2016 while coming back from the Bahamas for Christmas I was asked, "so when are you going to retire". The seed was planted and I gave notice December 31st 2016, to work and my committees that I was retiring after the next international committee I had obligated myself to. April 2017. But they needed someone to teach their courses and I still do that part time, working around 20 days a year. Flying models remains my big hobby though just holding hands with my wife is still my favorite joy. My daughter in Spain got married in 2020 and they are now expecting their first child, a son named David, expected March 20, 2023.

2006 and still in Charlotte but my office was in Baltimore, or Portland... I soon left that world deciding to be semi retired I applied to work as an auditor, fancy name was assessor, assessing calibration and testing labs for an accreditation body. Ended up doing that for a whole month before they asked me to be full time staff managing assessments, training assessor, national and international committees and a lot of travel. Far East, Australia, North, Central and South America, Caribbean, and holidays spent visiting my children in Spain. From 1994 till now my first son was living with us. Still flying whenever I could, models that is.

1996 found us in Charlotte, commercial calibration. Moving from job one to job two but because of buy outs I wore shirts with 5 or 6 company names during this time. Went from bench tech to manager to branch manger to corporate quality manager. Model airplanes was my passion.

1986 I was in Rota and soon transferred to Guam. First son born at Rota. Three years on Guam, second son born there. Then to Pt. Mugu. My daughter was born there. Worked in the Blue Max hobby shop while there. And before leaving divorced again. Ex and two kids went off to Spain and first born to his mom on Iceland. Second tour on Guam. Surprise, married again, a Bahamian found on the other side of the world. Three awesome years and I expected to finish my 20 in the Navy, expected to be 1996, while there but the Navy decided to close NAS Agana and there was a ship in the Persian Gulf that needed my skills, my last year and a half would be there. Retired off the USS Constellation in April 1996. Looking for a job back near Merritt Is I found a job in Charlotte and my newlywed, still seems like newlywed after 29 years and I were off to Charlotte.

In '66 we moved back to the US, to Scott AFB. Middle of the corn fields.. I used to ride my bike to the end of the runway and watched the C-141's take off, the wings hanging low then lifting to having a lot of dihedral when lifting off. My intro to RC was here but I was a long way from being able to afford it and stuck to free flight and control line. The housing where we lived has long ago been leveled but interestingly the Scott schools are still there abandoned out in the corn fields. I went out to them a few years ago and it was like a scene from a nuclear war with our artwork still tacked to the boards but trees growing up in the play grounds. Eerie.

My dad retired from the Air Force in '67 and we moved to Merritt Is. My mom had three sisters and one, with her husband and kids, spent a lot of time at the Cape in the 50's doing tests on the Polaris guidance systems he had designed as a physicist in the Navy labs. Another sister and her family followed and she ended up as the executive secretary to Von Braun and the others soon followed down as great jobs were easy to get with "contacts". Space race and then the moon landings. When Apollo 1 burned we had a lot of rocket scientists for teachers. My love of flying, aerodynamics and rocketry all took a big leap. a short stint in college and I dropped out. Got a job in Japan and followed my mother and her new husband in Japan. Lived in Nagoya but made trips all over including Tanegashima where the Japanese had their rocket program. '76 found me back at home on Merritt Is after a great time in Japan.

1976 found me back in the US. Jobs were scarce so I went to join the Air Force. The recruiter had a sign on the door “out to lunch” and the Navy recruiter was eating his at his desk. Boot camp at San Diego, electronics schools in Memphis and then aircraft specific electronics schools in Miramar, Lemoore and Whidby then to my first squadron VA115 at sea on the Midway home ported in Yokosuka. The PI, Singapore, both coasts of Australia, Mombasa, Pattaya, Hong Kong, Pusan. Three IO cruises. I flew off Midway to the USNS San Jose en route to Dodge just before Christmas ’79 whole on Gonzo for the hostage crisis. Ride the SJ to Dodge and caught a C-5 to the PI then on to Hawaii and the states. Home for Christmas then report to VA66 at Cecil and to the Ike out of Norfolk. 10 months of 1980 had me again off Iran and the hostage crisis, that was the 6 pack cruise. Christmas 1980 at home and then to shore duty at Pensacola. Great times, first marriage… 1983 I’m off to Rota Spain, AOIC at the standards calibration lab. Awesome but soon divorced. Lots of travels from there including into Kitty for their world cruise and Sara crossing Kadafi’s line of death… Married a woman from Sevilla in Gibraltar, in the same room John and Yoko, before leaving. But that is already 1987.

Pictures of a VK Triplane I built while on USS Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf 1980. Now electric and still flying.

I was born on Bolling AFB in '56. We lived in Suitland but moved shortly after to Pimmit Hills. My father was USAF at Andrews but soon transferred to the Pentagon. My mother worked on Ft Meyer. When I was 6 we moved to Montevideo Uruguay. The flights to get there were awesome including a long flight on a Constellation. I attended British schools, heavy in math and science. As a youngster I played in abandoned B-25's that the US had given to the Uruguayans as "military aid". While there I built and flew my first model planes, built from kits my dad picked up in Panama. We flew all over in the attaché's C-47 and I got to fly it many times going to many South American countries. At 9 we moved to Scott AFB where my father retired in '67 and we moved to Merritt Island Fl, but that is a story for the second 10. At Scott I got the RC bug as there was a small group of RC pilots that flew on the base.

I still have fond memories of Uruguay and consider Spanish as much of my first language as English. Here is a plane I repainted in a fantasy Uruguayan air force scheme.