16 years old and have been a member of a flying club for around 2 years now. Almost everyone else is 55+ and always moaning why there's hardly any youth at the club. When I first went was told I had to pass a theory and practical examination, bmfa a certificate and all that. Being 14 and just pursuing an interest sparked from videos I saw on UA-cam I was absolutely daunted by this and very nearly didn't go back but I did pursue it. Had to spend about 5 hours with an assigned mentor before they would let me fly on my own, and they wonder why there's only one member of the club under 50
This is a real problem. You have a unique and crucial opportunity to change this club’s mentality on getting youth interested. Please do your best and use that great perseverance to convince the membership what you, as a youth, prioritize to get into and stay in the hobby. I’m guessing it involves more emphasis on the FUN first, then gradually, the theory as you are mentored. Good for you to hang in there. Now pay it forward for other young modelers and mentor your mentors on youth promotion. Good job! Good luck. The ultimate goal should be YOU as a youth, teaching other youth at the club. Make the +55 crowd change their minds. Reach out to your AMA District (region where you live) VP and AVPs for help.
@@darendth8594 As a professional adult educator and job trainer, it's nearly always a fools errand to try to change the attitude or values of an adult. Most refuse to learn anything unless they seek it out themselves, and will reject any advice or suggestion other than their own, as in "who asked for your opinion?"
I started as a 50+ adult and learned flying anywhere I could. No club. I met other bootleggers like me and had many years of fun, learning, and friendships. I’ve been in three clubs and none offered the friendliness and fun. I now live away from my old flying buddies and belong to a very large high end club. Not nearly as much fun!
@@bluhammer06 Can you please elaborate on any details about your (I’m assuming AMA and in USA) club experiences? This video offers great feedback from members and very well may help direct some positive changes. Thanks in advance. AMA AVP dedicated to advocacy and outreach.
@@darendth8594 My club experiences have never been bad or contentious, but neither have they been overly welcoming. I’m a very outgoing personality but there seems to be tight groups of flyers at clubs most who fly the bigger expensive craft. Most have been less then open to welcome you into their world if your just a foamy flyer. We are all AMA/club members but I guess the big boys toys make a distinction. I don’t think I would have ever become the good flyer I am today without the on the edge, walking the line challenging flying my bootlegged friends and I did for many years! So much fun. My extensive videos online show our fun which I’m sure many would criticize. Oh well
as someone who started flying in middle school, I believe that all of these points are true. From my standpoint, it is essential to get parents involved to necessitate safety, but to also give the kid confidence while flying. I buddy-boxed for years, and I feel like that was super helpful. One other thing is that it is important to watch and see if your kid is getting better. I flew a sport cub for years as a kid, and it really did just get boring. As soon as I switched to the ArtiZan low wing airplane, my enjoyment skyrocketed. I also feel like a dedicated flying field isn't always necessary, I am lucky enough to have one close by, but I started flying in a parking lot with a used super cub. Some of the most fun I've had is fucking around with a umx timber at a baseball field with some friends. With the use of phones and Ipads, it will be extremely hard to pull younger kids out to fly. there really isn't a good way around it. it seems like if they aren't interested, you can't get them out to try it. but because of this, if you see a kid that is interested, jump on the chance and teach them everything you need to know.
I'm in high school and I'm actually a pretty avid flyer. My parents are supportive about it as long as I spend the money I make, and they'll drive me to the nearest flying field about an hour away as long as I bring my younger brothers with me to play at the nearby park. I mostly use ultra-micro planes as they are cheaper to maintain and I can fly them around in my grandparent's backyard (only a 10 minute drive away). I have dabbled in scratchbuilds and it is a very rewarding experience. I do hope this hobby can survive at least as long as I can live, as this is one of my main hobbies and I really enjoy it.
Your video is spot on! It’s not just the RC hobby suffering the same problems getting the young interested. I’ve experienced the same old git attitude in model engineering clubs, model railway/railroad clubs and even in the full size railway preservation societies. And the very same people say that they need more youth involvement!
I couldn’t agree more! I started flying in 2019 because there was a local club that had a kids camp where I learned to build and fly an Electro-Glider. In 2020 I stopped with the RC hobby. But 2 years ago I got addicted to FPV and now I’m building new FPV Wings every week and I‘m enjoying Planes more than ever
when i was 5yearsold my dad took me to a hobby town and I saw those beloved rc model aircraft and when I was 10 i got my first rc aircraft and was happy w/ it now I am 12 and have a 4ch rc plane that acts like a an actual 3d aircraft its awesome Thank You Tail Heavy for the great content and the light you bring to the hobby
Model airplanes is what started my fascination with aviation. I started flying models probably around 8years old, some of my best memories were flying with the guys at the model field. Landing at night for the first time with minimal lights. Flying by myself for the first time, they did the whole solo thing cut the back of my shirt off. All the guys were always very supportive and helpful with me teaching me aerodynamics and why different alterations of the models were effective. I’ve always loved the model airplane community and it’s what got me started in flying.
This has to be one of the best videos explaining the reasons why we dont see many kids at the field. I always preach, get the parents involved the kids will follow.
I remember building plastic models as a kid and being in awe of the RC planes in the hobby shop but it was so expensive and my dad and I maxed out our woodworking skills at pinewood derby cars. We actually got one of those Arrows paper and balsa rubber band kits and I didn't know where to start and neither did he. I was stunned by how much more accessible it was to teach myself to fly with youtube and a ready-to-fly Carbon Cub now that I'm an adult that could even be repaired when someone ran me off the runway and I broke the tail off. You're entirely right about the greater investment when you build your own anything, but I think that could be more than balanced out by the lower barrier to entry these days. With the right environment this could be a golden age for the hobby. One of those RTF setups fits an X-mas budget far better than anything I knew of back in the day.
As always Zach, excellent video! Huge thanks to Bryan Connelly as well, he's been such a huge factor in getting youth membership and parents to our field, and is one of the primary reasons why our field is continuing to thrive. I've been to events at other fields in the past and I often been asked how can fields attract younger members. I feel lucky to be part of a field that has a large youth membership and I feel grateful for the all the members that are part of our club, no matter the age.
Wonderfully done. I was reminiscing just today about being around the house on Saturday and hearing the roaring whine of U line airplanes doing "combat" in the vacant lot down the block. I sold all occasion cards and earned a Thimbledrone 049 u line plane. 65 years later, and I still fly an RC airplane. Airplanes led to a great time in the Civil Air Patrol, the best kept secret in aviation. Keep up the good work!
To add the to “pay to win” point y’all made, the new features and gizmos marketed to beginners (SAFE/fancy transmitters/smart batteries/autopilots) actually make it more frustrating to get airplanes set up in my opinion. There’s so much more procedures & setup you need to mentally buy into with these sorts of things. Sometimes they work first try, but when they don’t, good luck figuring out your problem with no prior experience/context. Did you set up your smart radio? Did you calibrate your magnetometer? Could you figure out the smart battery charger? All things that would get me to give up before even making it out to the field. Getting out to the field and immediately crashing a basic 3ch would get me more amped up than having to learn what SAFE is, why I need it, and how to turn it on with my radio & make sure it’s working correctly
I've been wanting to recommend more basic airplanes for the same reasons. Plus I don't want people locked into Spectrum. Too bad it's literally impossible to find cheap EPP or EPO trainer airframes anymore, because on the other side, generic electronics are cheaper than they've ever been.
You don't really need all the "safe" crap to set up your plane. I learned to fly before there was any such thing. Although my equipment has capability, I the don't use it. Not saying it's a bad thing. The little micros definitely benefit from it. One if the most important things is to select the right model for your skill level. You certainly don't want a try to learn on a fast war bird.
dunno, i got my first RTF plane last year with SAFE, i just put it on the ground and gave gas and it started flying. i think it can't be easier than that. and i didn't do any fatal damage thanks to be a foamie. just a switch to have it on or off. way better than building your own plane and crashing it at the maiden because it has no easy mode
One problem was not addressed : frustration tolerance I remember how many models were destroyed by my self, after i spend many hours to build it. Either because of construction errors, construction errors, or just control errors. In addition, in the 1970s the remote controls became more reliable, but flying was still very elementary and it took some time before the model was mastered. Today I buy the child a drone and it flies (almost) by itself. Even the flight maneuvers that are shown in the videos are managed through the massive use of electronics. I don't think more than 1% of users would be able to fly the maneuvers without electronics.
I bought my first ARF at age 12. My dad helped me pay for parts and assemble the model. He spent HOURS of his time driving me to the field, teaching me to fly on a buddy box sacrificing his own stick time to help me learn. Without his 100% dedication to see me succeed I wouldn't be in this hobby today. Im 32 and have kids of my own now, I really hope this is a hobby I can pass down to at least one of my children.
22 year old guy here , and i can absolutely agree with every single point in this video. during high school i almost lost connection to the hobby but i kept myself in the hobby by trying at least one new rc plane per year. At my club all people are old and not really youth friendly. So what i d like most is someone who would go flying with me that is around my age. i have a friend who drives rc cars and , it connects us eventhough planes and cars are 2 completely different things so if you are around luxembourg and looking for a flying buddy hit me up
Flying a foamy at a neighbourhood park a kid ran up to me very excited. He was there with his dad they both were interested. Thinking back I should have had a second transmitter and a buddy cord and offered to let them fly my plane. I believe I can teach people to fly RC. That was a missed opportunity for me to maybe bring two people in to the hobby
Bit off topic but, my local rifle club had a similar dilemma, how to get kids into the hobby. It took a lot of work on the part of members and some changes to how we ran our weekly events, but it turned around , we are a small country club but currently we have around 120 members of which around 20 are junior members.
Around 8 years ago, at the school library, there was a book about aircraft. Being intrested in aircraft and ships was always a thing. What this particular book had, was a page on how to build a glider and another one about a simple rubber powered helicopter. By then I was building static model aircraft out of lamina, tape and markers, but none for flying. That book sparked an intrest into Free Flight. So I started experimenting with whatever materials was around. Of course, having an aircraft made out of cardboard, lamina and tape results in a brick. Gliders made of lamina and in smaller scale fared more better and stronger. Still, I was longing for an aircraft that could fly longer, and higher. So my parents took me to an old Hobby store and bought me an R/C Piper cub, and a gillows rubber powered Jetstream, which I cherished more. The Piper didn't last long before I crashed it and broke the wing. The Jetstream lasted a little longer until the prop bearing broke. After that I continued to build. By 2016, I was building aircraft from your average party foam plates and by the summer of 2017, tape was no longer used in construction. Instead, I went on to use Glue, so to lighten the aircraft. From that moment onward, many aircraft were built, but only a few passed. By 2019, with a fleet of around 30 aircraft, balsa wood was discovered, but it was too late, for after more than 5 years of bad luck, I gave up, and moved on to Free Sailing. The reasons for the change was 1: hobbie stores were I live (Which is Malta) are almost non existent. Sure, there are a shop or two, but none cater for free flight, not even for free sailing. Sourcing materials like Rubber, wheels and props, all had to come from outside. 2: The fields I used to go was in the golf course and another full of rocks. There aren't any areas to go except for two R/C fields, which are too small and certain that only members can enter. And 3: Even after converting to foam and glue, almost all the aircraft I built failed to fly, no matter how hard I tried to build them according to the plans, and countless hours of watching UA-cam and browsing the Internet, Bad luck was most of the time around the corner. In the end, I only had a few aircraft to be proud of, but they didn't last. Im 19 now, and now facing the same dilemma on free sailing. I recently moved my "shipyard" from the same place I spent countless hours building those birds. Sometimes, I wonder if I should close up the shop. Just like the lack of fields, only after a fine gale could I ever watch my hard work do its thing. In that sector, I also suffer from bad luck. This video had said about the same things that I had experienced before. I was around 13 when I was interested, and even to this day I am longing to build one more bird.
