Dying in the R/C Hobby?

This, however, isn't because of laziness but for want of time. We are a very busy people now...for many reasons. Trying to confirm a date with a couple for an evening meal seems like the UN scheduling. Also, if some wants to fly and can do it right now, where is the incentive to wait a month? This would be like a dad getting the son an ARF and the first Monday, the kid gets the wings, the second Monday, the kid gets the fuselage, the next... etc. Technology not only precedes art, it precedes enterprize.

When I want to be aggravated I go to Radio Shack...I ask these folks with the answers why the place is called Radio Shack. They don't know; they don't care.

Digikey.

I am retired. I have the money and I have the short-term time.

Ken

Well, you fellows are right about Amateur Radio. I got my license back in 1946..that's sixty years ago...used to be quite active and it was very exceiting and I built most of my equipment, and my knowledge of electronics was a great help to me in the early days of R/C. However, the hobby (Ham Radio) has become a vast wasteland of 99% appliance operators and some years ago,I tired otalking to people who did not know anything about radio or electronics...keep my license valid, but don't find anything interesting to talk to anyone about on the ham bands...even sold my equipment.... R/C is, IMHO, much more fun... Frank Schwartz... I guess you can call me an old timer..

80 years old...60 years a ham radio operator and 70 years of building and flying model airplanes. AMA123 W4KFK

I met a lot of girls playing on the beach.. NONE of them were worth a damn in the long run tho...

In the end it was my blue eyes that landed my wife. She still could care less I can play - after 16 years! lol

I don't know what captured my wife...maybe it was my sophisticated ways. But we started dating steadily at a Valentine party when we were in the 8th grade. We have been married 51 years...so far, so good.

Ken

John I agree and I believe that the acquisition of knowledge is a reward unto itself. It makes me feel more comfortable in this beautiful universe. When I'm sitting on the dock putting eye splices into new dock lines, I'm inevitably asked why? "You can buy the lines pre-spliced." When I explain that it's rewarding mentally, they don't understand - "...you aren't saving that much." I'm 76 and I think I learn something new each day. AAMOF I

*know* I do based >>

Rant away, Ed.

Most folks can grasp basic DC electricity without much trouble. However, as soon as you move into AC theory with phase angles of voltage and current, most fall by the wayside. They simply do not know what they do not know. And most are not willing to budge one iota.

Like you, I've given up. It's not my turn to save the world. BTDT.

I was appalled at how little private pilots knew about aerodynamics. No wonder they are indoctrinated with doing everything by the book, each and every time. I'm not saying that this is a bad practice, even for those more knowledgeable, but it provides very little knowledge to fall back on when the present situation skids right off the edge of the book's pages. Still, it appears to work for the majority of situations.

Ed Cregger

Good for you!! That's a rarity these day... Comin' up on 14 years of marriage so I've got a ways to go to match your feat.

When I started my helicopter training, aerodynamics were a SMALL part of the ground school and teaching us to make intelligent decisions wasn't the norm, rather we were taught to follow procedure. Being very naive when it came to aviation, I figured that was the norm.

Boy was I wrong.. I left that school and started at another school where we were taught form day one to not only know, but UNDERSTAND the aerodynamics of the helicopter. Rote memorization just wouldn't cut it. In addition, we were encouraged to make intelligent decisions and learn from our mistakes.

I'm a much better aviator for it. Yeah, I still make mistakes once in a while and after not flying for a while my skills are a bit dulled, but I know that it's a good idea to hop in with an instructor from time to time (like today) and knock the rust off...

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Well, you'll find exceptions to rules all over the place. I'm glad your second school was better than the first. But, from a legal point of view, I imagine the first school was just as capable of producing licensed pilots as the second. Perhaps not as good of pilots, but legally licensed pilots. True?

I was thinking more of airplane pilots. What made me think of it was a guy I knew twenty years ago that had gone ahead and gotten his commercial ticket. I asked him if his new used plane had a constant chord wing. He asked me what that was.

Ed Cregger

We have never even thought of the "D" word, much less used it as a threat. I will share a little tip with others out there... Every night when it is time to go to bed, I play like my wife has another home, and she can get in her car and go there, but I want to treat her so good during the day, that when that time comes, she will rather spend the night with me here. The next morning, I think that I am glad she is here and often tell her so. Then I start the day with hopes she will enjoy being with me and want to spend another night with me. This means that I never take her for granted. There is no such thing as a successful marriage...there are just marriages that are working at the moment. The trick is to perpetuate the moment...on and on. Like I say...so far, so good.

Ken

Y'know, I'd like to agree with you. And I periodically want to rant about instant gratification myself.

