Ep 176: Henry Rauhaus from the Toledo R/C Swap Meet & Expo

[00:00:05] Hello everyone welcome to the rc plane lab podcast i am ron i'm tom i'm dave hi and i'm hank so today we have a cool guest i think hank why thank you hank from the duet well you can probably say his last name or can you okay sorry henry row house very nice -huh i'm i was trying to get away from it but now that i know how to do it i

[00:00:39] Don't know we practiced and practice i know i know but still practice doesn't always make perfect for me see but anyway henry from the toledo rc swap meet and expo so before we get into it i just want to say first off thank you for putting this on it's a great event that we have had a lot

[00:01:00] Of fun going to oh yeah i appreciate you guys bringing me to this too i i remember the first time i saw your sign i actually saw your registration i'm like who the heck is that so a lot of people are that way i reverse i reverse engineered it and i'm like hey

[00:01:14] I appreciate you guys bringing me on thank you no problem excited to have you so a little background from us before we get in to the conversation so we first time tommy and i made it to the the swap meet was in 2022 and we went just as normal people going to buy things with that we decided that in when we came back the next year we'd have to have a table

[00:01:40] Because it's nice to have a spot to just kind of call home base so we got tables in 2023 we sold a bunch of stuff and 2023 is also the first year i think dave that you and daniel came right

[00:01:54] Yes it would have been to the new format to the new format and we'll talk about the old versus

[00:01:58] New here a little bit we'll get there so 2024 also saw us selling a lot of stuff except tommy was deployed for that year so he didn't have a chance to make it so he will be back this year we all will be back this year three tables thank you for your service tommy appreciate it oh you're welcome thank you so three tables this year yes so we're after i like to hear by those tables upping it from two so this all i'm sure hank takes a lot of work on on your end of things and

[00:02:31] You're kind of the face like when we talk to people at the swap meet when we need help with anything you're the you're the one that we go to how hard is it to put it on well i i gotta be honest with

[00:02:42] You i am i am the face b i do a lot of the what you see but it actually started with a group of three of us and we're all still involved and it started with a phone call from my buddy dave monet we were both swappers upstairs they're like hey man if seagate will talk to us about putting on a show this is when the week singles decide to end their run you think you do it with me i'm like well sure because i'm thinking there's no way seagate's gonna deal with us and this is our fifth year now so we did all right so it it is the amount of work has increased each

[00:03:14] Year but i think that's a good thing because the work is increasing because it's getting larger and larger we've had we've had steady growth of at least 12 in the last four years the way numbers are coming in this year with both swappers and new commercial vendors the growth is probably gonna be more than that so i'm pretty excited i have a real small committee i have my club members my close friends and the most important thing on my committee of course is my wife starting in about december her and i do a lot of cleo talk and she's on the couch about 10 feet

[00:03:44] Awake to see me right now but i i couldn't do it without her because i'm always bouncing ideas off

[00:03:50] And it doesn't end i don't want to say it takes over but it takes over and that's okay that's a good

[00:03:55] Thing man i i'm just like you guys i'm i'm looking for a place to go and it's something i knew i i think i heard you guys you talked about old news show i i started going to the three weeks and i was seven years old my dad i'm 54 and when they announced that they were going to

[00:04:12] End their run i'm thinking what in the world am i going to do first of april it was on the list i mean i had a room upstairs we we had we had the room of 50 swap tables i'd go in on a wednesday get ready one year i took six 26 foot trucks full of swapping treasures on my goal is everybody knew it i'd have to sell everything and darn it we would but it it is something i guess i didn't realize how important it was till it wasn't it's just we're one big family we're looking to do something and i i love the vibe i mean i go

[00:04:44] To swaps all over the country now i've been all over and i think the vibe in toledo is one that smells of family friends telling stories it's laid back it's one of those swaps we get ready on a thursday shows not till friday i'm not the police we're there to do the same thing i just love it so it is a lot of work i'm not gonna lie to you and i start hating it about mid-march and starting to hate a little early this year i'm already starting to stress out because we have more commercial vendors and i i've i've upped and we have a sponsorship program now

[00:05:18] Which is because we needed funding and our vendors have really stepped up but with that comes from other added treasures something we're bringing this year too is we're bringing an rc rc oval track racing we're bringing cars because it is an rc show we figured why don't have some service vehicles so we'll be sponsored races all week this or all weekend this year too so that's

[00:05:38] Something cool that's new yeah i saw that that's that's really like peaking my interest that's going to be cool to see so is this going to be open to people to just kind of practice for a while if they have something they bought there or if they have something they they brought that is a great

[00:05:55] That is a great question i'm very fortunate because i have a couple guys that have stepped up to help me one gentleman i haven't met you i met him through a mutual friend he's kind of like the promoter of it and what we decided to do is we wanted oval track racing because oval track racing is something even i can handle i've actually i've actually practiced a few times already and the nice thing is horizon hobby came out with their low c nascar series it was a huge hit and it's out of the box racing you buy the car take it out of the box training some liquid in your i think they're

[00:06:26] Called shocks and away your race right and it is oval racing so i'm going to be honest that means there's one turn one direction so it's it's from that capacity where it's for beginners all the way up to we do have some mod racing too which is much faster i had no idea how fast these cars were on carpet oh yeah until i started seeing a few races our goal this year is to have the race happen we have some things in the works and we've already had i'm really happy to see we have 18 registered drivers already which isn't too bad my goal was 40 which might not seem like a lot

[00:07:01] But this is a brand new yeah a brand new venue of a brand new group so it's a it's a leap of faith for the drivers too so it's been pretty good feedback i'm kind of like a fish out of water because i'm not a surface guy i will not be racing a couple of my buddies will be and they have been practicing it's it's been fun i have a nascar my low c nascar right now and i raced it at practice but i'm not going to have time to race but i'm pretty excited about it and again i just well i'm going to give you the truth the truth is this i need to put people through the door and we have a huge 75 000

[00:07:33] Square foot venue that i don't need open space and i need to fill it with something that'll bring other people and so that's why we started with the car racing yeah that's that's what's

[00:07:44] Behind that that sounds like a solid business decision to me yeah i'll tell you i'll tell

[00:07:49] You august 4th or april 4th if it was yeah yeah so then okay like going back if if we bring our own cars or something i know there's going to actually be sponsored races and all that but is it going to be open for any amount of time for anybody just to run what you brought yes sir that's a great question

[00:08:08] And i can't give you the exact hours but of course it'll be it's on our facebook group page and i talked to i talked to lee ray last night from what is it rc podcast rc yeah thank you and i i'm i'm not i'm not a technology guru i didn't even know what facebook was two years ago but i'm learning quickly and so we're actually gonna we have on our facebook group we'll have an event page for just the race and there's practice every day and then of course there are scheduled races but it it is it is i want people to see the racing but i also wanted anybody who has

[00:08:43] One of the cars and that's why we made sure we had the low c stock car because literally it's a stock car out of the box can race and then there are qualifying runs and what they do is they run qualifying heats and that puts you in different mains which is pretty cool it's actually really cool how they do that so this all sounds great in theory i've never participated in it but in theory it looks fantastic i've seen the nationals this year up in independence ohio very impressive and i mean i was just happy when we got the carpet from crc up in new york that's amazing i gotta be

[00:09:16] Honest that is a gift that frank i i can't wait to meet i mean i met some of his workers up there because we drove up to new york with our truck and trailer and picked it all up but to have that alone because that is the premier carpet oh for sure how big is the track as i found out the track is 66 and a half by 44 feet okay it'll be an oval inside there so it's considered a short track but it's still a pretty good size track i mean that's a yeah yeah that's a that's a

[00:09:42] Huge so i'm assuming that was donated by frank that's huge frank donated it and i that carpet is

[00:09:48] Not cheap i know from my experience i i remember when my buddy came to me he's like you listen it's only about six seven thousand dollars for a track i said come again now yes exactly and but he made some calls and very fortunate his son was sponsored by frank and awesome yeah it just but that's what makes this community so great and again it's amazing to me because we're all in this for the same reason and it's to pass on what we do and my hope is that hopefully yeah car racing

[00:10:20] Just becomes another thing that we do because it's radio control and there's a lot of crossover i mean you guys were at the swap last year i purposely went looking for cars and boats i could there's tons of them i had no idea until i was looking for them yeah it's out there yep yeah

[00:10:35] I was i was impressed with the amount of boats that were there and honestly at that time last year i had never driven a boat driven piloted a boat whatever you want to call it floated floated about i've never floated the boat until then but i since then have so i will be kind of on the lookout for i don't know what because i don't know boats but for something that looks cool just to to have them play with well

[00:10:56] Hank we're a few of us from from here are planning on bringing some cars at least to because we haven't like dave and i used to race quite a bit so we were like really kind of intrigued by having a race

[00:11:09] That's fantastic and my hope is like even i have commercial vendors who are selling airplane product up front i've got a couple of them that are they're going to be racing and they're like that's awesome is there a way we can squeeze in i'm like brother we'll find somebody to watch your booth yeah we can squeeze it i mean they're that's what it's about and that's again it's back to that vibe that good feel right so i i'm actually looking forward to it to me this is this first year is a year that we can my goal is to have a race track they have racers and to make it look like something so when

[00:11:41] I take my pictures to advertise with it next year it looks like something yeah fantastic yeah and we're already we're halfway there we have the track i was gonna say it is something it

[00:11:51] Is very impressive just the space that we have seen let alone the new stuff for this year yeah

[00:11:58] Well i'll tell you what and it's a big year for me because i was here in the beginning that first year and nobody knows this but my crew and me the the amount of true commercial vendors we have up front because i do such i think we do a really good job of making it look like it's all vendors it's not but this year i actually have to start removing the wall in the second section because i don't have enough room up front which is fantastic that's excellent

[00:12:29] That's a good problem to have we have we have literally i i can't just say commercial vendors we have right around 60 commercial vendors plus for another half a dozen professional organizations to me that's a huge thing we got some big companies i hate saying coming back but i mean that's the truth yeah i'm really excited this year in toledo because i'm going to get to share the story about rc the rc expo in toledo before the week signals actually had the week signals expo they were always part of it but through my travels i i i'm a swapper by trade i

[00:13:04] I picked up an estate from the joe david family and it turned out joe david was a huge name in the hobby industry in ohio and michigan and joe david is actually a founding father he was a founding father at toledo week signals well the cool thing is there was an expo up in the michigan area before the week signals had the expo and it was with the detroit club and then eventually that club club dropped out toledo took it over but i'm going to share that story and so with our static display this year we had the joe david cup it's like our best of show and there'll be a booth

[00:13:35] Dedicated to that story and that's the booth i'll be in this year i'm trying to relinquish some of my micromanaging that i'm really i try not to but i do and i'm going to rely a lot more on my my team and i'm going to stay in a booth and i'm going to share what i want to share i'm going to be in a central location which is a big change for me but whether i like it or not i am the face of the show i'm not the best looking face but it'll do and so i want to share that story because again we're finally past the old show stigma right a dollar every time somebody said