I am a teenager who got a group of friends to fly with me and we go down to the local park and have fun and then we try to learn from our mistakes and not judge others and we occasionally get people who watch us and ask questions that I am happy to enjoy but one of the big things keeping me from big parts of this hobby is the club rules and members fees
12 yrs, just started flying some mini warbirds. I got a p-47 and a spitfire that i bought. Both are volantex starter planes. I haven’t done a maiden of the p-47 yet as the weather in britain is screaming no!
when i was a kid i was super into rc anything. i was your typical kid with a bunch of broken airhogs and begging my parents for more to which they would resupply every christmas or birthday. one day my dad took me and my brother to an rc airshow not far out of town. i instantly fell in love. there were so many really cool planes from jets to nitro powered WWII to early cold war props to model utility aircraft. I'll never forget the A-1 skyraider they had that used fully functional turboprop engines. from then on i wanted a nice rc plane so badly. of course the ones i wanted were hundreds of dollars but i still kept saving my allowance. eventually on my 14th birthday my mom surprised me with a horizon sport cub s. that plane has been through so much; crash after crash and visit after visit to the local hobby shop it still flies today. i was never able to really pursue this hobby simply because of how expensive it is. but one day i might be able to afford some nice ones, who knows.
I would add the FAA and media demonizing the hobby as one of the major modern drivers killing the “hobby” for the youth! Changing the narrative with the “public” would be a giant uphill battle!
Balsa replaced with foam isn't a terrible trade. if you go to foamies, both flat and 3-d, it's actually easier and cheaper than ever to scratch build to plans with foam and fly with electric power systems easily sourced online. As Flite Test proves. It's old school nitro-burning, Monokote-covered internal combustion prop planes that are losing ground. The hobby is always advancing, and you may not like where it goes but it's where the money pulls it. The availability of good fields nearby makes all the difference. A convenient field that's hospitable will draw kite flyers, aeromodelers, & rocketeers like a magnet. Developers and the more restrictive FAA flying site regs brought about by commercializing drones, are taking all the close available land away from RC'ers. I told my old flying club members back in '92 they needed to think like golfers do, long-term, and buy their own land, before developers priced it out of reach. They always came back to: "iIm too cheap to put in enough money to a pool with others, to fund a field I don't use that often... and we'll just find another field a mile or two down the road... I'd rather spend that money on my planes... And sure enough, in a period of four years, the club got kicked off one field and another, three times, having to drive further and further out into the dwindling countryside, making a gravel drive and transmitter shelter and etc. each time... Each time they said: "The developers will never come out this far". They were very wrong. Within five years from peak membership, the club was dead and absorbed into other clubs that had invested in their land, instead of renting season to season and trusting to luck. Getting kids into a car to drive them to the flight field isn't unlike driving them to soccer or little league or etc. after school... but here in the midwest, the good flight season in terms of daylight savings time, sunlight and wind and temps is relatively short, say, June to August, and conflicts with other family activities like vacations and school breaks. If you can only fly after work gets out at five, and if the weather is clear and calm, means you get to fly maybe once a week for two hours, tops, and deduct the drive time to the field from that two hours as well. Lunchtime flying is becoming very hard to find a spot for, and the drive times are impractical. Indoor flying is also hard to resource. People have more luck using simulators and gaming their RC flying now. The kids flaming and dogfighting each other online using DCS sims would have been your RC combat and fun fly pilots in a previous generation. This is where park flying might have been a help, but parks are becoming inhospitable to RC as well, more and more. Plus, parks are often not ideal beginner spaces, with too many trees, high trees, cars, no empty areas for crashes, random people coming thru the danger space, conflicts with other park users, busybody park rangers and cops and Karens, etc. The kinds of beginner planes that also work well in a small park are frankly very toy-like in many cases, hard to see, work poorly in winds, have short battery durations, long recharge times, and just don't grab the attention like larger, more impressive models might. Conditions that drones can mostly ignore, but drones are not airplanes, not usually, and except for racing, drones are more of a solitary sport than fixed wing modeling. Real estate conditions drive RC hobbyists to the margins of useable spaces; parking lots, cul de sacs, empty lots, places unsuited to building a regular routine club presence. Aside from all the other correct problems the video lists, societal changes and this loss of easy sites is a key factor.
I’ve been around Rc planes sins I was tiny my dad always used to take me with him to fly. It really surprised me how few people knew it even existed since I was just born around it. I fly some planes with my dad now and it’s really nice. Would be great to have some more people my age out there though.
I'm 16. just finished assembling my 100" Blackhorse Lysander. horrified to maiden it but it will probably feel great if I can land it successfully like my foamies
I started when I was 16, around 1.5 years ago. Since then, I've mastered the process of CFD and CAD design, structural analysis, lightweight composite lamination and getting flight controllers to work with antenna trackers, for up to 50km long-range digital video range and 200km total flight distance capability, and all of that stuff. Although some disagree with the long-range stuff, although I understand some of the concerns, to those I say, think about who will be the aerospace engineers and innovators of the future. Safety is first, always. In my country, the only people in the rc hobby are 60-year-old retired men who only build balsa and combustion engine planes, who look down on the modern electric stuff and have ludicrous fees and safety rules on their flying fields. Me having access to the internet, I figured I'd just learn stuff by myself and do my own thing. On Facebook, the treatment I got from them was enough for me to never want to interact with people like that again.
I'm also interested in this same aspect of RC and I'm 16, what transmitter and ground station do you use? I have a Tx16s with a a 1 watt Es24tx pro ELRS module for my radio link. I use Ev800d's with a TrueRC X-air and a custom made 5 turn helical for video link. I'm currently making a plane that looks like a strix nano goblin, but wire cut out of XPS insulation. I don't use CFD or CAD software because I barely understand it, but most of what I design still flies just by using basic aerodynamic principals. Thanks for your insight!
@@marksworkbench8705 That setup is excellent! I also have pretty much the same system, with the remote, goggles, helix antenna and everything. However, my ELRS module is just 500mW. Hotwire cutting foam, and then laminating it with 25gsm fiberglass and epoxy resin, is the easiest and cheapest way to make something light and durable. Covering it with tape also works well. Recently, I also bought a SIYI Hm30 30-40km long-range digital full hd datalink/video system, and attached it to the MFD antenna tracker, but it's slightly less enjoyable to use, as the video is only visible on a tablet/laptop screen instead of FPV goggles. Out of these two systems, I prefer the analog system, as it's affordable, incredibly immersive, and weighs less. You can get really far without any CFD software. As you mentioned, by following the basic principles, you can make something that flies excellently. Pretty much the most important things to keep an eye on, is wing loading, horizontal stabilizer size and location, as well as the CG, most importantly. CFD is only required if you want to get those extra couple of percent more efficiency.
I started flying when i was 5 years old, worked in a model shop for 5 years and worked making model engines for the past 12 years. In all that time i have been the youngest regular flyer at every club i have been a part of. I completely agree with almost everything in this video and even now in my 30's i have to deal with grumpy old men upset that i am flying something they cant. The only point of the video i slightly disagree with are some of the comments on safety, rules and tests. While i totally agree that most clubs have a list of totally irrelevant rules a well thought out set of rules is a good thing, and having a test to pass can also be a good thing as it offers a sense of achievement to the student when they pass. The test should be viewed positively rather than as a barrier. The real world is also full of rules and regulations so teaching kids to respect them is no bad thing.
I've been interested in the hobby since I was 10, (18 now0, dad thought it was cool but never got involved, at around 13 got my first rc trail truck and that group of people are amazing, their kids are involved, they go trail hiking every weekend, everyone is super friendly and helpful, especially if your truck breaks there are 10 guys who jump to help, I recently got into planes about 2 years ago and the experience is not the same, as someone going into the engineering field and someone who doesnt have a lot of money all my builds are made from scratch (made the mistake of starting with an edf so there are like 20 redesigns), I remember my first day at the airfield, only one guy was nice to me, but he didnt stay long, everyone else just bragged about how much money their planes cost and no one was helpful. None of my planes would fly and once they saw that I was just kicked off the runway, no one bothered to lend a hand or anything, Went a couple more times till it was like you know what I'll wait till im in uni so I dont have to worry about these assholes all old guys bitching about whats wrong with this generation, man idk maybe its you lol. I also have no one my age into it, lots of people think its cool when I tell them about it but for the most part everyone kinda avoids it. I have no one my age into, tried to get some kids from my robotics team and other teams but no one had a real interest. I think people should start learne
I’m in my 30’s and have been getting into RC planes after flying FPV drones for a few years. I tried to join one of the two local RC clubs but the membership dues were outrageous, and the clubs consisted of, and I really hate to say this, a bunch of old dudes cosplaying as full scale pilots. Lots of rules, only flying in the pattern, and a hostility towards anything different, like FPV planes, newer RC tech (like OpenTX radios or ExpressLRS) and a fear of hypothetical danger. If this environment was this unwelcoming to me as an adult, I can’t imagine what it would be like as a kid.
Great video and so true. I am an instructional designer. I'd love to teach ground school to kids or adults, but I'm not a very good pilot. My club charges $25 for a training flight, and has only vintage nitro planes for the purpose, when I recently bought an EDF Habu with two flights on it at a garage sale for $15! I have quit clubs because of bad attitudes, wise cracks, overpopulation, excessive rules, etc. Off-the-shelf, pay-to-win fliers are boring. Nobody likes interacting with crusty, biased, stick-in-the-mud people unless they share the exact same views; my rural, tiny club of 50 members has more than it's share. I chose it because I can often have the field to myself. I fly anything, and am interested in learning all. I fly a balsa kit Kadet, an ARF SuperSportster and Cosmic Wind, foam HABU EDF, and Pitts Special. New to the club last January, I sensed their feelings, keep quiet, and let them see that my 17" UMX foam, electric, gyro equipped Pitts Special can outperform any other ship at our field.
I'm from france and the only place you are allowed to fly rc planes are in your yard or in rc club terrains. I discovered the rc plane hobby at an exposition where a club was showing few light planes flying, explaining things and trying to recruit new members. After that I joined the club, flew with a monitor for free on a basic easystar for a year, learn a lot, after that the french federation of aeromodelism gave me the opportunity to buy an electric trainer with an futaba t8j for only 150€, so I bought it, mounted the plane, flew a lot with it and passed to other projects. The issue in this lobby is that clubs like mine are diseappering, and the only club that are left are held by some egocentric 40 years old that don't care about youth but only about how skilled they are and how they are the best pilots in the hobby (if you listen them they can win all the cups that exist in the hobby). And also when you are below 15, putting more than 100€ in something isn't always something easy. At the same times the clubs are facing the issue of Karens and intolerant that can't handle the fact that a RC plane is flying at 3km of their houses, so they call the police, make pressure over the town hall council to make us leave ... The laws are limiting us more and more, with people being affraid because of the tv saying the russian are using "drones" to kill people in a war, so the 2k€ mavic pro from the local flight club would probably do the same thing for whatever reason. I'm really not optimistic for the future of this hobby.
Gen z spokesman here. Genuinely weighed buying an RC plane but for a pretty similar price I got my hands on a drone. Honestly I think the drone community is gonna outgrow you guys, not because it’s a better hobby but simply because drone footage is all over social media simply because the barrier to enter is low. Anybody can grab a dji and slap some half decent nature shots on instagram. Therefore nearly everyone has seen drone footage. Not so sure I can say when the last time I’ve seen RC plane content.
Yup, a few years ago I tried to get into the hobby but eventually gave up, especially here in de Randstad in the Netherlands where it's hard to find a place where you can even legally fly RC stuff. I ended up not really being able to get the brushless motor to not shake itself apart from the plane and ended up quitting, still have the stuff and even a new lipo that I bought when I got back in for a bit and the parts din't turn on anymore so maybe in the future, I have a parttime job next to my education now at least
I 100% agree that the biggest issues with getting kids my age into the hobby is cost, girls, and time. It’s when a teenager gets a job, goes to school 5 days a week, and has a girlfriend it’s super hard to make time to go out to a field or have any extra money for planes. The experience with finding an AMA club that isn’t a bunch of stubborn old dudes isn’t something I can really say much about because I haven’t really met anyone who has ever been rude or disrespectful but hearing from others stories it definitely doesn’t help the hobby either. If I had one tip for younger guys starting in this hobby, it would definitely be like Zach said, find a good group of friends that might be interested in flying with you and bring them out to see if they enjoy it. I’ve met a bunch of amazing people on discord as well who are super helpful and fun to talk to, so using that as a resource to help you learn is great too.
