Even during the busiest time of my life I have endeavored to maintain some form of model building activity (many times consisting of merely a dedicated monthly reading of modeling magazines). This site has been created to help me chronicle my journey through a lifelong involvement in model aviation. The is a lot of good information and are a lot of pictures throughout the website that you will probably find useful, and might even bring back some old memories from your own younger days. My ModelAirplanes website on EarthLink outgrew its capacity, so I purchased the AirplanesAndRockets.com domain to continue the work. Thanks to my enabler, Melanie (pictured above), and to you for visiting for visiting.
Here is a collection of photos of my progression through aero modeling
that might interest you:                 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Here are a few pages scanned from the March 1969 edition of American Aircraft Modeler that shows what some of the early radio control helicopter pioneers came up with on the trail to eventually producing the 3D-out-of-the-box models we enjoy today. There are incredibly ingenuous early R/C helicopter designs. Many never flew. Counter-torque implementations (like the DuBro Whirlybird) were popular then.

The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) ceased publication of is official magazine, American Aircraft Modeler, after the March 1975 issue. The current version, Model Aviation, was its replacement. On a whim, I checked to see if the AmericanAircraftModeler.com domain name was available. Amazingly, it was, so I immediately registered it. I'm hoping that the AMA will grant permission for me to scan and post pages from some of the editions so that the wealth of information there can be accessed by anyone.

If you have a hard time paying today's prices for modeling equipment, this scanned page from a 1968 edition of American Aircraft Modeler will really make you sick. Take a look at some of the prices for airplane+engine combos! How about a Ringmaster and a McCoy .35 for $12.65. A Cox Baby Bee .049 sold for $4.98 (a brand new one on eBay will run you $60+). This represents about a 10x increase in 40 years. Electronic equipment is the exception, of course.

The E-flite Mini Pulse XT is one super nice airplane! The quality of the construction and film covering is utterly excellent. It is not the typical ARF assembled with glue made from some unknown Chinese farm animal bones and covering that looks like a Shar-Pei's skin. It took a couple hours to install the radio and motor, glue on the canopy, etc. Wheel pants have been left off for now to prevent potential damage. A Futaba Sky Sport 6 is used for control, and it has the E-flite 450 brushless motor and 20A ESC. A 3-cell, 2100 mAh LiPo sends this thing straight up. It is very docile and lands nice and slow. Here is a video of it on YouTube. There is also a video I made of the brushless ESC waveforms on an oscilloscope. I sold this fine craft at the Winston-Salem RC Swap Meet (2007) to a young man just getting into RC. It will be a great airplane for him.

My Estes Saturn V rocket kit is finally complete! Construction began in August of 2005, and finally ended in September of 2007 - about par for my projects. See pre-painting image to the left.

My vintage Estes model of the Saturn V rocket that boosted the Apollo series of capsules into space is shown here ready for painting. It only took me two years to get it to this point (yeah, pathetic!).

This Junior 451 CO2 motor came in a Russian free flight Styrofoam model kit. I uploaded a video of it running to YouTube. I bought three of these on eBay, kept one for my display, and then sold the other two on eBay. The fellow that bought them actually plans to fly his.

I recently acquired a copy of the Estes 1971 Model Rocketry Catalog on eBay. Here a few of the main pages that have been scanned.

Whilst going through some items getting them ready for a November swap meet, I ran across a November 2001 edition of Model Aviation that had one of my crossword puzzles printed in it. Bob Hunt graciously offered to print six of them, and this was the first. Click on the image for a full-size version that you can print out and complete.

June 7, 2007. This is NOT the proper method for landing your electric powered Spirit sailplane (click on thumbnail at right). It was a very windy day in Mt. Airy, NC, and the landing approach was less than ideal in that it required swooping around behind this tree land in the small grassy area. Well, I would have sworn that my Spirit was in front of the tree, but alas, I was behind it. That shot in the branches is about 40' up. A 20' extension ladder just barely got me tot he bottom branch, where I managed to pull my 49-year-old body up into the tree and climb the remaining 20' to retrieve it. I had attached a rope to my belt loop going up, and used it to pass first the fuselage and then the wing to to Melanie, who was waiting on the ground, ready to call 911 on her cellphone if the unthinkable should occur (and I WAS thinking about it!). Anyway, both the Spirit and I made it down safely. It was about 4 hours after originally "landing " in the tree that I got it out, and the 2-cell LiPo pack was still going strong. Even the How High altimeter was still flashing its LED. End result: Not a bit of damage to the Spirit - not even a hole in the Monokote! Only my ego was bruised.

A Great Planes Uproar. This model has a GMS .40 ball-bearing glow engine, and swings a 10x6 propeller at over 15,000 rpm. There are 5 Futaba servos, a receiver, and a 600 mAh battery pack onboard. The Monokote color scheme was taken from the Sig Super Chipmunk control line model. The bottom is all black & white checkerboard, so the contrast between top and bottom is about as stark as you can get. Because the engine is so heavy, I needed to cut a separate hatch for locating the receiver and battery pack about 4 inches behind the trailing edge of the wing (didn't want to have to add dead weight just for balancing purposes). The final weight is embarrassingly about 2 ounces of the listed maximum, but that is because of the ridiculously heavy GMS engine/muffler combination.

I purchased a Jetex 150 engine on eBay for about $25 + shipping. It is in in nearly new condition. I had a Jetex 50 when I was a kid, and am waiting to get a good deal on one on eBay, also. Most are selling for more than $50, which is more than I am willing to pay. Sooner or later, I'll snag one for around $30 - it just takes patience.

Here are some pictures of an old Citizen-Ship PSN Escapement unit that I just purchased on eBay for $13. I have never even actually seen one before, so when it appeared on eBay at such a low price, I went ahead and bid on it.