[00:14:08] Well the week signals expo or this is but last year was the first time people were comparing the toledo rc swap at expo and the toledo week signals expo in the same breath of well they did this better but and this was it and it was really kind of cool because i think we're we're okay and we're not trying to reinvent the wheel i mean people are like well they used to do that well yeah because it worked i mean and why why reinvent the wheel i i love that show and i went through it like i said with my dad and i would have never

[00:14:43] Never even thought of doing something like this the week single still had that venue but times have changed fellas i mean here we are talking in different states right on on a computer

[00:14:54] That wouldn't have happened five years ago and here we are doing it right yeah and and it's just times change and things have to change we're in it for a different reason my first reason of course because i'm a swapper of mine said i'm gonna make so much money well i could promise you fellas the days of that i just don't see happening now it's how many people came to the door at friday by noon because did we cover our budget right that's that's where it's at and it's and then as long as we do that all's good yeah so you said you have been to

[00:15:27] The old show which i never have yeah never made it either that ended before dave did my time in the

[00:15:34] Hobby every year for a long time yeah starting in the early to mid 90s yeah most years dave we

[00:15:41] Ever at the arena or did you start at seagate it was always at seagate yeah the arena i think was 92

[00:15:47] So yeah it was probably 93 94 yep yep and i hit most years every now and then we'd have a skip due to whatever something sure sure so well i remember there was huge what i've noticed over the years with toledo the city itself back when i started going there the downtown area where seagate was was a little sketchy a lot of homeless people you had to be very careful not to step on a crack bile and slip and fall and i've noticed that the city has really really cleaned up the

[00:16:20] Downtown area and it's really very nice and a pretty little city now look at look at the

[00:16:27] Glass look at the glass city center alone now i think you guys said 23 well last year 22 i mean it's the way it looked last year compared compared to 23 it was beautiful last year and the hotel if you haven't stayed in the new the hotel they used to be the park in with the old show but it's gorgeous now and then you got there you got the arena and then you had the you had the baseball stadium the restaurants are coming back i would agree i think i think it's a hidden gem

[00:16:53] That's only getting better appears to be experiencing a renaissance downtown yes sir i would agree 100

[00:16:58] Percent yeah so this will be the first year tommy and i are actually staying on site yeah so that forward to that that should be nice not to have a drive every morning and well i'll tell you

[00:17:08] What and it's funny because it's a lot of times being a swapper mindset i remember staying over on buck road it was 27 bucks a night and i'd tell my wife honey guess what we scored at 27 bucks a night and she would say don't put the suitcases on the ground right lock your doors and sleep with your gun yep and i remember my first the first time i stayed at the park it was 110 bucks and i thought i hit the lottery yeah you can get up and you don't have to drive and that was back in 2017 2018 it's 147 bucks this year i think through the block we have

[00:17:43] Reserved yeah it's a little money but what is it worth not to have to drive that's that's where i was at

[00:17:48] With that yeah just not having to to do that drive and then just being so close like it's a swap you're gonna buy stuff so having a nice kind of nice place to put the stuff exactly yeah sir

[00:18:00] Well and see we're going not i mean we go because we enjoy it we're not going to sell things to make money and that kind of stuff so it's it's it's a getaway for us so it's a a nice long weekend of

[00:18:10] Just cool stuff hanging out with the guys it ain't just a getaway for you guys because i've heard that for many many i mean even even my crew now i'm very fortunate because my wife and one of my buddies wives they run the raffle booth so she comes up on thursday night and friday i don't i don't the only time i see her is in the capacity of what we have to do for the show so she is my wife but it's a whole different atmosphere and i totally understand that idea of you're there to hang out with your friends and have fun which so friday saturday night if you guys are

[00:18:44] Gonna be down in the restaurant bar area i'll be there i'll say hi okay yeah well that's part of

[00:18:48] That i mean we'll be staying there may as well may as well yes sir partake of it yes sir have a cold

[00:18:55] Snack a nightcap yes yeah so okay we missed one year then you said you restarted this in 2022 correct

[00:19:05] 20 this is our fifth year 2020 yeah we've been there 22 23 and 24 22 23 24 the way it worked was okay so we remember yep covet covet happened right and everything was shut down and then what happened was that that following fall that's when the week signals were trying to drum up some interest for the show but if you really track what was happening with the expo is there was less and less i mean the last year of commercial vendors the swap meet was never on the floor it was always upstairs

[00:19:38] The swap meet was not where it is now it was upstairs that floor if you can imagine back in its heyday it was full of curtain booths just like the front section all vendors it was amazing and dozens and dozens of static models and each year it got less and less to where the last year they had a show in toledo the front section that's curtain now was filled and then about half of the second section and then they brought in other things like drone racings they brought those indoor the indoor flying that one year the competition it's just because what

[00:20:13] Made toledo so popular was the idea of people would unveil things and bring things and when the internet came around that stopped i remember as a kid standing over in the arena so this is in the the mid to late 1980s with my dad and we'd have to wait overnight to get into to get a table for the swap shop we'd wait overnight to get a table into that swap shop imagine that yeah that's crazy and did it and did it willingly but with the with the internet now it's different but i'm telling you and i know you guys know this too people always ask hey man how good is that swap

[00:20:48] And i say i always have the same response i i can't tell you because i'm not you i mean i don't know what you're looking for and you never ever know what you want to be at a five table slot swap or down in perry george a thousand table swap exactly yep and that's what i don't think a swap meet will ever lose so when we when we brought this back we were with the swap meet first because i knew i could talk my friends into coming i knew we'd get a couple hundred tables of swappers worst case scenario i didn't know that the commercial vendors would start coming back or our new vendors

[00:21:22] Participating like they have and of course things are different financially for them and caught what it costs to come because our goal is a little different to the weak singles we want to wait we want to make money we just aren't really good at it yet and we understand we want we want to put people there yeah we want to keep it cost effective

[00:21:42] And it's been fantastic yeah you bring up a really really good point hank is that you can't you can't get that experience that swap experience on the internet you have to go and experience it

[00:21:56] And that's that's a really great point just seeing that weird gizmo sitting on the couch like what is that yeah yeah yeah no i mean because if you don't know it exists you can't go looking for it right

[00:22:07] Yeah sometimes the joy is just walking around and seeing stuff like that and being able to identify it and in a group of folks who are like what the heck are you talking about yes sir i i mean

[00:22:19] That is and that's that that's what i i have to not not begrudgingly but i'm letting some of that go because that's what i've been about forever with this sure but i think my my focus now has to be a little different and i work really closely with the ama they partner with us and become a fantastic partner and they've really helped me they've really helped me with the vision with my vision to make it into reality and part of that vision though they say is that i have to take

[00:22:49] Out a little different role where i i need to be available but to talk about putting out of fires but i have to get better at letting other people put out the fires and they always know i'm going to be back in that corner swapping because that's what i love yeah but i got a team that can do that i promised them this year once once it starts friday morning i'm staying up front in my booth and i think that's okay it's gonna be hard because i love swapping maybe that's why i go to about 30 of them beforehand but i think it's okay and i'm looking for i love people just like when i finally met you guys i met whoever's there last year i finally said

[00:23:24] Well this is because i didn't know you guys and it's funny if you look around if you look around we had over 400 swap tables last year and i love all the signs that everybody brings who they are what their little business is that's just fantastic yeah i just love that part

[00:23:40] So heck because you have your finger on the on the swap meet collective pulse so to speak and and this might be a product of the internet right and the information overload that that's out there but to a guy like me who i don't go to like a lot of swap meets but like most of that is because i either don't know about them or what have you would you say that today there's more swap meets that you can go to or would you say that it's about the same it just happens that we know about

[00:24:13] Them because of social media internet whatever yeah that's a another really great

[00:24:18] Question and i i can only talk regionally sure i remember going to some of the swap meets i go to today when i was a kid okay 30 40 50 years ago well not 50 30 40 years ago yeah don't date yourself i don't want to be that old but believe it or not we're very fortunate here in the midwestern states and i didn't realize how fortunate we were until i started the facebook group yeah because the swaps that we have around us in ohio michigan illinois indiana pennsylvania wisconsin and west virginia

[00:24:49] Wisconsin right minnesota there's there's a lot of swaps big ones go down south perry georgia you want to see a thousand table swap it's perry georgia i was there three years in a row i'm not going this year because we're taking our team to joan all this year so i can't i can't nice we'll see you there well hey another episode i'll be there i'm really excited because we will have a we're the only we're the only vendor that really doesn't sell anything but we'll have our vendor booth you're selling yourself we're there to advertise and i have some clever ideas and

[00:25:21] It's cool because i'm gonna be down there helping charlie from tgk connectors one of my favorite vendors at our show he needed help so i've helped him a couple times but again that's what it's about we help each other out yeah but perry georgia if you talk to the guys in perry georgia one of the reasons that swap meet is so fantastic which it is they don't have a lot of little swaps

[00:25:42] Like we have they don't oh they're not there yeah i see where you're going with that yep it's

[00:25:47] It's not there and i mean it's so i i've enjoyed the facebook group because you get to hear about swaps around the country and then i'm like man we are spoiled because our problem is man we got two swaps on one day they're both within our drive range five hours yeah what are we gonna do yeah right divide and conquer that's what you do yeah like it's funny you said wisconsin there's that huge auction up in minnesota and we have one of our buddies he comes to toledo every year and he helps us he's one of my one of my workers and we're man do we go up to minnesota

[00:26:18] Because i'd love to see that auction so we're very fortunate here in the midwest yeah and i don't i don't i don't have the exact answer but i think swap swaps are fine i think they're they're well and we're seeing some younger people but they're still dominating the average age of our hobby right now is a little i'm a youngin yeah i said i'm a youngin i'm 54 and i

[00:26:42] Think i bring i skew that girl this guy yeah yeah thanks thanks ron shut up gosh i'm getting chastised geez wow i didn't say you guys were raising that average oh my i mean you may as well have no no that's not what i mean you were looking right at me well i have to look at somebody

[00:27:04] Well have you have you guys have you guys ever done the flight fest no we have not we have not made it to that yeah okay yeah that's one yeah i that's flight testing and i i did it last year again i went with charlie you need help with tvk that's another unique experience i've heard a lot

[00:27:19] Of good things yeah there's a lot of events that we that we have not gone to that we want to it just

[00:27:23] Well the problem is we we have so many that we've gone to that we like so much that we continue to go

[00:27:28] To right that you don't or you feel loyal to go to yeah that that's true yeah we do that i'm a i can't help it i'm i'm a loyal guy yeah which is interesting right now because like even in toledo we we have like gator rc gator rc's coming this year and ready-made rc those are those are staples from the toledo weeks the old show and it's interesting because everybody wants to be in a certain area but what everybody knows about hank is the people with me on year one once you're with i my center aisle might not be all the large vendors but they're the