I think the stubborn old dudes imagery is more a product of sheltered people not knowing how to interact with others than it is a product of reality. I mean kids are taking lessons on how to speak with another human being on the phone for crying out loud. They are terrified of even the slightest conflict. A person asked a question the other day on RCGroups about flying sailplanes at local clubs in Austin. I informed them of at least one that welcomes them but since their email wasn't returned by the club, they assumed the worst. Wonderful club but they will never know because the welcome mat wasn't rolled out with the promise of a conflict free zone. That just isn't how the world works, especially at model aircraft clubs where those who have been flying there for half a century are used to flying in a specific pattern to avoid as much risk as possible. I even informed them that the field is often so sparsely attended that there would be ample opportunity to fly by themselves, however they wished. But the lack of an email response sealed the deal. They were convinced they weren't welcome. :(
You forgot: Grandma hears the kid is interested in the hobby and buys them a $30 plane from Harbor Freight that doesn't even have enough juice to make it fall out of the sky gracefully and the kid goes "This is stupid I'm going to go play Fortnight"
I foil surf every day and I would like to get into paragliding. RC planes seems like the best way to kinda live out the ability of flying for pretty cheap. I always did find it odd the only people flying RC planes are old retired guys at the park. I’m about to turn 30 so maybe I’m just old.
My son now 46 was 7 when I purchased the home from my parents I grew up in (Built my first U-Control plane) PT-19. At 11 he found my Beat up Sterling Profile P-51 as of lines and we recovered it fixed the Vertical stab and rudder got a battery and fuel and he learned to fly. Joined the Circle Masters met ART Webber. Then one day bought our 1st R/C plane a very poorly built Trainer 60 with a K&B 61 from ABC Hobby. Joined Milwaukee Electrons (Now just Electrons) and met Jim Wainer The most Patient R/C Instructor ever. Out of 19 TO's( if the K&B Started we had 19 Dead Sticks. Replaced the K&B learned to fly Davy my son got better than me real fast turned 17 found girls and cars quit R/C and Women now as a Bachelor with a stable of Vehicles though expensive are(all cheaper the women).
I live near Joe Nall at triple tree in Woodruff S.C. One problem is it costs $15.00 just to get in and it's no open to the public so it's a private event but the biggest in the east cost.
As a 31 year old kid at heart i love this hobby and i was flying as a kid before there was flite test and all these amazing beginner teach yout self flying rc planes with stablization. I had to spend a month or two building a balda plane that was beautiful then buddy box withba friend or try to learn on my own and if i crash i jad to rebuild and start over. And i volunteer at a boy's and girls club and i teach the hobby group room where each age group comes for two hours everyday and builds a plane or a model or what ever it is we are building thast month that is age friendly for each age group and my kids from ages 10-15 love building the flite test planes and parents donate money to keeo funding it and now we have a huge club of kids that are now building balsa planes and have joined rc plaane clubs that fly with me and my club on the weekends and i jave had ine kid get his pilots license when he was 17 and thabked me for getting him into planes when he was 13-14 years old and he is going tk hecome a airlines pilot
In Canada recently, the government made it mandatory to have an rc license to fly at all with an aircraft above 250 grams. Sadly , it will make it far rarer to have kids entering.
I have two teens. One is into RCs but doesn't want to commit time or money into it. Fair enough, since they commit that time and money into a different hobby. The other isn't into RCs as a hobby at all, but they know this because they had the chance to try it out first. When they were younger, I wanted them to at least be exposed to the hobby to see if they like it. If they didn't, that's cool....if they did, then I could have them build an RC with me and then give it to them. They could let me fly it. 🤷♂️ They hated the idea and when I mentioned anything to do with anything RC back then, they would immediately reject it. They hadn't seen or tried it yet, other than seeing a talented stunt pilot flying from a distance (which failed to leave an impression on them). So, the solution I've been using (and it's still in progress, as it takes time) is: 1) While they were young (age doesn't matter, that's just when I chose to do it), I bought a tiny indoor RC helicopter for 'myself' and flew it around. They would watch for a minute, then it was back to the screens. When that didn't work.....'I started collecting more' helicopters and flying them more. This helped me learn how to fly them so I could teach the kids later and it was a ton of fun. It was done this way for a specific reason; kids need to find things they like on their own, sometimes. So, these 'were dads helicopters' and 'maybe, when they are mature enough, dad will let you fly one'. That's what my wife would tell the kids and, at that point, it wasn't a lie, really. If they failed to be interested, then I would end up with a collection of RC helicopters of my own....but that wasn't what happened. ....Who could have predicted that my kids seeing me flying them around the house...would make them a wee bit jealous? 😉 Luckily, Dad 'has been collecting them' and, as luck would have it... that collection is *just* enough for one helicopter per person in the family and one spare. Almost like it was planned. 👍 They both begged to try it and I gave them the controls and a quick primer on how to fly them. One kid loved it, the other kid, not so much. After many 'CFIT' incidents with the toys, they broke. 2) As part of At Home Charter School (which is a state monitored public school but at home, like public school kids did during Covid lockdown....except, we get to tailor the classes. Hence, charter school. like a chartered flight, we pick the best course for the student's desired final destination), my son was doing physics as part of his 8th grade science class. That allowed me to show him aerodynamics for school and get him thinking about flight. He had tasks like coming up with an original design for a paper airplane, using what he learned in class (stalling, ground effect, phugoid cycles and their relationships to stalling aircraft, pitch, yaw, roll, dihedral effect....those types of things), and test his models. He would have to document the flight of each plane he made, then compare it to the desired flight path and change the design accordingly. 😉 The end goal was to make a plane that would fly at least 50 yards when tossed from the 2nd story. He demolished that goal and was motivated like I hadn't seen before! He made about 30 different planes, testing canards and various wings. That got him into flight. To others, it was "dad letting his kid make paper airplanes and calling it school"..... but to him, it was his gateway into flying and he now has a passion for aircraft! 3) Somehow, my dad got a cheap quadcopter with a camera on it and gave it to me. That wasn't planned... but learning to fly it in a particular way, that needs to be planned a bit. so, he needs to practice. This is a tip for all kids and adults who use their phones for gaming: one of the best ways to practice RC flying is with a RC simulator 👍 There are a few great apps that give you free models to start with and for $20, you can be training with warbirds, jets, high and low wing trainers, 3D planes....same with helicopters, boats and cars! The best part is that you can use a controller! So, you get used to flying with a two stick, 4 channel control layout! Once he found out how hard a quadcopter can be to control on a windy day (by trying it in the app), he wants to practice more and more so he can really enjoy his drone time 👍 I get the same thing out of it, plus I get to be a part of a hobby I can't afford. I can't afford a real RC plane, but I can fly them all day long with the sim and I love it! I can also put it in pilot view, fly a model Cub or F-16 or biplane....whatever I'm in the mood for, and run a joystick through it. Then, it's like a flight sim as well! It's fun taking a 747 model, making it a windy day, then practicing landings for hours! It's also great that I can crash over and over again....hit reset and start over for free! Long post, I know. Verbosity and me aren't friends. Still, hope this helps some parents out there. currently, my son and I are trying to design a rubberband powered plane with dual props, two rubberband motors per prop, a clutch to change from one motor to the next.... and are considering adding a flywheel, so the props move longer after power is cut. We've decided that a P-38 style plane is likely the best way to go, at the long tails give room for moving weight. 👍 That's how I got one of my kids into RC flying, with the little money I have to work with.
Thankyou so much for this video. A lack of new young blood, and new members in general, is the elephant in the room when it comes to our model clubs. I really appreciate the time and effort you guys put in. Totally agree with all the points made! One of your best videos in my view. I would like to suggest one more issue, which, I think is very worthy of mention and that is the introduction of Remote ID and accompanying regulations, which will almost certainly adversely affect park and private property flying. For those who comply on models over 250g and fit the module (come September 2023), the pilot's whereabouts will be broadcast in the area (to anyone with an app on their phone) which brings up a safety issue. What are your thoughts on this? Thankyou once again. I look forward to every video!!
as an italian 13 years old its a month that i've been flying with a 80 dollar trainer off amazon as a teenager i liked using my plane so now im gonna buy a bigger trainer (the fms 850mm ragner) and exercise so in the future i can fly bigger planes
From the 2rd grade I was aware there was a higher tier of RC plane than the air hogs toy grades, and by the end of 3rd grade I had a hobby grade 4 channel umx p-51 that I had completely self taught my self to fly and land safely, then by grade 6 I had gotten several different UMX planes, and by the beginning of middle school I had got my first larger RC plane, got extremely good at flying it, commonly went out to flying fields on the weekends where I had a mix of praise alongside people being scared of the "Kid" that could fly better than them, and now I fly absolutely everything RC, now with graduating high school and getting a decent part time job I can for once actually afford more batteries, and some of the planes I've dreamed of, and now while I figure out college, I'm looking for more used sail planes to get ahold of, more kits to build, and more people to fly with that are actually skilled RC pilots.
I think people are overlooking the simple economics of it, when milk and eggs are items you have to seriously consider the costs/benefits, the RC plane hobby may as well be a sport for people on another planet! And i saw this as a grown man that was fascinated by them as a kid and looked into and looked up all the hardware needed to fly a gas powered RC plane.
I don't know other countries, but in Spain regulations are very restrictive and you can only fly a RC plane if you belong to a RC Club and do it in a RC flying field. Most of people doesn't have any flying field in less than 30 minutes (driving) or more. Also the year fees of the clubs that I know are higher than the price of the first plane of any beginner...
i'm 14 and am lucky enough to have grandparents and my parents involved in everything rc, i was flying an avios grand tundra 1.8m wingspan at 11 as my second plane, my dad being a mechanic aswell gave me a pretty good jump into it all and i can now confidently strip and rebuild the 15cc engine in my hanger 9 carbon cub which was paid for in half by me and i've now just built a chriss foss wots wot biplane that i'm yet to maiden but most kids my age look at what i've got call me a spoilt brat because they dont think that anyone would want to work and go back to playing on their pc. oh and in the uk there's the bmfa which lets me get insured for 30 quid by doing an online form along with a couple of local clubs with guys going up into their 70's that just want to chat but i think thats just all brits
I started trying to get into the hobby when i was 13, and after a couple months of trying to even get certified i just quit. I couldnt just go back to hobbytown and buy a couple hundred worth of extra parts to fix my plane, and i didnt have any time to fix my stuff or get ready to fly at home anyway, so my instructor said to just drop the hobby.
I'm not sure what you mean by certified. We're really sorry to hear that wherever you were flying dictated when you could fly, and even worse - told you to quit altogether. That is not a supportive environment. You do not need to be "certified" to fly an RC plane. Go buy even a budget park flyer and fly it at your local park. Stay far away from the club you last went to.
