Kinda off topic, but my first car at 16 was something that I actually had to work on the keep it running. Paid $400 for it and I worked long enough each week to afford gas and oil . If something broke, I'd had to get a loan from my Dad for parts but always paid him back. He made sure of that.

Those two skills I learned from owning that car have helped me through my entire life.

Frank

Open the hood and if you can see ground around the engine get out the tools and start to work, if you cant see ground, close the hood and take it to the place with the name on it cuz your tools wont fit anywhere anymore anyhow.

Brian T.

Thatsbthe bad thing about cars now. Ive got two old padock bashers practically running on fencing wire. One runs completely on the chip oil from the servo down the road. I get it for free. I dont mention im running a car on it or they will charge me more than what the actual fuel costs

Hell yeah scrub - doesn't happen to be an old Volkswagon diesel does it?

- boingk

No. Old land cruiser i think. It has no panels except the roof and bonnet. Just runs and runs and runs

Skating Round the first car reminiscences, for all you guys who think no-one designs and builds their own anymore, I'll once again point ya to the "foamies-scratchbuilt" forum near the top of the first page here on Groups. There is a sticky thread where a guy has compiled pics and links to build threads for over 600 planes. This is 600+ plane designs created by groups members. Not the big guys, just us folk. Yeah. The materials are different than traditional, but the concept of design, cut, build, test, fly is the same. Virtually all have at least a few more examples built from the plans in the build threads, some replicated thousands of times (like the BluBaby)

Stop confusing them with the facts! They have already made up their minds that building is waning!

andy

I have so!
As evident in My shop

ARF = 8

KIT = 8
STILL IN BOX KIT = 4

SCRATCH = 4



Brian T.

Originally Posted by springer

Skating Round the first car reminiscences, for all you guys who think no-one designs and builds their own anymore, I'll once again point ya to the "foamies-scratchbuilt" forum near the top of the first page here on Groups. There is a sticky thread where a guy has compiled pics and links to build threads for over 600 planes. This is 600+ plane designs created by groups members. Not the big guys, just us folk. Yeah. The materials are different than traditional, but the concept of design, cut, build, test, fly is the same. Virtually all have at least a few more examples built from the plans in the build threads, some replicated thousands of times (like the BluBaby)

I think we all understand that there are people building in foam, maybe there are bunches of people doing so! I think this is great and I even have some foam airplanes myself. However, my preferred method of building is pretty much the traditional way and I like the type of airplane this method of building produces. That is the type of building I am trying to promote here.

Maybe you should include "with balsa" in the title. Even then, I'd point at Mountain Models, Stevens, Guillows re-tooling with laser cutting, Herr, Dumas, ... It may not be the 1950's but it's better. And make sure you tell people not to use of those newfangled heat-shrink coverings, or CF laminations, or anything but die-crushed wood!

Andy

However, my preferred method of building is pretty much the traditional way and I like the type of airplane this method of building produces. That is the type of building I am trying to promote here.

Ah, well, then I guess i have to agree with the guys who think it is waning, as at least in my opinion, the energy that once was directed toward the traditional balsa/tissue/monokote buildup has shifted to foam for several reasons, including more durable, crash damage resistant and more readily repairable planes; raw material readily available at local dollar stores, Home Depot, etc, Glues available at same places; Tons of plans available tailored to the material from simple quick builds for noobs to builds as complex as the toughest traditional builds.

Originally Posted by AndyKunz

Stop confusing them with the facts! They have already made up their minds that building is waning!

andy

You know I was thinking the same thing, but I may be changing my point of view. For reasons I see in this thread: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1704076 and this thread here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1733597. There is so much enthusiasm in those threads that it really leads me to believe that building is really not falling by the wayside.

Frank

I really enjoyed reading this thread, I agree that building is not falling by the wayside, although you will find very few kits in hobbyshops anymore. Building is not mainstream, I grew up building and loved that part of it, in the 70's and 80's nearly everything balsa was a kit. Now It's immeediate gratification, there are so many cool planes you can take out of the box and fly. not that it's a bad thing, but yes people miss out on a really fun part of the process (building) . back in the days of my youth, the closest thing to ARF or RTF were plastic planes made by cox and a few others that would barely fly.I'm talking control line of course, these day's the ARF's fly great and are cheap. an RC plane when I was growing up may as well been a million dollars there was no way I could mowed enough lawns to buy one. still love the cox stuff as collectables. the great graphics on their products really stirred the imagination, athough flying the planes were usually a disappointment . there are a ton of free plans and resources for builders online. Others have mentioned that there are lots of people building with foam; and why not, its an easy material to work with. with the internet I have more access to plans and hardware than I ever did growing up.well guess I never did really grow up. what a great time to still be a kid. I builders are a relatively small group within the RC community, but certainly alive and well.

I have just returned from a road trip to the east coast. One of the stops along the way was at the AMA museum in Muncie IN. Among the old engines, kits and original designs from the early days of model aviation there were posters and magazine covers.

Can you remember what those old magazine covers looked like? They had images of young boys either admiring a fine old (new at the time) free flight or full size aircraft. Or they showed a young boy with a model he had built with his own hands.

Now look at a recent model magazine cover. What do you see? Some kind of impossible to imagine scale model turbine powered jet or other thousand dollar plus aircraft. Open up the magazine and the ads that attract the would-be modeler are for a RTF foam-made scale model.

Where is the incentive to build something like the marvels of the air that we had in the 40s and 50s when you can take it out of the box and be gratified immediately?

BTW, I am about to start building something I had in about 1958. It was a free flight then but I will build it as a 3 channel EP RC; Joe Wagner’s Dakota.

David

Originally Posted by Rhea

I have just returned from a road trip to the east coast. One of the stops along the way was at the AMA museum in Muncie IN. Among the old engines, kits and original designs from the early days of model aviation there were posters and magazine covers.

Can you remember what those old magazine covers looked like? They had images of young boys either admiring a fine old (new at the time) free flight or full size aircraft. Or they showed a young boy with a model he had built with his own hands.

Now look at a recent model magazine cover. What do you see? Some kind of impossible to imagine scale model turbine powered jet or other thousand dollar plus aircraft. Open up the magazine and the ads that attract the would-be modeler are for a RTF foam-made scale model.

Where is the incentive to build something like the marvels of the air that we had in the 40s and 50s when you can take it out of the box and be gratified immediately?

BTW, I am about to start building something I had in about 1958. It was a free flight then but I will build it as a 3 channel EP RC; Joe Wagner’s Dakota.

David

You have a great point about magazine covers and how they have changed ,but it is also clubs and some older members of them have changed to. This year was the first year i did not pay my club dues and went out flying on my own after being in a club for 30 years .I have seen my cub turn into a bunch of crabby old men who do not want to be botherd with new flyers let alone teaching them to fly. We had no ama meets at all only a club cookout once a year and no reaching out for new members around the towns in our area. Because our membership is falling they kept raising our club dues but they still just dont get needing new blood in our club, instead its a oldtimer click who think life is good when 3 or 4 of them go to fly on a sat or sun and no one else is there. joe