My Favorite Plane(s) (Shallow Thoughts)

My Favorite Plane(s)

On most Sundays, you can find me at Overlook Park where the Los Alamos Aeromodelers fly radio controlled model airplanes at the big soccer field. The Los Alamos Aeromodelers used to be an official flying club, but now it's just a group of friends who fly together.

I first got into R/C flying in the 1980s. Back then, model planes were made of balsa wood. They took forever to build. The planes were heavy (five or six pounds) and flew fast, and so when they crashed — which they did a LOT — you had a lot of fastidious rebuilding to do.

They were powered with internal combustion 2-stroke motors. They were SO LOUD. You couldn't fly them in local parks; you had to drive to a remote flying field where the noise wouldn't disturb anyone.

Plus the motors were finicky and messy: they spewed oil everywhere, so you had to clean the plane off with paper towels and a degreaser after every flight. Ick.

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