I’m 12 this hobby is better than any other thing. Someone: Phone? Me: Heck no, rc planes I love rc planes and I hope they never die out, I have almost 6 planes now, prolly about 900$ into the hobby, I have an areoscout with Fpv, E-Flite Consendo Evo, Umx Pitts, Umx Timber, and a turbo timber. Thanks to many UA-camrs I had found this hobby 1 year ago and am still in the hobby. Also I don’t make any friends at school because they think it’s weird I like rc planes, so all my friends are from rc clubs.
the reason why i dont fly model planes is because when i was 8, i flew a drone through our living room window, and attempted to fly it out the way it went in. ended up going down the hallway, and through the glass door into the backyard. apparently, the window panes were so old, that they were thin enough to smash that easily
I'm older now, and into quadcopters (and because I know this channel thinks those are all mindless DJI auto flying things, no, actual full manual FPV quads) because I can take off from basically anywhere, but I can tell you the main thing that kept me out of it as a teen/early-20s: The BS surrounding the fields and landing strips. When you're a broke kid looking at the prices of these planes and some jerk storms over and says you have to buy AMA membership, field membership, insurance that can only be purchased through the AMA, complete several paid classes through the AMA... whole thing sounded like an expensive scam to me so I gave up on my interest. To be honest I still think it sounds like an expensive scam which is why I do everything I can to enjoy things that don't require the AMA.
these are all fun and all, and as someone who grew up with a dad in the hobby, going to model air fields, and having a family business serving the hobby, this list could be shortened to 3 things: 1) $, 2) Old people who don't want to let kids be kids, 3) and better uses of those scarce $. with #1 being about 90% of the problem. When a plane cost $750-1,500 kids cant play with the plane, they are there to fly a very rigid pattern, they are not to have fun with this, the old guys don't want you there and its a very unpleasant experience. Its a lot like Hotrods, 50-60 years ago, you could start building a model for a few bucks, take it out somewhere fly and if it crashed, you are out a few bucks. Now to get started, you are talking $1,000 for something that they may not like. my dads club wants $200 a year for the pleasure of going out to a very stuffy field and being miserable around 60-80 somethings who bitch about millennials like we kids who aren't to just about turn 40. Im 40 and don't want to hang around with them, no kid is going to want to go there. RC is a hobby old guys wanted all to themselves, and congratulations its all yours.
Ah, I remember starting to fly at around your age. And while I agree that there will always be cheaper pastimes, flying is quite rewarding. Not meaning to bore you with old tales, the stuff costs less nowadays at least by comparison than back then (last century). Anyway, don't let these things demotivate you and focus on how cool it feels to steer your model through manoeuvres. You'll pull through 😊
There seems to be a bit of a renaissance in model rockets at the moment - mostly driven by people on UA-cam showing off thrust vectored stabilisation as the technology has improved. I would put Joe Barnard and his BPS Space channel very near the centre of this phenomenon as his 7 year quest to land a model rocket propulsively (inspired by SpaceX) has been a big part of it. And a lot of this lead to Hot Nozzle Summer - with a lot of youth (and UA-camrs) involved.
After my brother and I made some money working a summer job as teens, we split the cost of RC equipment to buy our first RC plane and Radio system. We joined the AMA and went to one of their events and on our first day, some old asshole came and ripped all the control surfaces off our plane, because I had followed the instructions in the assembly manual and used CA glue instead of epoxy, which is not as good as epoxy in that situation. Another friendly guy helped fix the damage that the asshole did, then he took our plane for the first flight. Well, the plane had a serious issue and wanted to roll over and nose dive into the ground, so only an expert could maintain control of it even after trimming. We took it to the hobby shop and the very friendly shop owner went above and beyond in helping us fix the issue, but it was never fixed, and we never returned to the AMA meetings again. My brother tried to fly it and crashed, but it was fixable so I fixed it later on and tried to fly it as well, and it did its signature maneuver nose nose diving into the pavement at full speed, which left splinters and destruction all over the ground. Well, it got what it deserved, but we spent too much money on that when we didn't have much. So, the RC hobby is a waste of money if you don't have much money, and kids these days are spoiled brats without any discipline anyway, so nobody wants to spend any time with them. Do kids even get jobs anymore and buy something themselves? Anyway, the way I finally learned to fly was to buy a $35 air hogs aero ace RC plane at Walmart. It was so simple to fly. Then I later got the hobbyzone champ, and improved from there and also cheap coaxial RC helicopters and a cheap Syma quadcopter. Then I got a 4 channel foam glider with a brushless motor and I put a camera on it and would see how high I could fly and get video of the mountains and watch it on my computer afterward. Anyway, I taught myself to fly one step at a time. The AMA just drives new people away, there's a lot of arrogant snobs at those meetups, mixed with a few kind people, but the assholes ruin the value, so better off without them.
Most Kids dont race sports bikes, ride dirt bikes, shoot guns, fly ultralight, fly rc planes, etc.. These hobbies are expensive and are regulated to middle aged people (mostly men) and IMO that is ok. Just because there are not kids in it doesnt mean it will die, it just means they will start later in life when the time is right. I will say that many ride bikes and mountain bikes, which ironically can also be very expensive esp in medical bills but those hobbies are typically regulated to kids in the past which is changing.
i'm lucky to have found a club that everyone seems super cool. they are $50 a year and have a shelter with a refridgerator full of drinks and snacks. you just put your .50c in for a drink in the money box. they also have electric to use. pretty nice place and I haven't met a rude member yet. the boat club in our area...that's another story. quite a few stuck up rude guys in there. the flying sites where i live are all over the place. I literally live within 20 mins of 7 of them and 30 mins of 2 or 3 more. we also have a local company that builds balsa planes. old school model works.
The City of Austin RC Flight Park is right next door to the City of Austin Skeet and Sporting Clays Park. I always found that amusing if not somewhat disturbing.
The first point only really applies to places like the Usa and Canada, due to their cities almost entirely relying on cars for all of their transportation needs. Kids and teens can't drive, as it is literally illegal. Which makes getting to fields, hobby shops, workshops, or even a place to test one's own planes, incredibly difficult. If there were more transportation options available in the Usa, Canada and other places with this issue. Then it would allow for kids and teens to be able to get to these places on their own, and actually start to participate in this hobby. Or any other hobby, for that matter! Would also take a lot of cars off the road, which would be a great thing for public health and mental health as a whole! The Usa and Canada also do this absolutely awful thing called euclidean zoning. There was good intent behind it, but it was taken to the extreme. And the effect of taking it to the extreme was that it maximised the distance between home, work, shops and hobbies. Good luck convincing your mom to drive you 2 hours to a hobby shop, and then back... Thankfully, things have been changing for the better in these regions for the past few years. But more support is always welcomed. And thankfully, lots of places in the world aren't like this, and so take into consideration where you live. It could be a lot easier for you to get into the RC hobby than the perspective this video has would suggest. Also, there are some pretty pervasive ideas that result in a lot of inaction from people who would otherwise be pretty supportive of improving the places we live in. One of which that is really popular here on youtube, is "Scientists will solve it!" Almost always with some fancy new technology. Effectively treating science as if it is all about the technology that comes out of it! And it distracts people from even thinking about how we could use the technology and knowledge we already have! This idea is most popular among the "science" youtube sphere. Like that "Former Nasa scientist" you decided to jumpscare me with 6 minutes into the video. (Yes I've seen some people call him a scientist. I know he is just an engineer, and science is not his forte. (Yet he acts like it is...)) Sorry if this comment is a little long. But this is the type of thing that really gets the gears in my head turning.
As a 15 year old I do fly RC planes but I only fly them in Switzerland because I live right next to a golf course and whenever they say could we please use this tee I just leave I mainly fly em early in the morning ir late in the afternoon when they are not playing :)
I've flown just about every discipline of model airplane at one time or another. Simply put, I've always loved things that fly. Things that get thrown and fly are cool, I've hand made boomerangs back in the day... but R/C wins out at my greatest passion. My first model was the Bob Martin 2x6 glider in 1984. Back then I just flew in empty fields and just minded my own business and all was good. But I was self taught, had very little money and I was quite the amateur, because i was 14... and so, joining a club felt awkward; so, I never did. These days, I can't justify the expense. So, I'm relegated to honing my skills on Real Flight 8, with all the expansion packs and add-ons I could find, and that satisfies the need. But if I had one wish...I'd spend a million bucks on that hobby in a minute. If I was a billionaire, I'd build indoor fields, the size of blimp hangars, with retractable roofs for year round flying. They'd be like amusement parks; have it run on donations...and then build them all around the country so its convenient for people to get to... everyone would have a place to go fly, it would be glorious. 🤩 Maybe I should find a flying club.
Honestly for me it's the cost and the space. I'm a huge aviation buff and an Aerospace and Software engineer. I've long debated getting into RC planes, but honestly for the time and money I'd rather keep playing MSFS doing 100% accurate flights learning and practicing actual SOPs while saving my money for my actual PPL. A fact enhanced by the fact that I have nowhere nearby I could go to fly RC planes. You go to a park and the police are going to shut you down (after some Karen freaks out on you). RC planes are a stop gap for people who want to fly and can't fly real planes. And flight sims have really kneecapped that demographic.
I think the biggest limiting factor which also limits a lot of adults is price. What teenager has a couple of grand to drop on a plane and a controller when they can play a fight simulator on their computer for free and feel like they're in the airplane? It's the same reason there aren't a lot of adults joining this hobby. It's expensive. I remember when I was on 7th grade and I went to the library because I was super stoked out getting. I think it was an A6 intruder model. That was when ducted fans first came out. This is like oh Jesus 1993 maybe. Anyway, I vividly remember looking at the magazine in the back where you ordered stuff and saying the prices and thinking to myself. Maybe I can do this when I'm grown up. And I stopped looking at the magazine forever. Still never have flown an RC plane. Seems pointless. I can do more for less with VR.
I'm trying to get into rc planes due to my love in military aircraft planes. I'm just wondering what is good foam board for planes? I bought dollar store foam board for 12 bucks and its crappy . Pls helppppp
I'm 11 and just got my first RC plane a few days ago, it's not so good the plane that i got and my city doesn't have space for an RC plane flight, my friend is getting one soon so at least i have someone to keep me in the hobby, there aren't an fisical store nearby me to buy one, so i rely on the internet to buy my plane, its really cool, even my plane that don't have airleons and ruder
Set it up so an 'instructor' radio plugs into a usb port and uses game controllers. Kids know how to use game controllers. Well... I started at 27MHz. Quit, cars girls. Got back for 72MHz. Quit, oily mess. Checked back years later and electric wasn't ready yet. Now I'm 70 have an advanced ham ticket and I look back into it again and now you have connected mode radios yet you still call the transceiver, in the vehicle, the receiver. The vehicle is the server and the ground station is the client. (and for gods sake, use vertical polarization, cross polarization will cost you 20dB) I wanted to build some flying saucers with collision avoidance and a 14' ceiling, so it's a hovercraft ground vehicle. By the time I got a proof of concept going there was no RC equipment evolved anymore.
I really really want to fly but since i dont live in a country that has a big rc community, hell theres not even a hobby store that sells RC planes under €1000 near me, its near impossible for me to fly any plane since i cant find one
My dad makes 90% of his RC planes himself and he made me one a couple of years ago as a birthday. present he has made me 2 the "little plane" and the newer one that i have not yet tested because we never get to go to the Rc flying club
I'm an 18 year old who got into flying about 4 years ago, one of the biggest engagers to me was flite test and peter stripol and after watching their youtube videos it got me hooked. It also was one of the reasons i'm going to college for aerospace engineering.
I got into it largely cause of the same channels around early high school as well. By then I already knew I wanted to do it regardless, but it just reinforced my desire to go to college for aerospace engineering. Here I am at the end of my last semester, about to graduate and with a job already lined up. Good luck with your studies!
The barrier to entry into R/C aircraft has always been high. Mainly because of the cost and the learning curve. I didn't get into it until I was a senior in HS when I had a job. Crashed my Kadet II and had to wait until I graduated college to be get back into it. That was back in the 1980's. Best chance to get into the hobby at a young age is to have a parent who's already hooked.
It's less than a PlayStation! Learning isn't that hard with all the safe technology. As long as you leave it on. Unlike I did. 😂 My first crash was 5 minutes into flying. Nose first at pretty high speed. Still only cost about 30 bucks to repair.
me and my father tried to revive an old nitro rc car that was given to us, spent a significant amount of money to fix it but never were able to make it run. back in the 90s we had no knowledge, friends or internet to learn from, so yeah, the barrier was huge.
and maybe using fomies that you have to flay at max speed into a tree or a metal pole to make any damage, mine shrugs off hard (like nose into the ground hard) landings and always just got up and kept flying
As a 16 year old, I love flying my Rc planes. I started at like 12 years old and I have had so much fun. I consider myself lucky as I started this hobby with a friend and that I live in a fly in community, but now he is always gone to military school so I'm left alone, and I always wonder why none of my other friends want to do Rc. I still fly and I hope to make the best of my skills.