[00:28:02] Large vendors to me they're the ones that were there in the beginning for us sure and that's how it stays so we make it all work but loyalty is important too so it's okay you go to your favorite loyal swaps we're doing that this weekend we have one we go to we know it's going to be a smaller swap but what i don't know what's there yet that's right one year one year i went there and bought two byron jets and f-16 and the elusive f-18 if you don't think about byron originals the f-18 is one of the unicorns i didn't even know right a little yeah it was yeah that's it is a

[00:28:33] Unicorn it it will live with me for a while one of these days i might sell it but then you only have money you don't have the f-18 but i'll tell you what there it was in this little swap

[00:28:43] What i mean just the 20 table swap there it was yeah yeah yeah you just never know nope and i think that's part of the the mystique of going to a swap and the and the excitement and the travels getting there because you just like you said you just you never know what's gonna be there have you

[00:28:59] Guys ever seen the the guys that actually bring out a list of what they're looking for in the swap shop they have a piece of paper and on the piece of paper they have a list of the things they want to buy i've seen a couple times i'm like wow yeah i mean i know that for new stuff but i never thought

[00:29:13] I'd see that for swapping but i've seen it well when you have a big enough venue like yours well yeah

[00:29:17] Yeah odds are you can fill that list yeah i mean i have a small mental list of stuff that i would like to find what i mean but i don't have a list written out that's that's like

[00:29:27] Next level swapping yeah i just had a guy in the facebook group but i'm a sucker i like stories and older gentleman doesn't get out much is looking for a hangar nine laser 200 tail section i finally did it i said i'll tell you what man if i find one i'll let and i will so now i'm gonna start looking for that i have a list of probably three dozen things i'm always looking for because you can't find them anywhere like that that airplane has been made in 20 years right so but what how cool it would be if i can find i can ship it to that dude that is cool

[00:29:59] And i would say that the likelihood of you finding that based on the number of swaps that you and your team go to i'd say they're pretty good pretty good chance probably better than most yeah yeah for sure

[00:30:10] That's awesome so what's the strangest thing you've seen in a swap yeah that's what's the

[00:30:14] Strangest thing up for sale yeah strangest oh boy i mean i'm sure you've seen some stuff but i have remember i remember that family friendly conversation i think well like last weekend so i go to a swap last weekend and one of my favorite purchases was this little old lady had homemade jam and let me tell you something oh man it was absolutely fantastic it was so good i actually posted on my facebook group of pictures of the airplane and there's the jam i i like

[00:30:46] When i see things that aren't supposed to be at a swap at a swap oh i don't that's a tough question yeah yeah like like my wife just reminded me paul binkley and his wife she she crochets towels and darn it she's been with us for five years i was thinking that there they are yep red red baron hobbies up front unbelievable wing bags i love red baron hobbies all in-house all main america i he joked with me last year tim the owner because his wife sold jewelry and i think i supplied

[00:31:16] Half of his wife's finances that weekend with my daughter by the eight joke he says i think my wife made more money than me and even even at our event we have leaf folder which is a gutter company they've been with us from year one they're coming back this year and they're always welcome until they don't want to come anymore but as far as like modeling stuff i don't know man i i bought some i have a pension i love things that aren't ours i love things that are kit built different canards things that are weird i like that weird is cool yeah that's what we well if you guys

[00:31:50] Ever come to valley city ohio you come in my hangar i'll show you some of the strangest looking airplanes heck you'll see some on the static tables that's another reason i love this show is because when you run the show is it what comes down to the static model competition you put your own stuff there and that's what i did last year i mean i had that 10 foot lazy bee that had four 70 millimeter edf engines and it lights up for night flying i remember that one yep that happened one night over about six or seven cokes with some buddies we talked about yeah we put up we talked about putting

[00:32:22] A edf on a lazy bee and i said how am i making a 20 goes ain't nothing let's do four i'm like yeah that's so fantastic i'm like i thought it never happened but oh it did oh that's awesome i wish i'd have seen that yeah yeah it was on one of the tables there that you missed yeah well because me i'm worried so i brought some of my own things hoping well the worst case scenario i'll have five five models on the airplane for the static display but it turned out okay we had a good a good selection hopefully we'll have more this year you

[00:32:53] Know i think we had we had a video last year a drone flyover video and that really really helped us because i think people didn't realize that because it is every a lot of people remember the week singles event and we're not them we aren't striving to be them we're trying to be the toledo rc swap at expo it's a little different but when they saw that my golly it's actually an event i mean we have last year we had over 700 tables i ran out of tables that's why you

[00:33:23] Around tables saturday morning you were scavenging tables well right i mean if you went in all our

[00:33:29] Rooms where we had like the ama had their meeting heck i only left was this thing you could talk from when on podiums everything else was gone i knew the tables strip it down gotta do what you gotta do yeah well the fire marshal and i every year we've had conversations because they tell me where i can't put tables let me tell you this last year in the back of that swab section says no matter what do not put tables down the middle but we had the static on the middle then we went about 30 swap tables down the middle but he's been pretty fantastic but so i'm hoping one more year where

[00:34:00] All right like i we're getting i mean like i said the front section moved back we're trying to keep the swappers all in the back section but we'll see that's all right growth is good that's right yeah

[00:34:10] So when you're talking front middle back there was the three rooms last year the very back room was used for a open fly like an indoor fly yes sir and then also for the trailer parking

[00:34:25] You want to hear an interesting story about that mess absolutely yes well i had a feeling they weren't going to let us park trailers in there so i figured i'm never going to directly ask so instead of asking hey can we park trailers back there and about a dozen emails to my contact at seagate center i kind of slipped it in somewhere in the bottom front bidding i made it very clear that we were going to park trailers back there so kid you not thursday about 11 a.m here comes the fire marshal my contact at i said seagate in a class city center like you you can't have trailers in

[00:34:58] Here and i mean i had it right on my phone like sir here we go and he looked at me smile and said okay okay okay this your trailers can be here but not next year so there won't be any trailers but

[00:35:08] That was going to be my question because i absolutely loved having a trailer parked inside

[00:35:12] Well here's the here and what it's actually there i'm trying to make it make you speak i don't i don't know if you remember last year i my wife was worried i was gonna have a heart attack looking for people who own those vehicles yes i do remember

[00:35:29] That because you couldn't you couldn't open the doors until all the actual vehicles were out of the building trailers you were okay with but running vehicles it was mayhem so we have a we we have a

[00:35:41] Way to fix that this year i'll roll out everybody will get to see it but the the reason we we did it that way is because we own i mean we paid for the space even with the racetrack this year divide that last section where the trailers were in half we're gonna have the racetrack on one side and then we're gonna still have open flying on the other side because what i found out was these guys are good pilots they could fly in the trailer they don't right yeah they don't need 25 000 square feet they're amazing yeah and then like we have some demos this year

[00:36:12] Some of our vendors wanted to demo things like the mbs model supply i had to be honest i don't know what he sells but i do know he's part of ama's control line group and they're going to do electric control line in there i gotta be honest that intrigues me yeah that's different i would watch yeah i didn't even know it existed he's like can we do it i'm like well sure i can't wait to see because i didn't know it was such a thing yeah definitely not going anywhere right now we're still going to be able to bring vehicles in and unload as far as trailer parking if you are a

[00:36:42] Commercial vendor and you have to keep your stock in that like aj aircraft they're used big stuff buddy rc they have a lot of big stuff balls usa we we let them park around the docks and then we have a we have an outdoor parking facility two two blocks away and it's the same once the week signals used for oh kind of like year before last yeah okay yeah so that's that's what it'll look like and then even it's even us like my partner used to keep his big trailer

[00:37:14] In the back corner well i can tell you this there won't be any trailers because they may really clear that's a big no-no so i wonder why sir honestly that and fuel i i found out i we got we have rich's brew is there and then we had one of my buddies another swapper was selling a cool power and i'm like yeah i don't see why you can't sell it well i then discovered that the way we we can only have rich's brew that's in a contract and when rich's brew is gone they don't want any more fuel and it's not it and it's not supposed to be in the convention hall but we my

[00:37:48] Buddy had his on the dock too and it was too much so the fire marshal we talked about that too him and i got really close last year it was really nice time sounds like it was a very nice time yeah it

[00:37:58] Was fantastic so you mentioned well first off how far away do you live from toledo i live in valley

[00:38:06] City ohio just a real quick little history of me i was i was a very fortunate kid growing up because my dad had a mom and pop hobby shop and it was started in our house yep it started in our house my dad had a 30 acre farm and so i remember guys coming to the hobby shop which was our house they go downstairs they go to the shop and then eventually on my dad built a hangar because my dad was a private pilot he kept his airplane in the hangar he made a little part for the outdoor shop and our flying field for the rama club was right on property and there's a full-scale runway so

[00:38:38] Very lucky that's awesome so so i got my private pod slices i used my own my dad's field was really cool and then in 2017 i moved back up here to valley sea valley city it's about 26 miles south west of cleveland ohio and i took the hobby shop over i said dad let me help you and in 2017 my dad's my dad was great plains his main distributor was great plains and he literally would still use paper pencil and fill out the little forms of what he wanted to buy

[00:39:09] And then he would call them in and then great plains went bankrupt and then horizon bought great plains i'm like dad if we don't if we don't try to get horizon your fun is over my dad had the shop he was a businessman like myself he loved the hobby loved people didn't make any money but golly it was fun and that's what pops did so i took the shop over for over for my dad and then i ran it for a couple years and it got it was excellent it was fantastic i mean you have a shop on a runway can you ask for anything more no but the problem was i i'm a i'm a full-time teacher

[00:39:43] And i have a family and i couldn't do both it was two full-time jobs so the shop is now closed except for my club people i know what i mean local stuff sure so valley sea is about two hours from toledo okay so we're about two hours away not bad and you're right up to the turnpike and over we go which is good because i've already made four runs up there i'm measuring things and yeah taking care of some things i got a couple more before toledo but we get up to toledo

[00:40:13] This year i'll be up there tuesday night just to get ready because there's so many extra things we have to do so that makes for a long weekend yeah it does and my my one of my best friends who actually everybody gets to meet he's jimmy he works the docs for us he's the guy that gets people in and out we usually stay saturday night together then and we hang out one last night because we're exhausted yeah you want to debrief and the funny thing is it's it's weird because we talked about at the beginning of your show how we're there to meet to hang out with our friends well i still get to do that with my

[00:40:46] Friends but it's different now like even with my wife it's we're there for we have a purpose what i mean yep and so that saturday night we get to hang out a little bit we do hang out some but we're hustling we have a skeleton crew running that i mean guys we put almost 3 000 people through the door last year i mean that's a lot of people that's a lot of people yeah and we needed 2200 people through the door last year just to make sure my credit cards don't get maxed out to pay for the glass city center right so that was good and we we hope which is why we put the car track and we need people through the door

[00:41:20] Yeah and because i i don't want to raise prices i'm i don't i want to make it affordable for everybody so we're doing everything we can to minimize cost to maximize exposure

[00:41:32] And you're doing a good job so far like i said i appreciate that it has grown a lot since the first

[00:41:37] Time we were there yeah i i didn't even i didn't even realize it myself till i was going through old documents and i remember my very first quote-unquote vendor list that we pass out if people want to find a better location how it's changed yeah it's fantastic what's it is so

