and they're so nice what a

[unknown speaker 00:57:29] great club yeah you know this was our first time going to that one i'm glad we did yeah it you know

[unknown speaker 00:57:35] you ask about a buyer seller's market that's another one i mean it just depends because i i see it both ways there too because we were sellers but man at the end we were buyers not because we wanted to we just couldn't help it they're making us buy things so we did you know i picked up oh no go on you're fine i picked up some you know early power save receivers for five and ten bucks 20 channel the guy was thrilled to sell them and i was very happy to sell them then he sold to me and i sold

[unknown speaker 00:58:07] them again you know it's stuff like that's what i noticed one of the one of the planes i bought like you know you'd do the normal haggling back and forth in price and stuff and you find i mean like you know you're gonna buy it no matter what they say but you know we'll see how cheap we can get the fun part man and then like you come to a an agreement on that and you hand them the money and stuff and like they were genuinely like thank you very much for buying this they were very happy that like they didn't have to take it home or something like that i'm like man if you're that thankful i

[unknown speaker 00:58:38] should have tried a little bit lower okay should have gone lower but that's okay you know i'm happy you're happy so we're good but yeah just a bunch of really nice guys up there well the guy selling

[unknown speaker 00:58:47] those really expensive receivers he had six of them plus he had some power box gyros never heard of they're 150 bucks a piece i found out dirt cheap and there's two guys just hamming and hawing i looked at the guy i said i'll buy the whole table all of it he just looked at me you want it all no sure i'll take it all he goes okay i bought it all i let the guy stay in there i said do you want this because i'm about to buy everything he kind of looked at me like you ain't gonna buy everything i'm like i bought it all because it was just too good of a price it was older than i thought so i didn't make quite as much as i wanted to but i did all right and the cool thing is all

[unknown speaker 00:59:20] those power box gyros i never heard of they went to india really one guy yeah one guy in india bought them all my niche his name is m-a-n-i-s-h i talked to him almost every night on it we messaged

[unknown speaker 00:59:32] back and forth yeah that's so funny that's awesome yeah you just never know who you're gonna meet no nope not at all sir a couple more questions i don't want to keep you too long and i know

[unknown speaker 00:59:46] i enjoy man i love this like i told you i'm not just saying it it's one of my favorites just i just because i feel like i'm just talking in the basement somewhere well i mean i don't know where you are but we are in my basement so that's maybe that's i am i am in my kitchen so there's only place a decent wall this is my podcast place like i said it's just you and me looking at you right now because we're not doing this on my couch get comfortable exactly

[unknown speaker 01:00:16] me while i take a drink no you've done really well i know you're not feeling well but man

[unknown speaker 01:00:21] do it excellent keep it up trying to trying to keep the coffin do a minimum and now that you say that i feel one coming on but that's okay we're gonna get through this so with all the actual swap meets you guys go to and and all the stuff you do 30 some odd you said a year and with all the planning for this and all the other stuff do you ever get time to actually go out and just

[unknown speaker 01:00:42] enjoy flying yeah i'm almost embarrassed to tell you this but i will remember i told you stories by the way when somebody starts to say we have to we have to reorganize how we do what we do and it will happen at the end of the season because last summer the one thing i didn't do i did more flying at flight fest in that four day span that i did at my own home at my own house what you guys don't know is my mom and dad owned a 30 acre farm my dad started the hobby shop i took over on that

[unknown speaker 01:01:14] farm we have a 2 000 foot runway we fly full scale yeah there's our field and i didn't fly

[unknown speaker 01:01:23] so it's true i'm being honest with you and that's why toledo this year i kind of spread it out a little better and i still didn't fly as much as i wanted to but i because i'm so i mean it is it says it wears you down it wears the family down i know that the nice thing is my family and i we recharge every summer we usually try to try to take a trip to disney which is why i have to sell so much but we love disney it's a happy place but it's you know and but i'm really gonna work on

[unknown speaker 01:01:54] that and it's kind of weird like i said i'm changing for the show this is me growing up i'm 55 years old but i mean growing up in the world of whether or not i want to be this beautiful mug is the face of something fantastic and i have to start i have to start getting my life in order a little better to make that happen without so much work like i have to let go of some of the power which is really hard for me i mean this year i have people that aren't official green shirt wearers helping me and it was extremely difficult but some of them came to me last year when i was in no you might not