But when I reflect on it, I realize that instant gratification has ALWAYS been the order of the day. It just hasn't always been available in all fields of endeavor. Imagine the following:

Kid: I'd like to learn to ride a bicycle.

Me: Well, we COULD go buy you a bike...but I think it'd be better if you first learned how to BUILD a bicycle, so that you can understand the forces involved in the various parts, etc., etc.

That's stupid, right? Well, if someone wants to learn to fly an R/C model, why not LET them do so?

I *do* have friends that like to build things. I like to build boats, and I like building R/C models, and one of my friends likes to build bikes. But I don't resent that others prefer to do other things.

SURE, I build your own planes. But do I do it out of some strong moral belief that the delay in gratification will make it sweeter? Or do I do it because you actually are gratified by the building itself? For me, it's the second, plus the bragging rights of being able to say I built it, and it cost about $1.50 rather than $150.

If I were to diss "instant gratification," it would really be just a complaint that other people don't like doing the same things I like to do (or admire me for doing them). So instead of ranting, I find it's probably best to recognize it for what it is.

If you tell me that going to the shop, or the basement, or wherever you build, is actually unpleasant for *you*, and that you'd RATHER just buy a kit and fly it, but you feel a strong moral impulse to suffer before pleasure, I'll have to admit that we're very different sorts of people, of course. As always, generalization is a tricky business.

Do you hunt your own meat and grow all your own vegetables? Did you build your own house? Your car? Do you produce plays rather than watching dramas on TV? People with different interests could ridicule you for each of those "instant gratification" attitudes. (*I* won't...but I might ridicule you for complaining about OTHERS' desires for instant gratification...)

--John

There are things we can't do for ourselves anymore, so we have to buy them. I wasn't criticizing the purchasing of ARFs per se, but the fact that we aren't curious anymore about how things go together--or how they work--and would rather sit in front of the boob tube and let someone else think for us. I have built six boats, none of them models, and am working on the seventh. I have had three aircraft building or restoration projects, none of those being models, either. I have restored an antique pickup truck and drive it to work now. I have restored an antique tractor. I have built radios, a house, and have shot my own food, though it was all small game. And I feel like an idiot if I watch TV for more than a couple of hours.

Dan

--John

That's true, but your comment just happened to bring that point to bear that students there weren't taught to think for themselves, just to follow a set of rules particular to that school. I think following the federal regs and having the ability to make intelligent decisions based on the situation makes for better pilots. The aerodynamic knowledge (IMO) helps in making those decisions.

Oh man... That's scarily funny...

Unfortunately I see that in my son. Funny, but it's the prissy middle daughter who wants to know how things work and more oftent han not, if I'm in the shop building something, she wants to help. My oldest daughter is only interested if the project is for her (we built a closet organizer and a book case together for her room last Winter) and even then she only cares about getting to use the pneumatic nailer/stapler or painting (whcih is good becasue I *HATE* to paint)

Only built 1 boat (a kit) and haven't yet restored an actual aircraft, but I do plan at some point in my life to build my own helicopter. I've restored 2 cars ('67 Mustang which I sold and a '71 Cutlass that was my grandfather's favorite car - kept it) and am in the process of building my 1st rice rocket out of a well slagged 240SX. No tractors, but I build a custom ATV each summer which I then sell for some vacation cash.

I helped my dad build his house and remodeled my last one and I have plans to build my own pool sometime in the next year. I've only been hunting once (duck - didn't care for the taste) but I used to go on 3 days boats to Baja California to fish for tuna before I got married. Don't have time for either anymore, but don't really miss it.

My job requires CAD work, fabrication, electrical/electronic design and basic manual labor at times so it helps to be very handy and thankfully, I am. :)

I don't watch more than 4-5 hours a week, and that's usually some documentary on the Discovery or History Channel.

Yes! Most people know Constant Cord is the unchanging shriek of wind around the wings as the plane is nose down at well over the DNE rate.

Don

Perhaps the problem is that the general consensus is that beginners WIL

crash. So why spend months building a kit that will most certainly b immediately rekitted, rather than buy an ARF or two or three that ca be put in the air within a few hours of the initial purchase?

I worked with several local hobby shops and gave their newcome customers instruction on my trainers before they even bought thei trainers. Once they realized that the learning process can be ver quick, safe and easy, most said that they really wanted to build bu were told that they could most certainly crash in the learning process After they first lesson with me, most bought kits and did a great jo building them and then I trained them to graduation using thei aircraft. They said that their next plane might be an ARF, bu perferred to building kits.

CC

-- fliers

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No its not. Constant Cord is the rigging wire the Wright brothers used!

It might; we won't.

Ken