[00:41:57] What's the if i can steal ron's thunder from his notes over here i was going to ask this question anyway so like i know you said your your goal every year is to to pay the bills and to be able to put it on the following year do you have like a like every business right you've got a five-year plan a 10-year plan like what does your five-year plan look like or do you have one did you

[00:42:18] Say what is your two-year plan look like i'm sorry i misunderstood oh like like a five-year plan and a 10-year plan i'm kidding oh i got you okay yeah

[00:42:30] I'm trying to put this in a way that doesn't make us sound like a bunch of wild wild wild west business partners okay our our plant i'm i'm just going to be straight up and honest with you and i mean i tell other people this each year we are trying to be sustainable i use the word sustainable and last year we thought we hit the jackpot because what fellows last year after all the bills were paid we then could pay for our hotel rooms for our personal workers and some of the food what i mean and then we forgot that we owe five thousand bucks

[00:43:06] Down payment for the next year so there that goes so i mean we have we have yes we have a plan but i hate but because there are only three revenue sources okay for this event one is sales to the door right swapping tables commercial vendor booths and believe it or not the raffle is another source of revenue the raffle brings us pretty good money thank you to all our

[00:43:38] Sponsors who are there people who aren't there that do things for us that's where our money comes from and so the only way to increase revenue is you have to make it more appealing to other people which believe it or not a podcast like this can help with that doing a facebook group is hopefully will help with that we finally after five years got an article in the ama that will help with that we had to get the toledo week single stigma away from us which makes me really sad but there were there were weeks still guys that really didn't like hank and i knew all

[00:44:09] These guys what i mean and we didn't start this to cause a problem with anybody we started this because we had nothing to do in april right yeah and it's it's super cool now it's super cool now because some of those guys are coming back what i mean and like the guy that some of the guys that put on the old show they're back and like tim jetski i love the jetski family tim and linda jetski are two of the nicest people and their son andrew they're a wonderful family but

[00:44:39] Tim jetski was in a tough position because he's president of the week singles right now and and he came the first couple years and we talked year three he's like i understand here i'm with you and when tim tim started coming i think that made a huge difference and tim doesn't just come with tim he brings linda but they bring andrew and andrew jetski is one of the best pilots in the world yeah i mean that that's no i mean that's no that's not an exaggeration yeah and the thing that is amazing to me is andrew jetski and tim jetski

[00:45:10] Found important enough to spend time with us and that that and and if you ever talk to tim it's the same thing it's isn't it just like we are he's just like one of us it's all about that fellowship and something to do and that that's so important i hear these stories over and i love watching some of these small businesses grow with toledo i mean you have there's a company called wind wind catcher rc lee is a he's a great guy and him and his wife are full-time doing that business now it wasn't that way five years ago but as he says toledo put them on the map

[00:45:45] That's that's amazing to me man yeah yeah that's a feather in your cap yeah so my five-year plan is we have things we want to do how about this each year we focus on something new like this year we worked a little extra on the static models and i i didn't realize how important static models were to people till last year when i mean some people spent a lot of time looking at those airplanes and then i of course being nosy because i had some of them on the table too i sat and listened because i wanted to hear what they had to say and it was sure it was actually

[00:46:15] Really cool it was really really nice yeah the gentleman that brought the sail plan up he came up from carolina and i talked to him ahead of time i thought that was fantastic so we try to grow things like you guys i'm keith shaw he's been a main he was a he's a fantastic builder even a better flyer up in the michigan area and i i've sent him a couple emails i i'd love for keith to let me know he's bringing an airplane and then the minute he does i'm gonna say hey keith can i let everybody else know because he's that he's that he's that type of guy yeah so

[00:46:50] Yeah our plan is what we'll talk i'll sit down and talk with you guys saturday morning and let how next year looks we'll know by then okay because if we don't if we don't have an idea by saturday morning that isn't a good thing and i mean but like i said trends all look good it's early april that's a key it can't be later because of the weather everything's looking good and toledo's not the way it used to be which sounds weird but it's true i think when people notice toledo is on an uptick also that helps sure it does yeah yeah yeah you're not

[00:47:22] Scared to go there so yeah less reluctant i don't want to think quite like that but correct

[00:47:26] Yeah my dad would always hold my hand i'm like dad i'm 12 years old all right man that's all right

[00:47:33] So we keep talking about the weak signal show and what like i don't know what year did that end when

[00:47:41] Was the last time they they had that but it was 2019 was there they had a that was when covet hit and everything everything shut down and fall of 2019 they were still trying to get vendors for

[00:47:58] 2020 and they were struggling which come on everybody was struggling yeah and i'm sure there were a lot of other decisions and the thing is you understand why the weak signals had to do what they had to do because their whole idea is they put a product on the table that nobody else had nothing like it and their fear was little by little it was being eaten away and sometimes the the best thing to do to memorialize something wonderful is you end it what i mean yeah you're not wrong and it and now and that's and and i think one of my goals this year is to

[00:48:34] Try to when i talk to people about about the whole thing it's too it's to time the gap has been bridged it is there's been a show in toledo for 70 years or in that area what i mean

[00:48:49] Yeah i guess i didn't realize it was that that close like there was never a year that was missed like when we know when you hear like the goal there was a year missed 2019 was okay so nothing

[00:49:01] Happened in 2019 you're gonna laugh man it's march i'm buying like a fool going they're gonna have it they're gonna have it they didn't have it like oh my god what am i gonna do i get a 40 by 60 hangar packed full with goodness oh so we're doing everybody's spot would do we start building flying it yeah right yeah yeah that that's and the the interesting thing was we didn't make a decision in 2020 to do it and what happened was the dayton dayton monorama so the dayton club

[00:49:33] They they have a huge swap down there to another swap but you guys never been to they got

[00:49:38] A great swap 350 tables yeah we went last year for the first time tommy and i did yep all right we were

[00:49:44] There too front and center right yeah i got my 20 tables down there yeah we were in the same we were in the different building yeah but yeah and the thing with the dayton swap is they they were going to try to fill the hole that toledo had left so they were doing their show in 2020 and they did do a marketing approach to vendors and things but the one problem with the dayton show nothing with the show itself it's not toledo what i mean in order for the toledo show to work it's got to be in toledo and it's got to be the first couple weeks of april but it has to be yeah like i would never change that that's why i drive two hours to go to the venue

[00:50:19] Yeah we considered it and i'm like that that'd be suicide yeah so we stay in we stayed in toledo and i called paul stimmel who puts the date in my ram on i introduced myself i'm like hey man are you guys doing your show i remember i remember this he's like yeah he's telling me about i said cool man we're gonna do our show too and that's when paul found out that hey there's some group of misfits that decided to try to do something in toledo and i i'm i'm

[00:50:51] Sure they were they were the amount of time they put into trying to market to other vendors and so i sure took a little wind out of their sales but you're gonna learn something about me and my crew we we love all swap guys they're all the same to us we're in this together and so we did the first show and i'll never forget it i mean i i was a mess i'm not gonna lie to you i was it was it was an emotional it was tough and then it was all over

[00:51:22] And i remember the looks on people's faces and when people are genuine how they say thank you what i mean you say it sometimes you're like thank you but the it's like yeah okay but i mean it was it was heartwarming and it was actually during that first year we signed a five-year contract with seagate and oh did i learned something about that but we signed a contract because i thought when you sign a contract things can't be changed oh what was i thinking but we signed that contract it was a big deal and then here we are five years later

[00:51:56] Yeah so that would be this is the last year for that contract this is well we we

[00:52:04] Well you remember that part where he said he thought it was written it was not you

[00:52:10] Know yeah if you look at any good if you look at any good contract right towards that last page i will promise you it's going to say something that any time either party come back to the table yeah so yes i think what up the first the five-year contract was kind of like a good faith commitment that we were interested but each year we have to let's just say we renegotiate but i think sometimes it's tough fellas that that that the seagate center is a twenty thousand dollar

[00:52:45] Center that's what we pay for that yeah twenty thousand dollars think of that yeah that's a lot of money yeah yeah thank god we had a great november right we had a good push in the beginning and i'm only telling you that because i'm an open book i mean we we aren't getting rich but it's not about that it's bigger than that and but that's a lot of money and that's why we need as big as that show was last year we needed it what i mean we're needed again this year well

[00:53:18] And i can imagine that the seagate center is probably not getting cheaper i didn't

[00:53:23] I didn't realize that they counted people in and they used to ask for estimates i give them estimates of how many people came and they were a little off by let's say a thousand people and then last year they asked how many people came through i'm like i don't know a couple thousand i said yeah yep 3041 i'm like oh they're keeping track yeah yeah yes yeah so they know this oh yeah yeah and and we just but they're they've been very good to us but each year there's a new cost sure like like putting up tables we have a choice to make

[00:53:56] Either we put up 400 tables or we pay them to do it well i don't know if you saw me fellas but i'm i'm not the most physically fit cat and my crew i mean they're better than me but i ain't seen a lot so there's a cost there sure that's like before we even opened up the portal to get registration this year we're four thousand bucks more than last year just on increase in cost of the glass city center and the table cost four thousand yeah right off the bat so everything that profit if you want that we had last year it it but we're okay all

[00:54:28] Gonna be good yeah it's gonna be the biggest show yet it's gonna be for sure i i i i would be shocked if it weren't very excited this is an exciting year i think i say that every year well but i'm really

[00:54:40] It out excites the last year yeah yeah right exactly well this year when people come through

[00:54:46] The doors there's gonna be and even when people when people walk the conclave to the doors it's i'm super excited because this year we offered sponsorship packages where commercial vendors could sign up for a certain level package and with that package there came perks and so we're going to have column banners and the and all those monitors now will be for specific reasons and when you go into the arena you'll see floor logos with booth locations and different things that we did

[00:55:16] To help bring money into us but to make our vendors feel important so i'm pretty excited about the signage just because we haven't had it before and it's gonna look awesome yeah i i really i'm pretty excited about that and i'm excited too because i know i'm very lucky i'm the only person that knows what how many spots were actually filled in that front section year one and how we you guys are that game we have three shells you hide the ball or shell just keep moving that's about what we were doing but this year we don't have to do it anymore that's i i i'm i'm just

[00:55:51] So i'm excited for the people to come this year because it's so it's it's so much different than last year it's there's so many more vendors the swapping numbers are through the roof already i mean we're 25 percent farther along right now than we're last year with swap tables that's awesome yeah so what i just told you about trailers and park in the back section that's if i mean we have it we have a game plan if we can't if we have too many tables the first 20 tables will be mine we won't put them up i'll give them away and then i'll put my tables in the

[00:56:22] Third section who knows but we gotta do what we gotta do because i will tell you one thing we aren't saying no to anybody's 25 dollars they're like you still have tables on we'll have

[00:56:33] Tables forever man that's right yeah we'll set you up on the docks if we gotta that's that's

[00:56:39] Actually not a bad idea might be a little extra for that outdoor view good thinking a little colder