[unknown speaker 01:02:27] have known it but last year before the show started on on thursday i almost had a doubt on nervous breakdown because there were so many things that were going against us that we had no control over and that's what people don't realize at a show you you don't control a lot of things that happens the infrastructure can tell you what they want to do and when somebody comes out and says the fire marshal's here and you have to move a you know 60 feet of truck and trailer when it's blocked in by 52 other vehicles and you have in your contract that it's supposed to be there it might sound like a

[unknown speaker 01:02:59] simple fix it is not and that just started a whole snowball thing and i had a one of my buddy's daughter step up and help me and she was so good at what she did that you know this year on thursday i'm no longer the contact if they need to talk to somebody they go to her first because i have to remove myself because it's just too much stress you know so i'm letting other people help me and it's hard because i want it to be so perfect like i put a tablecloth that would have to be so perfect like i let that go i'm letting things go and it's going to kill me not to go sell stuff i i can tell

[unknown speaker 01:03:32] you i mean i i haven't done it yet i hope i can get rid of my favorite t-shirts is one of the ways to not be a swapper for two days but i have to i have to i always have to remember the most important thing is swapping is important but the toledo rc swapping expo if we want and like i tell everybody we want it to be around i have to i have to help make sure that part of that is i have to take a role i have to grow into the role that i'm trying to be you know yeah so man i almost teared up

[unknown speaker 01:04:03] right there i'm good though i'm good well if it makes you feel better i have not flown since january so the last month was actually the february was actually the first month because i keep track of flights and all that kind of stuff it was the first month that went by without me flying in a little over two years so yeah it happens to all of us i know and that's you know that's why you know

[unknown speaker 01:04:28] i got into the turbines at the end of last year i'm glad because once you start flying those you get it's a bug that is very infectious so i'm looking forward to that you know but god i don't want to end on that i'm going to tell you though i love what i do with this i love i'm very lucky i have a very supportive family i know you know my wife is probably she's my most important committee member because most of the time it's just her and i and we sit and throw ideas around and like as soon as we get off this she's going to do pricing for me i got to swap that swap and

[unknown speaker 01:04:59] date and she's going to put out about 30 price tags i need out you know and she always is supporting stuff like that and at the show she's important but i think that's also important that people realize i'm married i have a family i love that my one daughter is always at the show hustling rascal tickets that makes me so proud because she's a hustler you know she's going to do great things in life and that's what it's about it's a little above that so this year though i'm going to be part more of the

[unknown speaker 01:05:23] family is you know up front too so with all of that you know there's a lot to be proud of on what you've done is there anything that particularly stands out from this year from this year's planning from what you're changing that you're proud of like it feels like you actually accomplished something that you were wanting to do for a long time and finally happened can i answer this two

[unknown speaker 01:05:48] ways i want to talk about last year however you want okay last year i mean i did cry at toledo because we had the family of joe david who actually was the first gentleman to have a rc event in the toledo detroit area i i purchased his collection several years back and i met the family and we have our best to show is named after him but to bring them back and they see his airplanes on the table because we sold a lot of them and after a while like why the hell we sell him this cool stuff why don't we keep it and fly it and so we did you know and to have that family

[unknown speaker 01:06:23] come back and present his award you know on our stage to me was i just that was probably one of the best feelings i've ever had there so i wanted to just bring that in because i am an emotional person that was very emotional for me and they're coming back this year they said they don't want to present the award but they want to see us all that's why we do this right yeah now happier no that was very happy but very emotional is flight test i've been i talked to flight test and

[unknown speaker 01:06:53] stefan in year one two three four i didn't talk to him in five and it's funny i got to give a shout out to my team members because i had two team members that kind of they went to me above and beyond and they started visiting josh and family and crewed out at his place edgewater they started flying with them they actually attended some of josh's they did a lot of bible studies well and it was what's kind of cool it was a natural thing and i never mentioned them but i saw what

[unknown speaker 01:07:24] was happening i'm like i just gotta wait till i can manipulate this so we all talked about it that's what it was and it's weird because in the end what started the whole thing their relationship was with josh's wife jen she wanted to get him a specific airplane for christmas and they knew we do the swapping so we started finding what she wanted and bringing flight tests to toledo is important because of the stem temp situation you know we're we're going to give the kids something

[unknown speaker 01:07:55] that they can take home with them and i gotta be honest i'm very proud of the fact that under the same roof we now have flight tests and we have the ama i won't i won't say breaking bread but in the same building and before you can sit down and break bread you have to be somewhere you can talk to somebody and i believe that we have the we have the aura you need for that conversation to happen and i can promise i will walk every ama vice president i run into any executive member right on back there

