What your age?

[cdwheatley]

Well said! .

[Igneus13]

well there you have it, we're now tied for the 21-30 category (I put myself in the under 21 since I still have a month left to go ). I sort of have to agree with all of you, but at the same time, I feel (and correct me if I'm wrong) but the technology has gotten a lot better in the last decade or two making the planes faster, cheaper, and better all around. If you look at the rest of the world it's generally the trend anyway. Everything is gravitating towards better technology and more electronics. I just feel that this is the type of hobby that has a very good chance of getting nearly phased out (although there will always be those fanatic fans).

Don't get me wrong, I love to build these planes and I think it'll be a greatly rewarding experience as I finish my first, second, third, etc etc. I guess it's the mechanical engineer in me that loves to see something like a working model made from a few pieces of wood and tissue paper. Unfortunatly I suffer from "too many interests, too little time" and don't work on them as much as I'd like. Even though, I'm planning on buying an RC plastic model anyway. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

-Ig

[fychan]

Everything is gravitating towards better technology and more electronics.

Even though, I'm planning on buying an RC plastic model anyway.

Why not combine the two, and simply build a balsa plane and convert it to RC using micro servers & the like ? It's what I'm trying to do (with the same caveat of too many things to do, not enough time) - and when I started I didn't know the first thing about any of it (honestly... I didn't know there was a difference between a receiving crystal and transmitting crystal, or what a servo was ). It's been a good learning experience....

[moostang51]

I recently hit the big "50". Most of my kits were from the late seventies, early eighties and its been "20 sumptin years" between builds. Definitely relaxing on a Sunday afternoon to work on these kits now. The B-24 I'm currently working on has Guillows paperwork from 2003 in it and I find the quality of the pieces much better.

I figure this one will take me into the summer months easily. I can probably sneak a few extra hours per week on it soon. Gotta love daylight savings time.

[prototypesplus]

48 here. I started at less than 11 (not really sure), but I do remember my first balsa was the 500 series spitfire. I remember writing a letter and sending my parents check to Guillows for a "submarine' spitfire instead of supermarine...hey what did I know. I built a bunch of them including the larger 400 and 1000 series, but all of them were destroyed in battle after a few months of hanging on the ceiling. "Battle" usually entailed loading the planes with Black Cat firecrackers along with a douse of lighter fluid and then launching it in the air under rubber power. Way cool at the time. Did I mention I'm also a pyro?

Anyway, many years later(about 26) as a prior poster also said, I had a surgery with some recovery time to kill. I decided to relive my youth and got the 400 series P-40 (gotta love the shark mouth) to build during recovery. I built it on a piece of cardboard with one exacto and a razor blade and testors wood glue. It was a quick hack job, but I enjoyed it and months later buit the FW190 in the same series. It turned out OK, but just OK. For some reason, I stopped for about 6 years. Last spring I decided to get serious about it. I bought the 1000 series Corsair (one of the kits I built in my youth) and the Guilow large building board (amongst other build accessories). I started it then and its been slow going as I really want to do a 'showcase' job. Plus between work and other projects I would tuck it away for a while between work on it. I'm currently in the finishing stages, but decided to build the 400 series spitfire to brush up on covering, painting (I bought an airbrush a while ago and have never used one before), and other detailing. Last fall I bought about 12 Guillow 400, 1000, and 2000 series to tide me over for a while...the way I'm going a long while! That's it in brief. I am posting pics on the virtual aerodrome as work progresses.

[Igneus13]

Fychan: "Why not combine the two, and simply build a balsa plane and convert it to RC" (I didn't know how to quote it)

Well i'd have to agree, which is why i plan on trying to do an RC conversion (once I build a few models first). But can your balsa RC plane do nearly all the tricks of a plastic RC plane? And if you say yes, how many plane builders can say that? That's all I'm saying. But trust me I love building/hopefully flying these balsa models. It's definitly an aspect that's fun and rewarding that you just don't get with the ready to fly ones.

[fychan]

But can your balsa RC plane do nearly all the tricks of a plastic RC plane?

Like bounce when it hits the ground? No Saying that, I haven't even covered my plane yet - so I'm not even sure if it'll do the main trick - i.e. flying

(I didn't know how to quote it)

On the right hand side above the post is a quote button, just click it and it'll do your quoting for you...

Fych.

[fychan]

But can your balsa RC plane do nearly all the tricks of a plastic RC plane?

Like bounce when it hits the ground? No Saying that, I haven't even covered my plane yet - so I'm not even sure if it'll do the main trick - i.e. flying

(I didn't know how to quote it)

On the right hand side above the post is a quote button, just click it and it'll do your quoting for you...

Fych.

On the right hand side...

Duh!!! I didn't even think about what it does. Let's see if this is right...

Yup

Oh, and you need to have BBCode on for it to work "properly" - so make sure that the "Disbale BBCode in this post" option just below the text entry field is NOT ticked

[Igneus13]

heh heh, thanks for the tip fychan.

[freefall]

45 and getting younger started at age 12 never looked back,Ron

[JOhn M Oshust]

I am 60 and I sure hope I finish my Camel before I turn 61!

[BugEater]

19, started building Guillow's when i was 18. 500 series, mostly American planes, but will probably build the whole series. I've got the TBF Avenger done but not tissued, P-40 Warhawk is in the process of being tissued, and a F6F hellcat waiting to be built.

[Xanadu]

You can post your pics and check out others here

http://www.virtualaerodrome.com/

[bsnider]

Since I am here, I will add my two cents..... 39 in September and feel like a little kid again (which is good because I have two young sons) I am really enjoying my new adventures in this hobby. I have learned a lot from this forum already. Thanks Everyone! Brian

[kittyfritters]

I am 63 years old and started building models with my father on Strombecker solids. My first flying model, built with my father was a Joe Ott TBF, Avenger, all pine and cardboard, with about a 40 inch wing span, that was a good flier and I have been hooked ever since.

I built mostly Comet kits, which flew well. I didn't start building Guillow's kits, with the exception of a couple of the really light 50 cent kits with box fuselages back in the '50s, until I got back into the hobby five years ago.

Making something with your own hands that can fly is immensely satisfying. It is a testiment to the freedom of this country and the introduction to aviation provided by model building that there are more owner built real airplanes in the United States than non-corporate and non-government owned aircraft in the rest of the world.

The really artistic kids today are doing computer animations (which, if you have never done one, take the kind of time and patience it takes to build a model). The rest of them seem to have the attention span of a gnat. At our flying field the only people you see under the age of 20 are the kids whose fathers fly models. Model building in this country helped to create the generation of engineers that got to the moon. Where are most of the young model builders today? China.