[00:56:44] Out there but that's all right that's all right just dress more layers like i said we we have we've seen the growth and that has i mean it's become a yearly tradition for us guys to go when we

[00:56:55] Can yeah it's one of the only things i really really look forward to in the spring early spring

[00:56:59] I mean i i really appreciate that fellas and this is i appreciate you guys contacting me to do this and i i just appreciated meeting you last year because like i said it's so funny to see all those signs that pop up because we all do something the heck are those guys yeah right that's what it was until last year i never did one of these little podcasts and i've done a couple now i got a couple more in it it's what's my first that's what it was what's interesting i always have trouble with my microphone on every podcast i think i've ever done i like this one

[00:57:32] Better too because like i said i'm not the best looking cat in the world so this is my kind of podcast where where i have that soothing radio voice they could sit back and go man he must be good looking man this guy face for radio that's right little do they know it's kind of like catfish and they come to philio immediately like oh yeah we're all the same way that's why it's all yeah yeah nobody

[00:57:53] Wants to look at this either so i sound fantastic absolutely that's funny so you obviously have flown for quite a while what so i have two questions one you kind of hit on early with the the unicorn with the f-18 with everything that you've seen is there still a certain airplane you want that if you ever find that it will go home with you and not get sold again yes

[00:58:26] And if you don't want to say what it is for fear of some other swapper buying it yeah that's fine

[00:58:31] It's funny you spent there's not a chance i'm going to tell you what it is but i will tell you early on in my swap days there was a time you we we made some really decent money selling used airplanes if we bought in balkanuf and i would travel all over and i got a huge collection with some beautiful big electrics and there were a couple that were kit built i'm a huge kit built guy most of my stuff is kit built now i don't build them i have a builder i pay to build because i'm terrible and i i can afford to do that a little better than i could as a kid my dad made me

[00:59:05] Build and i didn't enjoy it but there are yes yes and i'm i yes they will come home with me a group of them a group he's got a group yeah there is there's yeah and i the minute i sold it i regretted it but oh you had one once and i had four once okay and i had them when you own something you're all excited but then you're like god it's worth a lot of money it kind of

[00:59:32] Happened yes i needed the money yes i needed exactly what that feels i needed the money

[00:59:36] But like i said in all seriousness i i also have a builder now so when i was growing up as a kid i'd see all these cool things in the hobby shop but my mom and dad were school teachers they didn't have a lot of expendable cash and i mean i got things for free from the hobby shop but it was what my dad gave me what i mean it was it was never what i wanted it's hey here we're

[00:59:57] Gonna build a falcon 56 again because it's been on the shelf for six months all right all right you

[01:00:03] Know and so right off the bat i i wanted a balsa usa quarter scale aronca aronca c3 aronca the bathtub yeah i have one i had it built i wanted a dr1 quarter scale i have when i had it built i just i finally landed a gb the 120 size great plains gb lord have mercy i saw it fly once yeah i'm gonna sell that one but i had it not so much i had it i got a world a world

[01:00:34] Champion pilot fly he comes down and we put a demon cortex gyro in it i had a innovative designs power system it was a rocket ship it comes down he said that it just something ain't right that just ain't right and i'm like that's why it's getting sold so it's gonna go with me to saint charles we're gonna let that one go i'll tell you one that i will want i want a stuka i sold a stuka too it wasn't quite the personal connection but i sold a stuka i should know so if i ever come across a big quarter scale kit belt stuka probably a zoroli i'd love a stuka there you

[01:01:07] Go just thought of that because you guys are costing me money and i'm sitting here on my couch thanks

[01:01:11] Right right next to the wife yeah yeah right exactly no my my wife fell asleep talk a little more about money nice we have that effect on people it's funny so if you hear me say something like god she's fantastic what that means yeah she's like woke up yeah you got there right yep track i'm just kidding i couldn't do this on my wife my wife puts up with me gone a lot yeah because my thought is if i want you to come to my show i have to go to your show and i'm not gonna lie i love it guys i love it i think i love it i do i love the swapping which

[01:01:45] This year is gonna be tough on me i'm gonna not gonna lie to you yeah you're not gonna remember i said friday morning i don't know if you caught that part part friday morning when the show opens and we have paid attendees i'll be up front but thursday i'll be on the prowl there you go thursday's the fun day well this is that it's interesting because we're one of those odd swaps i don't know if you guys ever were in the swat at the old week single swap something that was interesting as they didn't want a selling product on thursday okay well when i'm getting

[01:02:16] A 50 table room and i'm paying two grand for the room i'm i'm selling whatever i want whenever i want i got to yeah and so they they used to always tell us when they get mad at me because i was always i i hated paying the money i paid for tables they charged me full amount 50 tables i paid 25 bucks a table or i was there on sundays when nobody else was there they'd come up and collect my money and it it it really kind of drove me nuts that part but they wouldn't want to sell anything early well i'm gonna be honest fellas the way i look at this show it's a three-day swap

[01:02:49] Yeah bonus day thursday and the funny thing is if you're there all three days you realize how many guys have extra stuff in their trucks trailers go oh yeah for sure last year i think we had more on saturday we had on friday and on thursday because guys just kept bringing stuff yeah i that again that's awesome another fun fact last year i wish my wife was awake one of her big things is she saw somebody sign in and his last name was monk m-o-n-k like the like what was his name m-u-n-c-h we just got done talking how wonderful you are my wife it was monk and and it was

[01:03:29] The famous painter there's a painter i guess and and his grandson right man his nephew was at our swap and so i finally went over the guy i'm like listen my wife's gonna make me ask you this question i'm so sorry but are you related to this guy yeah i'm his nephew i'm like are you kidding me and he really was and he had the accent german right skin something i mean european he was at our swap it is the nephew of a famous artist that's awesome and he had turbine jets didn't sell one he's

[01:04:01] Like i'm coming back i'll try again next year i'm thinking you sat here for three days he must love it yeah he's coming back yeah but where has that effect on people yeah so it was it was actually fast and i'm like i i was so i don't want to say embarrassed like this guy's gonna punch me in the head at least he said i'm his nephew but he gets out his phone he shows me pictures like oh my god he really is so then i had to bring my wife over because she is the most wonderful swapper wife ever and so so what kind of planes do you like to fly gosh well when i was when i was younger i

[01:04:41] Was i i used to race quickie 500s and i thought it was a fantastic raker here racer here locally i had my rossi 40. we were all excited and then i went out to the ma nationals and we had five airplanes i think i had one that made it in the air for one lap and the other four were destroyed on takeoff that was into my quickie 500 career and then i i've dabbled i've been helping people fly since about seven seven eight years old because my dad was one of the main flight instructors

[01:05:13] And he had no temperament so he'd let the kid do it that was back in the 72 megahertz day where you're passing transmitters back and forth the good old days yeah yeah so i've done a lot of that they my nickname at my own club is called high wing hank because if it has a high wing i could fly it but now i love i love edf jets i'm looking at getting a turbine because i want to go faster

[01:05:36] And believe it or not this is going to sound kind of corny maybe but i love night flying either with a real small group or alone it's just my time to breathe yeah or going over at my remember i didn't tell you this part my dad's property is 30 acres in 2017 i actually built a house on his property so my dad's house and my house were there about 400 feet of each other so i'm right by the flying field so i love going over the flying field at dusk with either the bigger ronka where i have a quarter scale pete and paul just do touch and goes touch and goes touch and goes i love

[01:06:07] That too that's the best i guess yeah that's awesome i i i love that i love night flying too i thought my big lazy bee would be fun to fly but a four a four motor edf lazy bee that weighs 21 pounds yeah it's not much fun yeah but i bet i do like that it oh it looked really cool but yeah that's and i like help i like i liked helping people fly when i had a shot but if you could believe it it got to be too much one summer i helped 112 pilots solo wow and that's

[01:06:40] When i learned the power of safe because if i didn't have horizon hobby or if i didn't have horizon and they didn't have their safe i could have never done that you can't do that yeah and that's something i know a lot of the older some of the older club members really get angry about this phone stuff with these gyros i think that could save the hobby i mean in a way it's really helped build a high because those gyros and drones are in helicopters i mean i remember building an airplane all winter going out flying at once and destroying it boy i can't wait for my summer to be over that was really fun yeah yeah so i like to fly a lot of stuff and and

[01:07:16] The weird thing is and you'll get to see this up at toledo i mentioned the joe joe david we actually i sold his collection but when i started realizing how what a connection i had to joe david because of the he did an early toledo expo and i loved his family we kept a lot of them then we converted everything to electric so we're gonna bring him to the show with us cool and we have some of the pictures with him and his airplanes and we're starting to take airplanes that we buy in estates and fly them like i had a last drive for an uproar 40 i don't know if what that is just a profile a little mid-wing plan we had a wankle yeah os wankle 30 on

[01:07:52] It that's rotary 30 yeah yeah i always wanted was a kid we couldn't afford it my buddy's like let's fly it i'm not kidding you i think we didn't take the fuel i think it had fuel in it we fired that thing up it was unbelievable i mean just fantastic so that's i guess i fly everything i'm not picky

[01:08:12] Yeah you you brought up night flying and it's actually kind of funny because we had really never done that until i think it was two years ago at toledo something like that yeah one of the guys that was there was selling a shiny and it was it's flight works made it i don't even know what it

[01:08:31] Was several years ago and wait a minute wait a minute is this a glider yeah well it's like a walk glider it's white yeah it kind of looks like it but it's very shiny because we made fun of the name i got one seriously okay yeah so light up how to go sold it yes i got a shiny i love those so okay

[01:08:50] So funny story then so that was the first time i had bought and really i think any of us had bought an internally illuminated airplane for night flying i like the the look of it dave couldn't stand the look of it because of the the design or whatever that's on it i can't stand the camera

[01:09:08] I walked past that thing twice going oh my god that's the thing i've ever seen in like light blue

[01:09:14] And green it was yes i know it well so i got that like i said i fell in love with it it's it's one of those planes that i wanted to make sure i never had to worry about losing so i looked all over for a second one and i could not find one tommy wanted one too we could not find a second one anywhere so long story short we ended up building electrostreaks and stuff because they're kind of close love the

[01:09:38] Electro streak right did you see horizon's new release today yeah i know i'm sorry i'm digressing

[01:09:46] No that's okay i was excited about that too that's a good looking airplane yes sir and 130 miles an hour on on for stock prop yeah on that but i too am digressing anyway so i finally one of my friends that lives up in wisconsin oddly enough saw a listing on facebook for a guy that was selling a bunch of airplanes he was selling an estate and he had just and i don't even know how the guy

[01:10:17] That sent it to me saw it because it was just you had to zoom in on this picture to see a box that said shiny on the side so long story short a new one yeah brand new one box never been put together yeah so long story short i ended up getting in touch with the guy he lived i think it was about two hours away from us to the to the east of here went and picked it up ended up buying almost all the planes that he had most were new in box and sold those at toledo in 23 2023 yeah and used a