Start your own club with your friends. Come up with ways to get them engaged in the hobby with you. Flexibility is key. Good luck and keep at it if you enjoy it.
Hobbies don't really translate across relationships in my experience. When I was in a local RC club, it was just me coming together with other people that enjoyed that. Currently, I'm into boardgaming and kiteboarding as hobbies. My wife reluctantly humors me from time to time. Otherwise, my interactions are with other people, not in my friend group, that also like those things.
But im getting sick of it right now, every month something of my equipment breaks (I think its because of me only ~30% of the time) and I need to spend 30€-300€ to repair it, im always broke, ive spent 2000€+ on this hobby. Im getting into mountainbiking now, its also expensive but my bike doesnt break every month.
When I was 14 I was only allowed to build planes for my old man, then watch him crash them. The local clubs snubbed my brother and I out too. In my 20s I got back into rc, but with helicopters. I liked the little ones, I could fly them in the house. I started buying bigger ones for more stability. Experimented with early foam electric planes, but they were more fragile than balsa. The new epo foam planes are reasonable in price and very forgiving. I have a small squadron of them. Six months ago I bought my 1st drone. Gotta admit, I kinda regret that was a snob about refusing to try them for so long. Those things are fun and much more forgiving than helicopters. But the helicopters were my gateway drug into powered flight.
I’m looking into rocketry instead and because all rockets are kits it’s very rewarding. When I go to a event I’m one of the few kids who made their rocket and fly it by myself and didn’t come along because I had to.
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16 years old and have been a member of a flying club for around 2 years now. Almost everyone else is 55+ and always moaning why there's hardly any youth at the club.
When I first went was told I had to pass a theory and practical examination, bmfa a certificate and all that. Being 14 and just pursuing an interest sparked from videos I saw on UA-cam I was absolutely daunted by this and very nearly didn't go back but I did pursue it. Had to spend about 5 hours with an assigned mentor before they would let me fly on my own, and they wonder why there's only one member of the club under 50
This is a real problem. You have a unique and crucial opportunity to change this club’s mentality on getting youth interested. Please do your best and use that great perseverance to convince the membership what you, as a youth, prioritize to get into and stay in the hobby. I’m guessing it involves more emphasis on the FUN first, then gradually, the theory as you are mentored. Good for you to hang in there. Now pay it forward for other young modelers and mentor your mentors on youth promotion. Good job! Good luck. The ultimate goal should be YOU as a youth, teaching other youth at the club. Make the +55 crowd change their minds. Reach out to your AMA District (region where you live) VP and AVPs for help.
@@darendth8594 As a professional adult educator and job trainer, it's nearly always a fools errand to try to change the attitude or values of an adult. Most refuse to learn anything unless they seek it out themselves, and will reject any advice or suggestion other than their own, as in "who asked for your opinion?"
I started as a 50+ adult and learned flying anywhere I could. No club. I met other bootleggers like me and had many years of fun, learning, and friendships. I’ve been in three clubs and none offered the friendliness and fun. I now live away from my old flying buddies and belong to a very large high end club. Not nearly as much fun!
@@bluhammer06 Can you please elaborate on any details about your (I’m assuming AMA and in USA) club experiences? This video offers great feedback from members and very well may help direct some positive changes. Thanks in advance. AMA AVP dedicated to advocacy and outreach.
@@darendth8594 My club experiences have never been bad or contentious, but neither have they been overly welcoming. I’m a very outgoing personality but there seems to be tight groups of flyers at clubs most who fly the bigger expensive craft. Most have been less then open to welcome you into their world if your just a foamy flyer. We are all AMA/club members but I guess the big boys toys make a distinction. I don’t think I would have ever become the good flyer I am today without the on the edge, walking the line challenging flying my bootlegged friends and I did for many years! So much fun. My extensive videos online show our fun which I’m sure many would criticize. Oh well
as someone who started flying in middle school, I believe that all of these points are true. From my standpoint, it is essential to get parents involved to necessitate safety, but to also give the kid confidence while flying. I buddy-boxed for years, and I feel like that was super helpful. One other thing is that it is important to watch and see if your kid is getting better. I flew a sport cub for years as a kid, and it really did just get boring. As soon as I switched to the ArtiZan low wing airplane, my enjoyment skyrocketed. I also feel like a dedicated flying field isn't always necessary, I am lucky enough to have one close by, but I started flying in a parking lot with a used super cub. Some of the most fun I've had is fucking around with a umx timber at a baseball field with some friends. With the use of phones and Ipads, it will be extremely hard to pull younger kids out to fly. there really isn't a good way around it. it seems like if they aren't interested, you can't get them out to try it. but because of this, if you see a kid that is interested, jump on the chance and teach them everything you need to know.
Parents need to supply $$$. I guess you can make your kid to get a job to buy their own stuff but good luck with that.
Where you at ?
not so much the phones as the parents who gave it to them instead of raising them themselves.
@@stevendaleschmitt exactly lol. I'm glad I have great parents
I'm in high school and I'm actually a pretty avid flyer. My parents are supportive about it as long as I spend the money I make, and they'll drive me to the nearest flying field about an hour away as long as I bring my younger brothers with me to play at the nearby park. I mostly use ultra-micro planes as they are cheaper to maintain and I can fly them around in my grandparent's backyard (only a 10 minute drive away). I have dabbled in scratchbuilds and it is a very rewarding experience. I do hope this hobby can survive at least as long as I can live, as this is one of my main hobbies and I really enjoy it.
Your video is spot on! It’s not just the RC hobby suffering the same problems getting the young interested. I’ve experienced the same old git attitude in model engineering clubs, model railway/railroad clubs and even in the full size railway preservation societies. And the very same people say that they need more youth involvement!
I couldn’t agree more! I started flying in 2019 because there was a local club that had a kids camp where I learned to build and fly an Electro-Glider. In 2020 I stopped with the RC hobby. But 2 years ago I got addicted to FPV and now I’m building new FPV Wings every week and I‘m enjoying Planes more than ever
when i was 5yearsold my dad took me to a hobby town and I saw those beloved rc model aircraft and when I was 10 i got my first rc aircraft and was happy w/ it now I am 12 and have a 4ch rc plane that acts like a an actual 3d aircraft its awesome
Thank You Tail Heavy for the great content and the light you bring to the hobby
Model airplanes is what started my fascination with aviation. I started flying models probably around 8years old, some of my best memories were flying with the guys at the model field. Landing at night for the first time with minimal lights. Flying by myself for the first time, they did the whole solo thing cut the back of my shirt off.
All the guys were always very supportive and helpful with me teaching me aerodynamics and why different alterations of the models were effective. I’ve always loved the model airplane community and it’s what got me started in flying.
This has to be one of the best videos explaining the reasons why we dont see many kids at the field. I always preach, get the parents involved the kids will follow.
I remember building plastic models as a kid and being in awe of the RC planes in the hobby shop but it was so expensive and my dad and I maxed out our woodworking skills at pinewood derby cars. We actually got one of those Arrows paper and balsa rubber band kits and I didn't know where to start and neither did he. I was stunned by how much more accessible it was to teach myself to fly with youtube and a ready-to-fly Carbon Cub now that I'm an adult that could even be repaired when someone ran me off the runway and I broke the tail off. You're entirely right about the greater investment when you build your own anything, but I think that could be more than balanced out by the lower barrier to entry these days. With the right environment this could be a golden age for the hobby. One of those RTF setups fits an X-mas budget far better than anything I knew of back in the day.
As always Zach, excellent video! Huge thanks to Bryan Connelly as well, he's been such a huge factor in getting youth membership and parents to our field, and is one of the primary reasons why our field is continuing to thrive. I've been to events at other fields in the past and I often been asked how can fields attract younger members. I feel lucky to be part of a field that has a large youth membership and I feel grateful for the all the members that are part of our club, no matter the age.
Wonderfully done.
I was reminiscing just today about being around the house on Saturday and hearing the roaring whine of U line airplanes doing "combat" in the vacant lot down the block.
I sold all occasion cards and earned a Thimbledrone 049 u line plane.
65 years later, and I still fly an RC airplane.
Airplanes led to a great time in the Civil Air Patrol, the best kept secret in aviation. Keep up the good work!
To add the to “pay to win” point y’all made, the new features and gizmos marketed to beginners (SAFE/fancy transmitters/smart batteries/autopilots) actually make it more frustrating to get airplanes set up in my opinion. There’s so much more procedures & setup you need to mentally buy into with these sorts of things. Sometimes they work first try, but when they don’t, good luck figuring out your problem with no prior experience/context. Did you set up your smart radio? Did you calibrate your magnetometer? Could you figure out the smart battery charger? All things that would get me to give up before even making it out to the field. Getting out to the field and immediately crashing a basic 3ch would get me more amped up than having to learn what SAFE is, why I need it, and how to turn it on with my radio & make sure it’s working correctly
I've been wanting to recommend more basic airplanes for the same reasons.
Plus I don't want people locked into Spectrum.
Too bad it's literally impossible to find cheap EPP or EPO trainer airframes anymore, because on the other side, generic electronics are cheaper than they've ever been.
That stuff would have driven me up the wall, I started the hobby within that era but I'm glad I was too broke to afford any of it! 😛
You don't really need all the "safe" crap to set up your plane. I learned to fly before there was any such thing. Although my equipment has capability,
I the don't use it. Not saying it's a bad thing. The little micros definitely benefit from it. One if the most important things is to select the right model for your skill level. You certainly don't want a try to learn on a fast war bird.
dunno, i got my first RTF plane last year with SAFE, i just put it on the ground and gave gas and it started flying. i think it can't be easier than that. and i didn't do any fatal damage thanks to be a foamie. just a switch to have it on or off. way better than building your own plane and crashing it at the maiden because it has no easy mode
One problem was not addressed : frustration tolerance
I remember how many models were destroyed by my self, after i spend many hours to build it. Either because of construction errors, construction errors, or just control errors.
In addition, in the 1970s the remote controls became more reliable, but flying was still very elementary and it took some time before the model was mastered.
Today I buy the child a drone and it flies (almost) by itself.
Even the flight maneuvers that are shown in the videos are managed through the massive use of electronics. I don't think more than 1% of users would be able to fly the maneuvers without electronics.
I gotta say you got that hobby store part right on the head. Literally how I got into the hobby as a kid.
I bought my first ARF at age 12. My dad helped me pay for parts and assemble the model. He spent HOURS of his time driving me to the field, teaching me to fly on a buddy box sacrificing his own stick time to help me learn. Without his 100% dedication to see me succeed I wouldn't be in this hobby today. Im 32 and have kids of my own now, I really hope this is a hobby I can pass down to at least one of my children.
22 year old guy here , and i can absolutely agree with every single point in this video.
during high school i almost lost connection to the hobby but i kept myself in the hobby by trying at least one new rc plane per year.
At my club all people are old and not really youth friendly. So what i d like most is someone who would go flying with me that is around my age. i have a friend who drives rc cars and , it connects us eventhough planes and cars are 2 completely different things
so if you are around luxembourg and looking for a flying buddy
hit me up
ama is only useful as a insurance company for flying fields
I respectfully disagree...
@@old_coastie You are very much welcome to. Counter arguments are welcome.
Flying a foamy at a neighbourhood park a kid ran up to me very excited. He was there with his dad they both were interested. Thinking back I should have had a second transmitter and a buddy cord and offered to let them fly my plane. I believe I can teach people to fly RC. That was a missed opportunity for me to maybe bring two people in to the hobby
Bit off topic but, my local rifle club had a similar dilemma, how to get kids into the hobby. It took a lot of work on the part of members and some changes to how we ran our weekly events, but it turned around , we are a small country club but currently we have around 120 members of which around 20 are junior members.