[unknown speaker 01:08:27] because i want them to see those kids under that stem tent building and see the joy they have when they go fly their stuff because there ain't nothing like it man so how's that good answer i was practicing that one thanks for giving it to me earlier i'm just kidding but you know what it's it would have been the same answer i'm just that is as we say a big fish yeah you know and there's been every year there's always something you know i still look at the small the small vendors that still come to our show they're getting older and one guy cuts a check b&b specialties he cuts the

[unknown speaker 01:09:03] check that says i'm not dead this year cash it in march i'm like okay he's still around so we catch

[unknown speaker 01:09:11] that bad boy nice yeah it'll be interesting i've never like i've never been to flight fest or anything like that but i've never met any of those guys either so it'll be interesting to see them in person and actually go up shake their hand and say hi so yeah i actually watched i watched josh he's

[unknown speaker 01:09:29] a little younger than me i remember josh when i was just coming out of college as a young fly flyer right down the road from us i remember seeing him and i didn't put it all together till later like it's bixler i'm like who and then i remembered he's done fantastic for himself and his family you know and his community and then they have a good thing anytime you get kids flying is a good thing to me yep i agree and then you get them building something on top of that you get them hooked yes

[unknown speaker 01:09:59] sir yes sir all right couple last questions sure okay and they're not hard ones so i'll just i'll let you go on that one i don't know why i'm getting nervous but go ahead no okay we've been there you know toledo is is something we know inside and out at this point on how things work what would be your best advice best advice for a first time attendee first time attendee that wants

[unknown speaker 01:10:25] to just swap or wants to go to the whole show they want to feel toledo as its entirety somebody just

[unknown speaker 01:10:32] showing up as i want to see what toledo is like walking in the door yep not somebody that's

[unknown speaker 01:10:39] sitting up to swap not somebody that's actually coming to see i would wait till about 9 30 on friday i'd stroll in i'd stop at the nice little coffee shop i'd grab myself a coffee i'd stroll over to the vendors i'd pay i'd pick up a map i'd go through the main door and then i'd just pick an island start i walk back and forth back and forth when i get hungry i go over to the concession stand at the end of the curtain space you can decide if you want to go into the swap area you know uh

[unknown speaker 01:11:10] that's that's i mean if you're there to see the show you don't you don't have to be there when those doors open because i don't know if you're ever that you've ever been there yeah um

[unknown speaker 01:11:21] it it takes 20 minutes to get the first round in and it's really it's pretty cool i mean it's we had the drone our drone pilot last year videotaped that for us so we've used the video this year it's pretty cool but come just after the rush and sit back and enjoy what i found out is these vendors want to sell their product don't get me wrong we all want to sell but that it's the talk it's the communication zora propellers great example i got a question from zora this year hey can we come we don't have much product we just want to talk to people i'm like well heck yeah right i mean of

[unknown speaker 01:11:55] course you can come you're allowed you know we really got to know zora they actually came to flight test they sponsored some of flight test stuff but it was just a cool question because yeah you want to sell but what i found is the more you talk the more you sell anyway you know it all goes together and i talked to the vendors i didn't talk as much last year until i got to joan all but for the most part you know most vendors were pretty happy you know i was a little nervous because like gator rc came last year they're a pretty big fish and they inquired about getting more space this year so i know it must have been okay for them that's always a good

[unknown speaker 01:12:29] situation right you know so that's probably my advice if you're a swapper buy a 25 dollar table buy a table for friday and get there thursday that's my advice yeah because i do not i know some swaps absolutely no selling on thursday i'm not gonna lie to you i can barely breathe on thursday sure i'm not gonna monitor what's bought and sold you know i'm not gonna say some

[unknown speaker 01:12:53] of the best deals are thursday no you catch them as you're walking in you're like how much you want

[unknown speaker 01:12:58] for that i'll take it i mean guys go home and reload it's amazing yeah it's amazing now do you have a

[unknown speaker 01:13:05] lot of people to do just one day tables because i know we're there for the weekend so we buy tables for both days but you said buy a table for friday i'm like well yeah just do that there are some but

[unknown speaker 01:13:19] you would be shocked i can tell you this they're like what i usually do if i have a friday table sale i'll put somebody's saturday on that same table just like i mark the table off for the weekend we don't we don't ever we there really isn't that much there was enough because if you remember where the auction was last year those are all friday people so you probably got i don't know 12 15 tables those are all fridays because we get rid of the tables then the auction goes there but not

[unknown speaker 01:13:52] not much we do have people i'm going to be honest there are people that have walked up