[01:10:50] Lot of that money to fund my recent jet purchase of getting into turbines but oh we need to talk

[01:10:58] Oh there it's yeah ron ron and i both have been bitten by the bug as my buddy says why do i swap he

[01:11:05] Always says jets are expensive yeah yes they are yes they are damn they're fun they're like oh it's

[01:11:11] It's addicting yeah anyway circling back because i got way off topic going back to the the the shiny was our first night flyer and that has really opened up like we love flying at night too yeah and we have all got airplanes now just for the sole fact of flying at night yeah and it's so relaxing so it's a blast

[01:11:31] And the shiny fly is so good and sometimes that's the best part of the day serious if you guys want

[01:11:36] Another shiny i know a guy has got one to sell just saying of course you do why wouldn't what you're gonna sit on the table too and it's gonna have your name on it so we'll see what we and and what we do is i have that builder so he puts lights and everything but if you like your turbine i'm gonna give you i'm gonna give you something really cool take an edf last year our night flyer was a viper 70 millimeter viper oh that's one there is nothing more fun than than

[01:12:07] An edf at night this year i got a 90 millimeter viper and charlie from tgk connectors put the lights on it for me and that'll be my night flyer not not my only night flyer but right let me tell you something you do a split s at about 130 mile an hour with an edf in the middle of the night and for about three seconds you lose the color what a rush it's a blood pumping doesn't it right that's it does well i'm i'm actually started doing we we landed with the gears up no gears down we just

[01:12:37] Landed on the belly oh because it's a little hard to judge at night with those and i don't want to rip them off but yeah yeah i'm doing the 90 this year that's actually well and that's the nice thing

[01:12:46] About the shiny though obviously no gear but it illuminates the ground so much you can see how high you are off the ground but and speaking of viper 90s i actually have one that i well let's just say i flew too long and ran out of battery and so it's no longer pretty which made it much of a glider i know they're not but anyway so it it gave me an extra one that i wasn't

[01:13:11] What i was okay messing around with and i'm not done with it yet but i actually have floats on it and i'm hoping to fly that at joan all do you float fly that's awesome and joan all yes i love

[01:13:23] Float flying yeah i we we float fly also so i have last year i don't know if you saw it on the table i had that swift it was a real nice 1930s blown up it was blue and yellow and beautiful floats looked like a racer that was mine and we took an a10 and put it on floats let me tell you something i'm i'm gonna tell you it's got some unique flying characters at least the 80 the 80 the a10 did so i love your thing see what this is a bunch of geniuses sitting around talking i know

[01:13:55] Right stuff right there i love when i hear guys do things like us because i don't feel so

[01:14:00] Out of place that's part of the fun of the hobby though just doing dumb things that makes you smile yeah and that's yeah that's what i love about it so yeah and cool that you're going to joan all are you going to be selling airplanes there are you taking anything or not all right since since you

[01:14:18] Know what i'll might as well announce this on the podcast it'll be fun yay sweet i'm doing i'm doing well i have 1.3 things in the works number one i will have a i will have a vendor space and i'll be advertising on the joan all page i'm going to sell consignment for guys because if anything about joan all their airplanes for sale everywhere everywhere oh yeah which makes it difficult because they're everywhere yes and what i had friends there last year asking and they said people would bring them up to the vendor tent area once they got up there they sold right away so my thought

[01:14:49] Was i will take some on consignment nothing crazy pay for my spot and then i am contacting joan all i'd love to do a midweek swap there'd be no cost to anybody at joan all there'd be no cost i it's not for profit for me i would just need space to do it so hopefully we can do something because i think these guys all of us that stick around for a week it'd be awesome to have a swap right in the middle of it that for sure yeah yeah yeah that's that's that's what i would like to do

[01:15:18] Yeah maybe on tuesday or even wednesday something like that exactly right before everything gets

[01:15:23] Too crazy yeah because my thursday friday saturday with charlie and i mean i'll be working my wife's actually coming down to help charlie work too because i know he's going to be swamped are you guys staying on site oh yeah i we're taking down we have a monaco diplomat nice yeah yep so pretty excited about i was with i was at joan all once before my dad who was a pilot he had a he had an iraqa the c7 iraqa the yellow with the orange trim on the belly and one of the one of the board of directors at joan all at triple tree purchased that airplane from my dad and was it was

[01:15:58] Within a month for joan all so he actually took the iraqa he put it in the hanger down at joan all put the third scale iraqa next to it and then he brought us all down that's awesome yeah that was my first time that was fantastic we're we're we're kind of like a misfit because we always do vendor rows and we're not really a vendor but we we we blend in well yeah you make it work it works yeah well i think we're at the point where if we really want to sustain we have to go to some of the larger events and that is the large event yeah right so yep yeah because this i think this

[01:16:30] Will be our third year tommy going right yeah so this will be our third year yeah where do you guys

[01:16:34] Camp at we're at the new the new campground crater crater yeah that was new for last year they had cleared a spot and it's by the pond yeah yeah i what i i was i was i was i'm kicking

[01:16:48] Around bringing down my 10 foot lazy bee night flyer because i know they night fly down there oh

[01:16:53] Man oh yeah there's there's literally flying going on 24 hours a day yeah but now that another

[01:16:57] You guys would be at the pond i might bring a water plane down there if you can there you go

[01:17:01] For sure i got some really cool water planes that's probably where we spend most of our time

[01:17:05] Honestly at least the first year it was for sure yeah that and the e-line yeah but electric mostly i would say probably on the on the pond yep it's sweet it's just such a laid-back atmosphere

[01:17:15] There that it's so nice yeah it's amazing what's amazing is you have the 50 foamy that it's been wrecked 400 times and then you go up on the main flight line there's a

[01:17:25] Thirty thousand dollar turbine sitting there yeah yeah oh yeah that's awesome it's yeah it's a weird

[01:17:31] Juxtaposition but it's also awesome yeah and then you go down to the free line and you have to sign a waiver for your life yeah so right i'll be spending some time down there because i have actually we are the only swap meet that i know of that has a sponsored pilot nice yep one of the actually our our laser was sitting on the show table last year green and white laser with our with our labels on it and it's another it's a kid i met when he was 16 he's 23 now so and he's good he's really good so i bought him the plane said go make me look good and that's what he does that's awesome so it's

[01:18:05] Fantastic except he told me just the other day he goes hank i'm gonna need another one go why he goes i'm gonna wreck this one this year i'm like all right i am glad that we had this conversation yeah well at least he's honest nice to know because i'm like a real sponsor i have to i don't have any connections i gotta buy one so right but yeah it's pretty cool do you want to shout out his name or say yeah his name is joe graber actually he lives up in minnesota he's got a fantastic job he works at a military museum up there they're the largest restorer of p51 mustangs in the world

[01:18:39] In his shop there are racks of wings of p51s now they restore everything else and then they fly him around the country a lot of world war ii stuff but i mean we get videos from him every other day of things he's working on that's cool yeah so he's a good kid he's a fantastic pilot he's one of those that he can he cannot fly for six months and what he does with that airplane is terrifying but you get used to it but if you're gonna go to the 3d line you gotta be

[01:19:04] Terrifying that's true yeah yeah i will i will never have the skills to fly there but i sure

[01:19:09] Like watching well see that's that's the thing i'm like god i'd love to go to these events but i'm already not a real vendor i know get a guy that can fly so we wanted to bring in we wanted it we wanted to get some 3d and so because like we have get rc we have we have aj aircraft yeah i'm like so we started going to some 3d events just to promote the hobby

[01:19:32] And the show sure yeah yeah just got to keep getting that name out there and push and push

[01:19:37] And push that's right yeah that's awesome well the week the week signals did a fantastic job for 60 some years yeah getting the name of toleo out there yeah because we still have and i used to explain i'd spend time and explain there's no explanation like i just had somebody i posted the event on facebook hey you're going down to two days this year i'm like yep me why why go through the explanation so that's all right so did the week signals used to be three days then or because the week should yep the week signals were friday saturday

[01:20:07] Sunday but i'm gonna be honest with you sunday was more like a throw-in day the swap meet went from like imagine the swap a normal swap and then go down to about 10 tables that's what it was yeah take the swap you our swap our swap on the floor last year was bigger than what they had upstairs they still had a great swap but there literally was 10 12 tables left there was nothing left on sunday though and that's when my dad and i would we would go down to the main floor and we walked through once so i could spend time with my dad doing that to see to see what was

[01:20:38] Down there but yeah it used to be three days they're big days just like ours is friday it's weird yeah because i i would think saturday would be the big day but it is not i would have thought the same thing but yeah friday is huge and if you i mean and the other swaps i know like you guys have been to parry right

[01:20:52] No we haven't done that one yet that's bucket list yes all right well when you go to parry

[01:20:58] We'll talk and i'll give you some hitters but here's the thing i mean the first day i was told i have to get in line at 5 30 by six and i was i was probably 30 cars back at 5 30 in the morning they don't let you in until eight by six o'clock i couldn't see the end of the line no that's for real but then here's the here's the kicker it's at a state fairground and inside the fairground they had campsites if you spend 55 bucks and get yourself a campsite you go in whenever you want so you get

[01:21:29] Inside but yep 5 30 is how you have now friday it's like that so saturday we thought oh my god get up at 5 30 kid you not we got woken up about eight because we fell asleep we're the only car in line there's nobody around it's like a ghost town so parry's parry's crazy friday saturday not at all that's weird which if you look at the one thing was wild last year with toledo is our numbers were much closer there were still more on friday than saturday but they were closer and saturday's crowds stuck around all day they just didn't leave which was awesome yeah because this year

[01:22:02] We extended saturday till five o'clock i pulled my vendors and i mean it was over 90 percent that said please so i threw it up on facebook that was almost 100 so we're gonna try it till five o'clock and then i think there'll be a point where we're gonna let people come in free sometime two o'clock probably what i mean yeah just to get them there get the hook in right exactly set the hook yep that's a good idea though this guy i hate giving up that ten dollar entry fee but there's a point where i guess it with couple hours left i can yeah yeah

[01:22:36] Yeah you still want people to come in and get the exposure and like you said set the hook so

[01:22:40] Well to be honest by that time a lot of the the desirable stuff has been sold so it's interesting

[01:22:47] I don't know how many swaps you guys sell at our best selling is the last half hour any swap because usually people start packing up and you gotta understand people go to swap with money and it ain't to buy cupcakes what i'm saying yeah they're there to buy yeah and our best and we at any swap we go to we get eight to twelve tables minimum right and our best time is the last half hour because people want to spend money and we're there to help them

[01:23:15] We're doing our service yeah you're there to facilitate we don't want to take it home you do nope we'll take the cash so we do and and like this year we're playing a little game because we know we are going to flight fest again as both the vendor even though we're not but we are they don't know this yet i'm not i don't know if i'm gonna tell josh and i think i'm just gonna organically you have pop-up things i'm gonna have a pop-up swap shop on one of the days where i'm gonna post it everywhere and not officially ask and just have it happen easier to ask forgiveness than permission yes because yes then i'm gonna say oh i'm sorry i didn't know we couldn't do that at