Around 8 years ago, at the school library, there was a book about aircraft. Being intrested in aircraft and ships was always a thing. What this particular book had, was a page on how to build a glider and another one about a simple rubber powered helicopter. By then I was building static model aircraft out of lamina, tape and markers, but none for flying. That book sparked an intrest into Free Flight. So I started experimenting with whatever materials was around. Of course, having an aircraft made out of cardboard, lamina and tape results in a brick. Gliders made of lamina and in smaller scale fared more better and stronger. Still, I was longing for an aircraft that could fly longer, and higher. So my parents took me to an old Hobby store and bought me an R/C Piper cub, and a gillows rubber powered Jetstream, which I cherished more. The Piper didn't last long before I crashed it and broke the wing. The Jetstream lasted a little longer until the prop bearing broke. After that I continued to build. By 2016, I was building aircraft from your average party foam plates and by the summer of 2017, tape was no longer used in construction. Instead, I went on to use Glue, so to lighten the aircraft. From that moment onward, many aircraft were built, but only a few passed. By 2019, with a fleet of around 30 aircraft, balsa wood was discovered, but it was too late, for after more than 5 years of bad luck, I gave up, and moved on to Free Sailing. The reasons for the change was 1: hobbie stores were I live (Which is Malta) are almost non existent. Sure, there are a shop or two, but none cater for free flight, not even for free sailing. Sourcing materials like Rubber, wheels and props, all had to come from outside. 2: The fields I used to go was in the golf course and another full of rocks. There aren't any areas to go except for two R/C fields, which are too small and certain that only members can enter. And 3: Even after converting to foam and glue, almost all the aircraft I built failed to fly, no matter how hard I tried to build them according to the plans, and countless hours of watching UA-cam and browsing the Internet, Bad luck was most of the time around the corner. In the end, I only had a few aircraft to be proud of, but they didn't last. Im 19 now, and now facing the same dilemma on free sailing. I recently moved my "shipyard" from the same place I spent countless hours building those birds. Sometimes, I wonder if I should close up the shop. Just like the lack of fields, only after a fine gale could I ever watch my hard work do its thing. In that sector, I also suffer from bad luck. This video had said about the same things that I had experienced before. I was around 13 when I was interested, and even to this day I am longing to build one more bird.
I am a teenager who got a group of friends to fly with me and we go down to the local park and have fun and then we try to learn from our mistakes and not judge others and we occasionally get people who watch us and ask questions that I am happy to enjoy but one of the big things keeping me from big parts of this hobby is the club rules and members fees
12 yrs, just started flying some mini warbirds. I got a p-47 and a spitfire that i bought. Both are volantex starter planes. I haven’t done a maiden of the p-47 yet as the weather in britain is screaming no!
when i was a kid i was super into rc anything. i was your typical kid with a bunch of broken airhogs and begging my parents for more to which they would resupply every christmas or birthday.
one day my dad took me and my brother to an rc airshow not far out of town. i instantly fell in love. there were so many really cool planes from jets to nitro powered WWII to early cold war props to model utility aircraft. I'll never forget the A-1 skyraider they had that used fully functional turboprop engines.
from then on i wanted a nice rc plane so badly. of course the ones i wanted were hundreds of dollars but i still kept saving my allowance. eventually on my 14th birthday my mom surprised me with a horizon sport cub s. that plane has been through so much; crash after crash and visit after visit to the local hobby shop it still flies today.
i was never able to really pursue this hobby simply because of how expensive it is. but one day i might be able to afford some nice ones, who knows.
I would add the FAA and media demonizing the hobby as one of the major modern drivers killing the “hobby” for the youth!
Changing the narrative with the “public” would be a giant uphill battle!
Balsa replaced with foam isn't a terrible trade. if you go to foamies, both flat and 3-d, it's actually easier and cheaper than ever to scratch build to plans with foam and fly with electric power systems easily sourced online. As Flite Test proves. It's old school nitro-burning, Monokote-covered internal combustion prop planes that are losing ground. The hobby is always advancing, and you may not like where it goes but it's where the money pulls it.
The availability of good fields nearby makes all the difference. A convenient field that's hospitable will draw kite flyers, aeromodelers, & rocketeers like a magnet. Developers and the more restrictive FAA flying site regs brought about by commercializing drones, are taking all the close available land away from RC'ers. I told my old flying club members back in '92 they needed to think like golfers do, long-term, and buy their own land, before developers priced it out of reach. They always came back to: "iIm too cheap to put in enough money to a pool with others, to fund a field I don't use that often... and we'll just find another field a mile or two down the road... I'd rather spend that money on my planes...
And sure enough, in a period of four years, the club got kicked off one field and another, three times, having to drive further and further out into the dwindling countryside, making a gravel drive and transmitter shelter and etc. each time... Each time they said: "The developers will never come out this far". They were very wrong. Within five years from peak membership, the club was dead and absorbed into other clubs that had invested in their land, instead of renting season to season and trusting to luck.
Getting kids into a car to drive them to the flight field isn't unlike driving them to soccer or little league or etc. after school... but here in the midwest, the good flight season in terms of daylight savings time, sunlight and wind and temps is relatively short, say, June to August, and conflicts with other family activities like vacations and school breaks. If you can only fly after work gets out at five, and if the weather is clear and calm, means you get to fly maybe once a week for two hours, tops, and deduct the drive time to the field from that two hours as well. Lunchtime flying is becoming very hard to find a spot for, and the drive times are impractical. Indoor flying is also hard to resource. People have more luck using simulators and gaming their RC flying now. The kids flaming and dogfighting each other online using DCS sims would have been your RC combat and fun fly pilots in a previous generation.
This is where park flying might have been a help, but parks are becoming inhospitable to RC as well, more and more. Plus, parks are often not ideal beginner spaces, with too many trees, high trees, cars, no empty areas for crashes, random people coming thru the danger space, conflicts with other park users, busybody park rangers and cops and Karens, etc. The kinds of beginner planes that also work well in a small park are frankly very toy-like in many cases, hard to see, work poorly in winds, have short battery durations, long recharge times, and just don't grab the attention like larger, more impressive models might. Conditions that drones can mostly ignore, but drones are not airplanes, not usually, and except for racing, drones are more of a solitary sport than fixed wing modeling. Real estate conditions drive RC hobbyists to the margins of useable spaces; parking lots, cul de sacs, empty lots, places unsuited to building a regular routine club presence.
Aside from all the other correct problems the video lists, societal changes and this loss of easy sites is a key factor.
We fly as a family. My wife and daughter fly often, my baby girl, 21 months is working on a simulator and she surprisingly understands it!
I’ve been around Rc planes sins I was tiny my dad always used to take me with him to fly. It really surprised me how few people knew it even existed since I was just born around it. I fly some planes with my dad now and it’s really nice. Would be great to have some more people my age out there though.
Guess I should mention I’m 22 now lol
I'm 16. just finished assembling my 100" Blackhorse Lysander. horrified to maiden it but it will probably feel great if I can land it successfully like my foamies
As a 12 year old kid it's really fun to build your own plane and it really takes a lot of time when I am not doing my homework.
I love you guys Tail Heavy. Tail Heavy > Flight Test
I started when I was 16, around 1.5 years ago. Since then, I've mastered the process of CFD and CAD design, structural analysis, lightweight composite lamination and getting flight controllers to work with antenna trackers, for up to 50km long-range digital video range and 200km total flight distance capability, and all of that stuff. Although some disagree with the long-range stuff, although I understand some of the concerns, to those I say, think about who will be the aerospace engineers and innovators of the future. Safety is first, always. In my country, the only people in the rc hobby are 60-year-old retired men who only build balsa and combustion engine planes, who look down on the modern electric stuff and have ludicrous fees and safety rules on their flying fields. Me having access to the internet, I figured I'd just learn stuff by myself and do my own thing. On Facebook, the treatment I got from them was enough for me to never want to interact with people like that again.
I'm also interested in this same aspect of RC and I'm 16, what transmitter and ground station do you use? I have a Tx16s with a a 1 watt Es24tx pro ELRS module for my radio link. I use Ev800d's with a TrueRC X-air and a custom made 5 turn helical for video link. I'm currently making a plane that looks like a strix nano goblin, but wire cut out of XPS insulation. I don't use CFD or CAD software because I barely understand it, but most of what I design still flies just by using basic aerodynamic principals. Thanks for your insight!
@@marksworkbench8705 That setup is excellent! I also have pretty much the same system, with the remote, goggles, helix antenna and everything. However, my ELRS module is just 500mW.
Hotwire cutting foam, and then laminating it with 25gsm fiberglass and epoxy resin, is the easiest and cheapest way to make something light and durable. Covering it with tape also works well.
Recently, I also bought a SIYI Hm30 30-40km long-range digital full hd datalink/video system, and attached it to the MFD antenna tracker, but it's slightly less enjoyable to use, as the video is only visible on a tablet/laptop screen instead of FPV goggles.
Out of these two systems, I prefer the analog system, as it's affordable, incredibly immersive, and weighs less.
You can get really far without any CFD software. As you mentioned, by following the basic principles, you can make something that flies excellently. Pretty much the most important things to keep an eye on, is wing loading, horizontal stabilizer size and location, as well as the CG, most importantly. CFD is only required if you want to get those extra couple of percent more efficiency.
I started flying when i was 5 years old, worked in a model shop for 5 years and worked making model engines for the past 12 years. In all that time i have been the youngest regular flyer at every club i have been a part of. I completely agree with almost everything in this video and even now in my 30's i have to deal with grumpy old men upset that i am flying something they cant. The only point of the video i slightly disagree with are some of the comments on safety, rules and tests. While i totally agree that most clubs have a list of totally irrelevant rules a well thought out set of rules is a good thing, and having a test to pass can also be a good thing as it offers a sense of achievement to the student when they pass. The test should be viewed positively rather than as a barrier. The real world is also full of rules and regulations so teaching kids to respect them is no bad thing.
I've been interested in the hobby since I was 10, (18 now0, dad thought it was cool but never got involved, at around 13 got my first rc trail truck and that group of people are amazing, their kids are involved, they go trail hiking every weekend, everyone is super friendly and helpful, especially if your truck breaks there are 10 guys who jump to help, I recently got into planes about 2 years ago and the experience is not the same, as someone going into the engineering field and someone who doesnt have a lot of money all my builds are made from scratch (made the mistake of starting with an edf so there are like 20 redesigns), I remember my first day at the airfield, only one guy was nice to me, but he didnt stay long, everyone else just bragged about how much money their planes cost and no one was helpful. None of my planes would fly and once they saw that I was just kicked off the runway, no one bothered to lend a hand or anything, Went a couple more times till it was like you know what I'll wait till im in uni so I dont have to worry about these assholes all old guys bitching about whats wrong with this generation, man idk maybe its you lol. I also have no one my age into it, lots of people think its cool when I tell them about it but for the most part everyone kinda avoids it. I have no one my age into, tried to get some kids from my robotics team and other teams but no one had a real interest. I think people should start learne
I’m in my 30’s and have been getting into RC planes after flying FPV drones for a few years. I tried to join one of the two local RC clubs but the membership dues were outrageous, and the clubs consisted of, and I really hate to say this, a bunch of old dudes cosplaying as full scale pilots. Lots of rules, only flying in the pattern, and a hostility towards anything different, like FPV planes, newer RC tech (like OpenTX radios or ExpressLRS) and a fear of hypothetical danger. If this environment was this unwelcoming to me as an adult, I can’t imagine what it would be like as a kid.
Great video and so true. I am an instructional designer. I'd love to teach ground school to kids or adults, but I'm not a very good pilot. My club charges $25 for a training flight, and has only vintage nitro planes for the purpose, when I recently bought an EDF Habu with two flights on it at a garage sale for $15!
I have quit clubs because of bad attitudes, wise cracks, overpopulation, excessive rules, etc. Off-the-shelf, pay-to-win fliers are boring. Nobody likes interacting with crusty, biased, stick-in-the-mud people unless they share the exact same views; my rural, tiny club of 50 members has more than it's share. I chose it because I can often have the field to myself.