[unknown speaker 01:13:58] and the way we work is this it's really easy you can't come into the show early but if you are buying a table for friday and then pay the admission to come to the show you come to the show because we still need the revenue you know but there are guys that'll buy a table on thursday it doesn't matter to us and anybody who gets it thursday can come on the show this year they come in early come in wednesday you know i don't anticipate a lot of people a lot of swappers come on wednesday but some of the bigger vendors do i mean i got a group out of new york their last year they had 20

[unknown speaker 01:14:29] tables they threw up to 26 tables this year nice you know it's a whole group yep he recruits his home guys and you know i give i help them out a little bit too you know one of my pet peeves is 25 bucks a table sounds expensive well if you go to as many swaps as we go to anymore that's the norm well it's 50 bucks really well the swap is two full days you know so and i put tables oh yeah

[unknown speaker 01:14:56] we've gone to yeah we've gone to plenty of places where the the price is nearly that but it's a six

[unknown speaker 01:15:01] foot table so it's four hours and they're big boys faces now we're down i mean this is truly the swap table distance is the footprint it's eight foot so between the two rows you have eight feet so you have four the other side has four but even my big belly fits just fine because i was the test

[unknown speaker 01:15:18] pilot but the reason i've never i'm sorry i was just gonna say i've never been behind our table and

[unknown speaker 01:15:24] felt cramped so it's it's a good well it's just a lot in the very first year remember those tables were how much were they married 20 feet because of covet it was ridiculous yeah see like i said we didn't i didn't get to see that one yeah it was and each year they get smaller but next year will be the first year where every set of tables has an end cap why because i can and it's just i'm building towards that question you asked a while ago what happens when so just by capping rows it's almost

[unknown speaker 01:15:52] another 50 table spaces yeah you know you have the amount of people going there then you need to

[unknown speaker 01:15:57] start doing that and it'll be interesting this year a dubro you know dubro is back they want to be in the middle island so they're like they're back in the swap section a little bit you know they're great guys brian prime but they're back there and i might even have static back there if i have you know i've got a plan for can you imagine this if i don't have enough space up front for static what another great problem to have some already planning for that you know we'll see how it plays out

[unknown speaker 01:16:23] well awesome i know we're looking forward to it it is one of our highlights of the year like we said before and it's coming up pretty quick not to make you nervous april 10th and 11th so we're

[unknown speaker 01:16:34] what three weeks away so what are what are the hours this year well on april 10th it's 9 a.m to 5 p.m april 11th it's 9 a.m to 3 p.m if you are a vendor or swapper you can start getting at 7 and like i already said any vendor or swapper who wants to start coming wednesday and this will all come in email to them they'll have to let me know thursday door opens at 7 30 and then friday

[unknown speaker 01:17:00] night's the auction you guys close down for a little bit yep so what's going to happen friday

[unknown speaker 01:17:05] night at five o'clock everybody will be cleared except my crew and they'll put the auction stage up at that time the airplanes will be judged the judging will be going on and then we'll open back up at seven only using the one door and then nobody will be able to get back into the arena where the merchandise is so the auction will be on the back wall you'll be facing the back wall not the merchandise and i'll have my people there watching that the bar opens at seven shuts down 11 so i truly am trying to create a i'd love for you know the auctions will probably go a couple hours

[unknown speaker 01:17:38] out whatever it goes i don't know that's not only up to me you know but then i want a space where i hang out that's where we're going to hang out i mean i'm paying 24 000 bucks for it might well

[unknown speaker 01:17:46] enjoy it on a friday night right there you go it's the best venue to have at this point so yes sir awesome dave do you have anything you want to bring up before we go nope i think you

[unknown speaker 01:17:57] guys have all covered it i've just been sitting over here enjoying myself in the corner he's not in

[unknown speaker 01:18:02] the corner by the way nobody puts dave in the corner nobody i know he's on the other side of the table not a corner well hank in that case i'll let you have last word well again guys i just want

[unknown speaker 01:18:14] to thank you for letting me have this chance to talk to you and what i like about this is it always gets into the real stuff and i've done multiple podcasts this year but this one really it it just feels real to me the way we talk about things thanks for giving me a place to talk about some of the things i wanted to share with regards to the kids and stem and flight test and you know i i hope i hope this venue this year i hope everybody gives us a chance come on out i still get people who don't realize they're a show in toledo so anybody that listens make sure you let them know hey there's still something going on toleo first or second week in april and i hope to see you there

[unknown speaker 01:18:48] man awesome well hank thank you once again for coming on we greatly appreciate you taking the time out of your evening because i know you have lots to do to get ready and i guess we'll see you in a

[unknown speaker 01:19:00] couple weeks yes sir 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 landing be gentle