[01:23:49] Some point the name henry rauhaus and toledo swap meet are sort of synonymous yes so right at some point people just sort of have to expect if you're at their event yeah probably gonna be a swap probably gonna be selling something yeah that that's funny i hope

[01:24:07] Joe and all sees it that way but yeah so that's that's what i'm gonna do yeah and i

[01:24:13] Know there's not much going on other than just flying and people just kind of well and

[01:24:17] I'm gonna play i'm gonna play on the heartstrings but i i believe this like you said a tuesday or wednesday it's not torrential rains and it could be an announcement but i'm telling you you would have a pretty good setup i think i think you have a lot of people go to a central location and my crew would run it my crew at that point be myself and my wife she doesn't know that yet it's a small crew going to joe and all well that's the a team yeah that's that is the a team but it is why i couldn't you you go to these swaps and there are things people

[01:24:52] Won't buy right the i can't sell some of these profile foamers these real beat-up airplanes well when you go to flight fest let me tell you something there is nothing more fun than selling that garbage i mean that quality stuff at flight test for pretty good money and then go watch them destroy it yeah and literally i had a buddy and laugh while they're doing it having a good time we laugh and then they would come back we'd take a picture of the wrecked airplane but we had so much fun watching them destroy this stuff i mean we i took i literally cleaned out my hangar last year

[01:25:27] With whatever i had left it was gone wednesday when i got down there i called my buddy i'm like start grabbing the stuff whatever we had we sold everything yeah and it was so much fun but this year we're we've been collecting 40 size balsa trainers that's gonna be our combat plane so every combat we're putting a balsa trainer in it because we can use it because we can use the same power system what i mean yeah yeah it's gonna be electric though oh it'll be electric oh yeah everything's electric yep so those things if you're not having fun there's no sense in doing

[01:25:59] It that's right that's that's actually a really good idea actually yeah you just got rid of yours last

[01:26:05] Weekend you should have kept now oh don't worry any swap has about four or five hundred of them yeah

[01:26:10] Yeah for sure you pick those things up for 20 or go on marketplace you can always pick a trainer for

[01:26:14] Let's say 200 300 bucks or less yeah depending yeah cool so how many planes do you have in your

[01:26:21] Collection well it fluctuates i bet i know i know it fluctuates but just to let my wife is

[01:26:27] Awake right now well then so it's three three number and then say it's something else yes now how many planes do i have for sale at any given time i don't know 50 60 maybe more it just depends i say i've seen my own personal i will not sell it well i can't say that even voiceover saying she'll sell it here it's terrible well go in the other room yeah it's like you need a drink don't you yeah i

[01:26:59] Probably have i'd say three dozen that i would not that i mean i'm hanging on to yeah but i mean we're trying to get rid of yeah right now as bad as i thought oh well let me finish that 40 by 60 hanger right now you gotta understand though that it's kind of an unf it because at any given time i can have a couple airframes back there i probably have a hundred foamies going to flight fest already because what we do is at these swaps when it gets towards in and people want to dump we're there for them yeah yeah and we just go pick up what nobody else wants and we probably couldn't resell it at a swap meet but at flight fest they're gold man yeah so that's what we do

[01:27:35] But no i mean the most airplanes i've ever had in a hanger at one time i had about 400 on my last year in toledo when i had to take the six 26 foot u-haul trucks that was my biggest collection smokes and then what happens like i was really proud because two years of i i got down to like 20 and then it was a bad summer and so and it's really bad right now so yeah i have a lot it just depends but jets are expensive so i'm gonna have to make that's right see yeah

[01:28:07] Exactly like i just picked up i i just picked up an elusive stagger wing stagger wing r5 great planes the big 120 size should i keep it flight or just sell it well jets are expensive it's gonna be sold up in saint charles it is i i yes i it's got the robart oh it's got a beautiful four stroke it's gonna bring good money up in saint charles so there you go she's getting sold i just bought a i bought a legend hobby stucat or excuse me sky raider and all the way home i'm telling

[01:28:39] My buddies guys i'm gonna fly this one they're like no you won't you'll sell it well jets are expensive so it's getting sold saint charles too yeah yeah you got to do what you got to do

[01:28:50] Yeah priorities yeah it's a fun hobby and jets you will enjoy so i can't wait yeah and you got

[01:28:58] The perfect i've flown a couple yeah i've just flown around to make sure i but it's time

[01:29:04] Yeah that's what i thought too and they're not to derail the conversation but jets have finally finally sort of gotten within reach of the average modeler price-wise what i'm saying

[01:29:15] Yeah well i mean they're still expensive but but but in all seriousness i'm gonna give you two scenarios horizon hobby that plug and play one they have is under four grand yeah all right yeah i don't you guys know who full throttle rc is chris barton full throttle rc he's the one that he is yeah he has something he's in florida now he just moved from yeah he he's the one that assembles our big whatever aj aircraft is this this year which says we're going to be giving away 103 inch laser z200 this year with a 123 cc gp engine just saying and then something different we're doing toledo this

[01:29:50] Year we're giving away a big 100 inch something on friday also i don't know what yet it hasn't been donated yeah well what yeah yeah i was just plugging it there but yeah well we found out my wife cracks raffle tickets and on friday after the full crowd we're talking almost 2 000 people i had 34 tickets purchased for the or the 93 inch raven last year and and i don't think people buy even though we say we'll deliver certain parts they just don't want they want to be

[01:30:22] There because the next day we sold over 400 tickets mm-hmm so that told me i have to give one away on friday too yeah but anyway chris barton you want a turnkey a turnkey ranger jet which is there when a boomerang jet turnkey means he'll literally that's what tommy just bought yeah the ranger oh yeah i love it well i don't i don't i don't know what the cost of it is but he puts it at your door he'll come and then you get your he'll give your license at 7 500 bucks sounds like a lot of money and it is but it's done yeah it comes complete it comes to your door they get you

[01:30:57] Trained training if you have that kind of expendable cash now i'm on a little different pattern me too i i i was all excited because i got a buddy who's gonna sell me a turbinator the original yeah the 80 inch turbinator mm-hmm i've heard that for a while beautiful oh yeah good he's like 900 bucks i'm like holy heaven that is a cheap way to get into turbo let me finish the story oh okay he says because i need the turbine for it i'm like son of a gun yeah but yeah so i'm and the thing is

[01:31:31] Those turbines as i'm sure you guys know now they that was those there is no cheap used turbine they they hold their value yeah yeah they do almost to the point where to save a couple hundred bucks

[01:31:41] You might as well get the warranty with it exactly well and it has to be sent in after 25 hours so by the time you get around a little bit you got to consider 250 bucks to get that

[01:31:53] Yep did you put a new ranger together or i did buy a used one no i bought i bought so i'll try to make a short story long i bought i bought the last wood the built-up ranger that they sold they've gone to all composite now so i have the last built-up wings stab and and vertical was it heavily discounted it was well i don't know if i'd say heavily but it was discounted that's all right it got to a point where i could afford it and yeah i picked it up at joe null from dan landis last year

[01:32:28] Well that's so cool yeah yeah so yeah it's a beautiful airplane yeah well i think boomerang all of a sudden holy mf-16s wow but that's another reason i want to go to joe null is what you just said i want to meet these people yeah because i'm i'm running out of i've done everything i can to get vendors to come to the show it's time for me to go meet them like yes like grc mike and his daughter ashley i can't wait to meet him he's like you are so persistent it was five years

[01:32:58] In a row you've contacted us i'm like why thank you yeah persistence paid off yep real excited mike mulberry from high tech i've been trying to get high tech to donate servos for our big giveaway because i have a hobby shop so i get them at cost but i'm trying to eliminate us spending yeah well this year i mean he he's given us a full boat almost two thousand bucks for the servers are you kidding me that's awesome oh this is excellent

[01:33:25] Man i cannot wait for this year i can't wait to go now i mean oh there's some there's some other

[01:33:29] Our raffle this year i'm i'm not tooting my horn but i will it's fantastic i mean last year's raffle was fantastic but i put in place a way where part of our sponsor packages for my vendors are they can they can donate and also get some of the perks man why didn't i do this five years ago well maybe because it's me doing it and i had i had so many other things but i'm telling you the raffle this year is going to be sick i just can't wait for people to come in friday morning to see two big

[01:34:01] Hundred inch airplanes sitting there on the table that's going to be amazing and i don't i i can't talk about what the second one is but i can tell you that tom over at valley of urc you talk about a cool cat i'm like hey tom would you mind he donates an engine to the raffle every year i'm like hey would you mind donating energy he goes yeah he goes keep it under 150 cc like okay yeah all right i mean i'm gonna try to but we're gonna give away what what the giveaway on friday will be more civilian like

[01:34:34] Something that might be friendly to everybody 3d airplanes are 3d airplanes but exactly like joe lewis aviator plus or gp engines joe lewis another giving guy i mean the there are so many fantastic people in this hobby that that donate and their time and their energy and their product i mean that's i couldn't do without them i i really couldn't yeah i just i just i love it i can't wait to say it's it's so great to have boss usa and national balsa they're both donating big kits boss usa last year i i i'm starting to know them a

[01:35:10] Better and i feel like it they just cut your they give you the payment i'm like hey guys now you signed up listen we got a raffle blah blah blah yeah we'll give you something i'm like golly what's gonna be well i didn't know it was gonna be a 700 kit last year no and then that was good we're gonna do something bigger this year i'm like hey what i'm not gonna say no fellas yeah yeah right and so even horizon horizon is my unicorn for this i i have contacted i think i'm on their do not talk to list on to the point my wife

[01:35:44] Wouldn't let me do it but i was just going to drive out there and sit at the executive office until somebody will see me and i don't know why they don't want to get involved but they have donated so i don't i don't want to say like that ally machini he's he's gotten some really nice radios the last couple years and servos probably about six seven hundred bucks worth but everybody always asks is horizon coming the answer is no and i i don't know how to change that so i think i i'm going to move on from that because the vendors we have have the same type of product they have what i mean yeah yeah and they are the they are i guess if you want to

[01:36:17] Say the biggest distributor but i can tell you one thing the vendors i have at this event have the best customer service out there all of them and even vendors that have just donated man they may be

[01:36:27] The biggest distributor but they're not the only distributor that is correct so so no agreed agree agree totally yeah it's gonna be a fantastic show and i i i just can't wait to go it's coming

[01:36:38] Soon it's coming i know i can't i'm not counting 60 60 days but hey that is it's 60 days today i watch that every day i'm ahead of last year's schedule because i have so much more to do but yeah i'm excited too and i'll go through the where i hate it and then i'll unhate it yep but to be honest i'm looking forward to friday where i have all the right people in all the right places running the different things and i can just i could just take it all in with everybody else and it's hard for me to do that because i'm i am a i just i'm a swapper man and my wife just said

[01:37:15] Control freak i don't know about that but this year i want to take it in i want to meet the people i want to tell the story i want to i want to bridge everything together so people understand the expo's been in there for a long time and yeah how important the week singles were but even before the week singles think of that before the week singles they partnered with somebody else which is so cool yeah so that's what i plan to do fellas that is awesome and like i said