I fly anything, and am interested in learning all. I fly a balsa kit Kadet, an ARF SuperSportster and Cosmic Wind, foam HABU EDF, and Pitts Special. New to the club last January, I sensed their feelings, keep quiet, and let them see that my 17" UMX foam, electric, gyro equipped Pitts Special can outperform any other ship at our field.
I'm from france and the only place you are allowed to fly rc planes are in your yard or in rc club terrains. I discovered the rc plane hobby at an exposition where a club was showing few light planes flying, explaining things and trying to recruit new members.
After that I joined the club, flew with a monitor for free on a basic easystar for a year, learn a lot, after that the french federation of aeromodelism gave me the opportunity to buy an electric trainer with an futaba t8j for only 150€, so I bought it, mounted the plane, flew a lot with it and passed to other projects.
The issue in this lobby is that clubs like mine are diseappering, and the only club that are left are held by some egocentric 40 years old that don't care about youth but only about how skilled they are and how they are the best pilots in the hobby (if you listen them they can win all the cups that exist in the hobby).
And also when you are below 15, putting more than 100€ in something isn't always something easy.
At the same times the clubs are facing the issue of Karens and intolerant that can't handle the fact that a RC plane is flying at 3km of their houses, so they call the police, make pressure over the town hall council to make us leave ...
The laws are limiting us more and more, with people being affraid because of the tv saying the russian are using "drones" to kill people in a war, so the 2k€ mavic pro from the local flight club would probably do the same thing for whatever reason.
I'm really not optimistic for the future of this hobby.
Gen z spokesman here. Genuinely weighed buying an RC plane but for a pretty similar price I got my hands on a drone. Honestly I think the drone community is gonna outgrow you guys, not because it’s a better hobby but simply because drone footage is all over social media simply because the barrier to enter is low. Anybody can grab a dji and slap some half decent nature shots on instagram. Therefore nearly everyone has seen drone footage. Not so sure I can say when the last time I’ve seen RC plane content.
this video mate surely was the last RC plane content you saw befor commenting
Yup, a few years ago I tried to get into the hobby but eventually gave up, especially here in de Randstad in the Netherlands where it's hard to find a place where you can even legally fly RC stuff. I ended up not really being able to get the brushless motor to not shake itself apart from the plane and ended up quitting, still have the stuff and even a new lipo that I bought when I got back in for a bit and the parts din't turn on anymore so maybe in the future, I have a parttime job next to my education now at least
I 100% agree that the biggest issues with getting kids my age into the hobby is cost, girls, and time. It’s when a teenager gets a job, goes to school 5 days a week, and has a girlfriend it’s super hard to make time to go out to a field or have any extra money for planes. The experience with finding an AMA club that isn’t a bunch of stubborn old dudes isn’t something I can really say much about because I haven’t really met anyone who has ever been rude or disrespectful but hearing from others stories it definitely doesn’t help the hobby either. If I had one tip for younger guys starting in this hobby, it would definitely be like Zach said, find a good group of friends that might be interested in flying with you and bring them out to see if they enjoy it. I’ve met a bunch of amazing people on discord as well who are super helpful and fun to talk to, so using that as a resource to help you learn is great too.
Spot on Jesse😂
Finding a girlfriend who likes to fly will also help!😂 Besides making better wives, maybe you will get to marry your best flying buddy!😅😅😅
I think the stubborn old dudes imagery is more a product of sheltered people not knowing how to interact with others than it is a product of reality. I mean kids are taking lessons on how to speak with another human being on the phone for crying out loud. They are terrified of even the slightest conflict. A person asked a question the other day on RCGroups about flying sailplanes at local clubs in Austin. I informed them of at least one that welcomes them but since their email wasn't returned by the club, they assumed the worst. Wonderful club but they will never know because the welcome mat wasn't rolled out with the promise of a conflict free zone. That just isn't how the world works, especially at model aircraft clubs where those who have been flying there for half a century are used to flying in a specific pattern to avoid as much risk as possible. I even informed them that the field is often so sparsely attended that there would be ample opportunity to fly by themselves, however they wished. But the lack of an email response sealed the deal. They were convinced they weren't welcome. :(
i am 13 years old and i've participated FXFC competitions... i hope this hobby never dies
that plane crashing into the kid broke me i cant stop laughing
Same. I had already seen the clip in another video, but my low-brow sense of humour just fails me every time.
Had to laugh out loud.
im 15 and just got into the rc plane stuff with a volantex (or eachine) corsair and its great fun and i want to collect the whole warbird series!
You forgot: Grandma hears the kid is interested in the hobby and buys them a $30 plane from Harbor Freight that doesn't even have enough juice to make it fall out of the sky gracefully and the kid goes "This is stupid I'm going to go play Fortnight"
I foil surf every day and I would like to get into paragliding.
RC planes seems like the best way to kinda live out the ability of flying for pretty cheap.
I always did find it odd the only people flying RC planes are old retired guys at the park.
I’m about to turn 30 so maybe I’m just old.
My son now 46 was 7 when I purchased the home from my parents I grew up in (Built my first U-Control plane) PT-19. At 11 he found my Beat up Sterling Profile P-51 as of lines and we recovered it fixed the Vertical stab and rudder got a battery and fuel and he learned to fly. Joined the Circle Masters met ART Webber. Then one day bought our 1st R/C plane a very poorly built Trainer 60 with a K&B 61 from ABC Hobby. Joined Milwaukee Electrons (Now just Electrons) and met Jim Wainer The most Patient R/C Instructor ever. Out of 19 TO's( if the K&B Started we had 19 Dead Sticks. Replaced the K&B learned to fly Davy my son got better than me real fast turned 17 found girls and cars quit R/C and Women now as a Bachelor with a stable of Vehicles though expensive are(all cheaper the women).
I live near Joe Nall at triple tree in Woodruff S.C. One problem is it costs $15.00 just to get in and it's no open to the public so it's a private event but the biggest in the east cost.
As a 31 year old kid at heart i love this hobby and i was flying as a kid before there was flite test and all these amazing beginner teach yout self flying rc planes with stablization. I had to spend a month or two building a balda plane that was beautiful then buddy box withba friend or try to learn on my own and if i crash i jad to rebuild and start over. And i volunteer at a boy's and girls club and i teach the hobby group room where each age group comes for two hours everyday and builds a plane or a model or what ever it is we are building thast month that is age friendly for each age group and my kids from ages 10-15 love building the flite test planes and parents donate money to keeo funding it and now we have a huge club of kids that are now building balsa planes and have joined rc plaane clubs that fly with me and my club on the weekends and i jave had ine kid get his pilots license when he was 17 and thabked me for getting him into planes when he was 13-14 years old and he is going tk hecome a airlines pilot
I've kind of set down the hobby for now as I've been flying paramotor now.
In Canada recently, the government made it mandatory to have an rc license to fly at all with an aircraft above 250 grams. Sadly , it will make it far rarer to have kids entering.
I have two teens. One is into RCs but doesn't want to commit time or money into it. Fair enough, since they commit that time and money into a different hobby. The other isn't into RCs as a hobby at all, but they know this because they had the chance to try it out first.
When they were younger, I wanted them to at least be exposed to the hobby to see if they like it. If they didn't, that's cool....if they did, then I could have them build an RC with me and then give it to them. They could let me fly it. 🤷♂️
They hated the idea and when I mentioned anything to do with anything RC back then, they would immediately reject it. They hadn't seen or tried it yet, other than seeing a talented stunt pilot flying from a distance (which failed to leave an impression on them).
So, the solution I've been using (and it's still in progress, as it takes time) is:
1) While they were young (age doesn't matter, that's just when I chose to do it), I bought a tiny indoor RC helicopter for 'myself' and flew it around. They would watch for a minute, then it was back to the screens.
When that didn't work.....'I started collecting more' helicopters and flying them more. This helped me learn how to fly them so I could teach the kids later and it was a ton of fun. It was done this way for a specific reason; kids need to find things they like on their own, sometimes. So, these 'were dads helicopters' and 'maybe, when they are mature enough, dad will let you fly one'. That's what my wife would tell the kids and, at that point, it wasn't a lie, really. If they failed to be interested, then I would end up with a collection of RC helicopters of my own....but that wasn't what happened.
....Who could have predicted that my kids seeing me flying them around the house...would make them a wee bit jealous? 😉 Luckily, Dad 'has been collecting them' and, as luck would have it... that collection is *just* enough for one helicopter per person in the family and one spare. Almost like it was planned. 👍 They both begged to try it and I gave them the controls and a quick primer on how to fly them.
One kid loved it, the other kid, not so much.
After many 'CFIT' incidents with the toys, they broke.
2) As part of At Home Charter School (which is a state monitored public school but at home, like public school kids did during Covid lockdown....except, we get to tailor the classes. Hence, charter school. like a chartered flight, we pick the best course for the student's desired final destination), my son was doing physics as part of his 8th grade science class. That allowed me to show him aerodynamics for school and get him thinking about flight. He had tasks like coming up with an original design for a paper airplane, using what he learned in class (stalling, ground effect, phugoid cycles and their relationships to stalling aircraft, pitch, yaw, roll, dihedral effect....those types of things), and test his models. He would have to document the flight of each plane he made, then compare it to the desired flight path and change the design accordingly. 😉 The end goal was to make a plane that would fly at least 50 yards when tossed from the 2nd story. He demolished that goal and was motivated like I hadn't seen before! He made about 30 different planes, testing canards and various wings. That got him into flight.
To others, it was "dad letting his kid make paper airplanes and calling it school"..... but to him, it was his gateway into flying and he now has a passion for aircraft!
3) Somehow, my dad got a cheap quadcopter with a camera on it and gave it to me. That wasn't planned... but learning to fly it in a particular way, that needs to be planned a bit.
so, he needs to practice. This is a tip for all kids and adults who use their phones for gaming: one of the best ways to practice RC flying is with a RC simulator 👍 There are a few great apps that give you free models to start with and for $20, you can be training with warbirds, jets, high and low wing trainers, 3D planes....same with helicopters, boats and cars! The best part is that you can use a controller! So, you get used to flying with a two stick, 4 channel control layout!
Once he found out how hard a quadcopter can be to control on a windy day (by trying it in the app), he wants to practice more and more so he can really enjoy his drone time 👍
I get the same thing out of it, plus I get to be a part of a hobby I can't afford. I can't afford a real RC plane, but I can fly them all day long with the sim and I love it! I can also put it in pilot view, fly a model Cub or F-16 or biplane....whatever I'm in the mood for, and run a joystick through it. Then, it's like a flight sim as well! It's fun taking a 747 model, making it a windy day, then practicing landings for hours!
It's also great that I can crash over and over again....hit reset and start over for free!
Long post, I know. Verbosity and me aren't friends. Still, hope this helps some parents out there.
currently, my son and I are trying to design a rubberband powered plane with dual props, two rubberband motors per prop, a clutch to change from one motor to the next.... and are considering adding a flywheel, so the props move longer after power is cut. We've decided that a P-38 style plane is likely the best way to go, at the long tails give room for moving weight. 👍
That's how I got one of my kids into RC flying, with the little money I have to work with.
I keep trying to watch your content. Everytime I do, I just feel like you look at everything through tunnel vision.
😥
Thankyou so much for this video. A lack of new young blood, and new members in general, is the elephant in the room when it comes to our model clubs. I really appreciate the time and effort you guys put in. Totally agree with all the points made! One of your best videos in my view. I would like to suggest one more issue, which, I think is very worthy of mention and that is the introduction of Remote ID and accompanying regulations, which will almost certainly adversely affect park and private property flying. For those who comply on models over 250g and fit the module (come September 2023), the pilot's whereabouts will be broadcast in the area (to anyone with an app on their phone) which brings up a safety issue. What are your thoughts on this? Thankyou once again. I look forward to every video!!