[01:37:42] We are very much looking forward to to seeing you again in april yep yes sir that time cannot come

[01:37:48] Fast enough that's right highlight about you actually actually right now it's okay we're okay it doesn't have

[01:37:54] To come too fast right i get it yeah dave said that's the the highlight of his year and actually we at the end of every year beginning part depending on when it falls we do like a yearly recap of what we've done and what we've enjoyed and that kind of stuff and last year dave said the top

[01:38:12] Of his list was toledo well toledo is always a highlight it's always a highlight and it's hard to pick

[01:38:18] That i know it's not not for hank but for me it's a relaxing weekend with the guys right for sure i don't have to wear anything i get away from my wife yeah all the other stuff that goes along with it yeah no that's true the one hank's working his ass off yeah that but the

[01:38:37] Thing is the one that wasn't me i know i know right gosh i'm in teacher mode the one thing that i i wish and it's gonna it might sound corny as i wish my dad was around for some of this yeah my dad actually was an ama carl goldberg recipient award winner no no kidding i wish i wish my dad could see it because i i think it's a big deal for him too and i know he's looking down from heaven watching it but this was something we did together and he probably thinks you're crazy

[01:39:10] Yeah yeah he would not be able to do this this podcast because he doesn't have teacher filter even though he was a teacher for 40 years he didn't have a teacher filter but he i think this would be something he'd be like man you did okay so i'm not saying that's a driving force but i do think about that a lot absolutely because he was even my dad my dad eventually had to have a leg removed because of diabetes and but he came the last couple years i remember i got him a motorized scooter and he was so mad at me but i mean to go around the floor one last time

[01:39:42] I just that's cool stuff yeah he died during covet so i guess that was probably it was i mean he was almost 90 but so i wish that was happy but everything else is good and i know i everything i say about how much i get crazy and i get mad is tongue-in-cheek because i do but it's because of the love and i want everything to be perfect for everybody else yeah and this year as aaron dobbs just told me you need to just sit back and smell the cough sit back enjoy yourself let your team do it you put a good team in place they'll let it happen so yeah i'm excited

[01:40:17] Even i hate talking on that that i always announce the vendors and i know it's important but we're looping everything this year it'll be done beforehand it was funny i'm the only guy in the world who what it cost you i got this guy a nice rc car i found because he wanted to chase his dog around so i'm swapping a car and he's putting all my loops together so i don't have to say a word live it'll all be done i'm thinking man this is the way it should be yeah that's nice that's cool yeah yeah like the the drone the drone the kid who did the drone video last year

[01:40:48] He's not charging us anything this year because he's going to get a booth and i'm going to help promote his business because it was fantastic he's like you think you think pods would like to have a drone follow i'm like are you kidding me yeah yeah you see it all the time on youtube yeah and he's he's this kid is fantastic yeah yeah cool so that's gonna be a good time yep before we get off here what what do you teach i am a six seventh and eighth grade science teacher i've been in education for over 30 years all over i've taught a rural district i went down and taught in a very

[01:41:24] Affluent suburban district and then when i came up here i tried to get a job as a teacher but shockingly when you you have 25 years experience nobody's going to pay they don't hire for that so i had to cross over into the other side that was an administrator for a couple years and well hank i'm a swapper as a teacher i'm a teacher i administration was just not for me i love i love teaching and i mean i it's kind of funny because you ever google

[01:41:55] Big hank 13 on rc groups you'll see some of the stuff i've done with the students i mean i've had clothes my whole life and i'm really excited i just got awarded a four thousand dollar grant up in cleveland so i'm going to plant the seed this year and my goal is next year i'll be bringing some of my sixth and seventh and eighth grade students from cleveland up to the show on friday nice cool and my hope is i want to help the ama revitalize the education component because i know there are

[01:42:31] Some things but i think boots on the ground teacher can really help so everything i do i'm going to look like but i mean we're gonna do nothing but we're gonna do nothing but flight and i'm hoping that again that's something i can i can do with to help the ama because if we don't get kids involved

[01:42:53] Man yeah well yeah i mean that's that's very timely because in the last issue of model aviation they're talking about the future of clubs and one of the things they talk about is getting the youth involved because without getting the youth involved there is no future

[01:43:08] Yeah yeah and that's it was a little scary at flight fest last year which i know it's a little different a different organization but their numbers were down 20 and that was their 10th year anniversary scary right yeah because they're usually in the younger crowd and it was the younger crowd was there i mean i hope i i hope of all hope that someday the ama and flight test can play nice again together because i think they both have things the other organization would benefit from

[01:43:40] Yeah greatly and if you really are all about the hobby let's be all about the hobby so that's my political that no more politics thanks that's how i really feel yeah so we got to get kids involved or like we got to get the average age under 62 yeah somehow well and

[01:44:02] The reason i ask about what you taught and stuff is i kind of come from a family of educators too my aunt was a teacher my uncle was a teacher my mom ran a before and after school care program and my dad was a high school math and science teacher and he taught for 40 some odd years his whole thing is before he retired he wanted to be able to say he taught in five decades which he did so it takes a special kind of person to be a teacher i could i also i want to teach i want to teach also

[01:44:33] In 35 years yes sir because that's where i maxed out my retirement so there you go now and how did you how did you escape the education bug i don't have the patience that

[01:44:46] They do for other people like that i don't know i just it never was anything that was in in me

[01:44:53] Yeah no it it definitely it definitely yeah i hear you man that's cool well as long as you find whatever's passion that's all anybody could ask for i had a similar family my whole family taught and i'm like whatever i do i'm not going to teach so i go and i got into business i took statistics i'm like forget this i got it i got i took an elementary education math class like that's what i'm talking about yeah wow yep yep and then and then i met my wife and well that was the

[01:45:19] End of that so i went into education oh that's awesome well i don't know if there's anything else we want to cover but i think we've we've covered quite a bit tonight yeah i think oh

[01:45:30] Man i didn't i didn't know we're going to talk so long but i i gotta be honest i thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed our conversation yeah me too yeah i appreciate that we we never it warms my heart man i i sound like a gay school girl but i'm serious in your wildest dreams did you ever think you'd be the

[01:45:47] Face of the toledo show yeah that's that's a good question no i i'm gonna try to shave this year

[01:45:52] Though for that reason and i i sometimes actually feel guilty because there are some other people that are involved but they're involved in different capacities one is almost like a silent partner money guy he's there and the other one is just he had a stroke good friend of mine and he it changed a lot of things yeah but saying that i'm finally think i'm i i i'm finally ready to embrace that fact because until this year i don't i always talk about everybody else

[01:46:28] Even in my letters you look at my emails i send out to everybody it's we we we and this year it's i it has to be because people know i can say we but i i that's how it is so yes i'm embracing it and i in a bit i'm gonna put on my big boy pants and this hobby has done

[01:46:48] So many wonderful things for me and opened up so many doors that it's time that this is i don't want to say legacy because it's not yet but i'll tell you what if i can if i can if if my team we can keep this going for another whatever man that'd be awesome and then it becomes something like that and that's my goal yeah but like i tell i'm on it with this guys i tell everybody i meet the show is great it is but you have to understand something the only reason the show is

[01:47:18] Great is because everybody who's there the people that come to the door the swappers the vendors everybody because i can't do without you i can't that's why i appreciate you guys and i know i joke about that 25 but it was only a half joke because i love the extra money from the table but i do i truly appreciate you guys and this this podcast stuff is going to be because i'm a little older but you just you guys sound like you just have fun that's and

[01:47:47] That's what it's all about yeah and that's it if you're not having fun it's not worth doing

[01:47:51] Right and we can't forget that so i i truly appreciate you i can't wait to hear the finished product with this i really can't and i hope when it's over i can whatever you guys do i can get a file that thrown in the group oh absolutely yeah yeah because it's been it it i had no idea what it's gonna be like and i i have to admit your email was so darn where wrote that you was that you ron yeah that was sorry about that holy moly i almost thought i was gonna have to sign a waiver

[01:48:20] I'm like lord what the heck did you send him i i like to be thorough so that everybody knows what to expect oh so you were thorough sir that's the first time i actually read it it's like oh my gosh

[01:48:34] Yeah that's funny i gotta read this thing the thing is though when you get down to it it really feels like we're just four guys sitting around a fire talking that's right well and that's what it is and i guess that's the goal of these it was fantastic absolutely and that's the thing like the

[01:48:49] The email well i guess it might sound a little stuck up not even stuck up no no no i guess

[01:48:56] If i didn't know you were a swapper guy i would have been well it's i like to cover my bases so

[01:49:04] Because a lot of people okay let's be honest sitting around talking into a microphone is not an easy thing to do if you're not used to doing it so i i like to try and cover all the questions somebody might have and make sure everything is laid out so nothing is unknown except for the time we had a problem with the time today but that's okay we got it figured out my bad yeah i'm not good

[01:49:31] That i i run into that all the time i get confused well so thank you for thank you for your clarity

[01:49:37] You texted me and you're like so that's 5 15 my time and i'm like i don't know where you are

[01:49:42] No and that's well yes yes i'm aware of that now that might not have been very clear but yes

[01:49:50] And so then you sent like in five hours i'm sitting on my on my fingers going okay so it's 11 yep as well i'm like 7 15 got it that's perfect we're good i mean you could have just said you

[01:50:01] Know 6 15 central i did say that yeah but that's so technical after that big email i'd

[01:50:06] Expect that from well that's true yeah yeah well then that's the other thing i realized i told you two different times one was 6 15 and one was 6 30 so i'm like oh that's that's terrible but we

[01:50:15] Survived my takeaways are as follows you verify with me one last time jets are expensive and i wasn't gonna bring it but that shiny it'll be on my table dang it okay and as a and as a true swapper i'm gonna have that battery plugged in she'll be lit up hello kitten there we go i cannot

[01:50:35] Wait well that will certainly get my attention the one thing you you you left out of the the kind of wrap up is that jets while they are expensive are worthwhile so just remember that yeah they're

[01:50:46] Expensive but worth the expense well hey you'll get to see the viper down it you'll i'll have my my my night viper down there so you'll get to see that that actually is fun that's that's you guys already already there you got them on floats the next thing is night flying them exactly what else

[01:51:01] You do maybe yeah maybe i'm floats yeah maybe i'll put lights on my 70s wait a minute night flying

[01:51:07] Floats that is fantastic we're getting there we got ideas right on okay well hank thank you very much

[01:51:15] I greatly appreciate you coming on we'll keep in touch and for sure if you ever have anything exciting to share let us know and we'll help you put it on the podcast excellent well thank you so

[01:51:25] Nice talking you guys i'm looking forward to meeting you again in person in april yeah we'll be here

[01:51:30] Before it yeah i can't wait quit saying that all right well thank you everybody for listening until next time i'm ron i'm tom i'm dave i'm hank goodbye good night guys take care we hope you

[01:51:44] 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