Thank you! Glad you liked it. Change doesn’t happen unless the elephant in the room is brought up front. 👍
as an italian 13 years old its a month that i've been flying with a 80 dollar trainer off amazon as a teenager i liked using my plane so now im gonna buy a bigger trainer (the fms 850mm ragner) and exercise so in the future i can fly bigger planes
From the 2rd grade I was aware there was a higher tier of RC plane than the air hogs toy grades, and by the end of 3rd grade I had a hobby grade 4 channel umx p-51 that I had completely self taught my self to fly and land safely, then by grade 6 I had gotten several different UMX planes, and by the beginning of middle school I had got my first larger RC plane, got extremely good at flying it, commonly went out to flying fields on the weekends where I had a mix of praise alongside people being scared of the "Kid" that could fly better than them, and now I fly absolutely everything RC, now with graduating high school and getting a decent part time job I can for once actually afford more batteries, and some of the planes I've dreamed of, and now while I figure out college, I'm looking for more used sail planes to get ahold of, more kits to build, and more people to fly with that are actually skilled RC pilots.
If I started a club I would call it The Flying Wallets.
I think people are overlooking the simple economics of it, when milk and eggs are items you have to seriously consider the costs/benefits, the RC plane hobby may as well be a sport for people on another planet!
And i saw this as a grown man that was fascinated by them as a kid and looked into and looked up all the hardware needed to fly a gas powered RC plane.
I don't know other countries, but in Spain regulations are very restrictive and you can only fly a RC plane if you belong to a RC Club and do it in a RC flying field.
Most of people doesn't have any flying field in less than 30 minutes (driving) or more. Also the year fees of the clubs that I know are higher than the price of the first plane of any beginner...
i'm 14 and am lucky enough to have grandparents and my parents involved in everything rc, i was flying an avios grand tundra 1.8m wingspan at 11 as my second plane, my dad being a mechanic aswell gave me a pretty good jump into it all and i can now confidently strip and rebuild the 15cc engine in my hanger 9 carbon cub which was paid for in half by me and i've now just built a chriss foss wots wot biplane that i'm yet to maiden but most kids my age look at what i've got call me a spoilt brat because they dont think that anyone would want to work and go back to playing on their pc.
oh and in the uk there's the bmfa which lets me get insured for 30 quid by doing an online form along with a couple of local clubs with guys going up into their 70's that just want to chat but i think thats just all brits
I started trying to get into the hobby when i was 13, and after a couple months of trying to even get certified i just quit. I couldnt just go back to hobbytown and buy a couple hundred worth of extra parts to fix my plane, and i didnt have any time to fix my stuff or get ready to fly at home anyway, so my instructor said to just drop the hobby.
I'm not sure what you mean by certified. We're really sorry to hear that wherever you were flying dictated when you could fly, and even worse - told you to quit altogether. That is not a supportive environment. You do not need to be "certified" to fly an RC plane. Go buy even a budget park flyer and fly it at your local park. Stay far away from the club you last went to.
I’m 12 this hobby is better than any other thing.
Someone: Phone?
Me: Heck no, rc planes
I love rc planes and I hope they never die out, I have almost 6 planes now, prolly about 900$ into the hobby, I have an areoscout with Fpv, E-Flite Consendo Evo, Umx Pitts, Umx Timber, and a turbo timber.
Thanks to many UA-camrs I had found this hobby 1 year ago and am still in the hobby.
Also I don’t make any friends at school because they think it’s weird I like rc planes, so all my friends are from rc clubs.
the reason why i dont fly model planes is because when i was 8, i flew a drone through our living room window, and attempted to fly it out the way it went in. ended up going down the hallway, and through the glass door into the backyard. apparently, the window panes were so old, that they were thin enough to smash that easily
I'm older now, and into quadcopters (and because I know this channel thinks those are all mindless DJI auto flying things, no, actual full manual FPV quads) because I can take off from basically anywhere, but I can tell you the main thing that kept me out of it as a teen/early-20s: The BS surrounding the fields and landing strips. When you're a broke kid looking at the prices of these planes and some jerk storms over and says you have to buy AMA membership, field membership, insurance that can only be purchased through the AMA, complete several paid classes through the AMA... whole thing sounded like an expensive scam to me so I gave up on my interest. To be honest I still think it sounds like an expensive scam which is why I do everything I can to enjoy things that don't require the AMA.
these are all fun and all, and as someone who grew up with a dad in the hobby, going to model air fields, and having a family business serving the hobby, this list could be shortened to 3 things:
1) $,
2) Old people who don't want to let kids be kids,
3) and better uses of those scarce $.
with #1 being about 90% of the problem.
When a plane cost $750-1,500 kids cant play with the plane, they are there to fly a very rigid pattern, they are not to have fun with this, the old guys don't want you there and its a very unpleasant experience.
Its a lot like Hotrods, 50-60 years ago, you could start building a model for a few bucks, take it out somewhere fly and if it crashed, you are out a few bucks. Now to get started, you are talking $1,000 for something that they may not like.
my dads club wants $200 a year for the pleasure of going out to a very stuffy field and being miserable around 60-80 somethings who bitch about millennials like we kids who aren't to just about turn 40.
Im 40 and don't want to hang around with them, no kid is going to want to go there.
RC is a hobby old guys wanted all to themselves, and congratulations its all yours.
As a 14 year old, my first plane was a flight test simple cub. I scratch built it off some plans I n the internet
I am fourteen and fly at a block plant. It’s a fun hobby but it does cost a lot.
Ah, I remember starting to fly at around your age. And while I agree that there will always be cheaper pastimes, flying is quite rewarding.
Not meaning to bore you with old tales, the stuff costs less nowadays at least by comparison than back then (last century).
Anyway, don't let these things demotivate you and focus on how cool it feels to steer your model through manoeuvres. You'll pull through 😊
There seems to be a bit of a renaissance in model rockets at the moment - mostly driven by people on UA-cam showing off thrust vectored stabilisation as the technology has improved. I would put Joe Barnard and his BPS Space channel very near the centre of this phenomenon as his 7 year quest to land a model rocket propulsively (inspired by SpaceX) has been a big part of it. And a lot of this lead to Hot Nozzle Summer - with a lot of youth (and UA-camrs) involved.
After my brother and I made some money working a summer job as teens, we split the cost of RC equipment to buy our first RC plane and Radio system. We joined the AMA and went to one of their events and on our first day, some old asshole came and ripped all the control surfaces off our plane, because I had followed the instructions in the assembly manual and used CA glue instead of epoxy, which is not as good as epoxy in that situation. Another friendly guy helped fix the damage that the asshole did, then he took our plane for the first flight. Well, the plane had a serious issue and wanted to roll over and nose dive into the ground, so only an expert could maintain control of it even after trimming. We took it to the hobby shop and the very friendly shop owner went above and beyond in helping us fix the issue, but it was never fixed, and we never returned to the AMA meetings again. My brother tried to fly it and crashed, but it was fixable so I fixed it later on and tried to fly it as well, and it did its signature maneuver nose nose diving into the pavement at full speed, which left splinters and destruction all over the ground. Well, it got what it deserved, but we spent too much money on that when we didn't have much. So, the RC hobby is a waste of money if you don't have much money, and kids these days are spoiled brats without any discipline anyway, so nobody wants to spend any time with them. Do kids even get jobs anymore and buy something themselves? Anyway, the way I finally learned to fly was to buy a $35 air hogs aero ace RC plane at Walmart. It was so simple to fly. Then I later got the hobbyzone champ, and improved from there and also cheap coaxial RC helicopters and a cheap Syma quadcopter. Then I got a 4 channel foam glider with a brushless motor and I put a camera on it and would see how high I could fly and get video of the mountains and watch it on my computer afterward. Anyway, I taught myself to fly one step at a time. The AMA just drives new people away, there's a lot of arrogant snobs at those meetups, mixed with a few kind people, but the assholes ruin the value, so better off without them.
Most Kids dont race sports bikes, ride dirt bikes, shoot guns, fly ultralight, fly rc planes, etc.. These hobbies are expensive and are regulated to middle aged people (mostly men) and IMO that is ok. Just because there are not kids in it doesnt mean it will die, it just means they will start later in life when the time is right. I will say that many ride bikes and mountain bikes, which ironically can also be very expensive esp in medical bills but those hobbies are typically regulated to kids in the past which is changing.
i'm lucky to have found a club that everyone seems super cool. they are $50 a year and have a shelter with a refridgerator full of drinks and snacks. you just put your .50c in for a drink in the money box. they also have electric to use. pretty nice place and I haven't met a rude member yet. the boat club in our area...that's another story. quite a few stuck up rude guys in there. the flying sites where i live are all over the place. I literally live within 20 mins of 7 of them and 30 mins of 2 or 3 more. we also have a local company that builds balsa planes. old school model works.
The City of Austin RC Flight Park is right next door to the City of Austin Skeet and Sporting Clays Park. I always found that amusing if not somewhat disturbing.
The first point only really applies to places like the Usa and Canada, due to their cities almost entirely relying on cars for all of their transportation needs. Kids and teens can't drive, as it is literally illegal. Which makes getting to fields, hobby shops, workshops, or even a place to test one's own planes, incredibly difficult. If there were more transportation options available in the Usa, Canada and other places with this issue. Then it would allow for kids and teens to be able to get to these places on their own, and actually start to participate in this hobby. Or any other hobby, for that matter! Would also take a lot of cars off the road, which would be a great thing for public health and mental health as a whole!
The Usa and Canada also do this absolutely awful thing called euclidean zoning. There was good intent behind it, but it was taken to the extreme. And the effect of taking it to the extreme was that it maximised the distance between home, work, shops and hobbies. Good luck convincing your mom to drive you 2 hours to a hobby shop, and then back...
Thankfully, things have been changing for the better in these regions for the past few years. But more support is always welcomed. And thankfully, lots of places in the world aren't like this, and so take into consideration where you live. It could be a lot easier for you to get into the RC hobby than the perspective this video has would suggest.
Also, there are some pretty pervasive ideas that result in a lot of inaction from people who would otherwise be pretty supportive of improving the places we live in.
One of which that is really popular here on youtube, is "Scientists will solve it!" Almost always with some fancy new technology. Effectively treating science as if it is all about the technology that comes out of it! And it distracts people from even thinking about how we could use the technology and knowledge we already have!
This idea is most popular among the "science" youtube sphere. Like that "Former Nasa scientist" you decided to jumpscare me with 6 minutes into the video. (Yes I've seen some people call him a scientist. I know he is just an engineer, and science is not his forte. (Yet he acts like it is...))
Sorry if this comment is a little long. But this is the type of thing that really gets the gears in my head turning.
As a 15 year old I do fly RC planes but I only fly them in Switzerland because I live right next to a golf course and whenever they say could we please use this tee I just leave I mainly fly em early in the morning ir late in the afternoon when they are not playing :)
Every club should have a children’s day each month.
I've flown just about every discipline of model airplane at one time or another. Simply put, I've always loved things that fly. Things that get thrown and fly are cool, I've hand made boomerangs back in the day... but R/C wins out at my greatest passion. My first model was the Bob Martin 2x6 glider in 1984. Back then I just flew in empty fields and just minded my own business and all was good. But I was self taught, had very little money and I was quite the amateur, because i was 14... and so, joining a club felt awkward; so, I never did. These days, I can't justify the expense. So, I'm relegated to honing my skills on Real Flight 8, with all the expansion packs and add-ons I could find, and that satisfies the need. But if I had one wish...I'd spend a million bucks on that hobby in a minute. If I was a billionaire, I'd build indoor fields, the size of blimp hangars, with retractable roofs for year round flying. They'd be like amusement parks; have it run on donations...and then build them all around the country so its convenient for people to get to... everyone would have a place to go fly, it would be glorious. 🤩 Maybe I should find a flying club.
Driveing in my neighborhood is fun it’s just when the wind takes over I have to nose dive
I'm a 60 year old, for whom the money barriers to the hobby kept me out in the late '70's. Been a problem for a long time!
I fly rc planes since I was 8 (I’m 13 now) and I’ve won a compettition with rc gliders at 13. It was easier for me cuz my dad is a glider pilot tho
My dad had a school club where he taught kids flying using uncontrolled gliders.
11 yo: “RIP kid” (at the end). 😊
I’m 19 years old and started flying rc planes with my dad when I was 3 and I still fly almost everyday!
You have lived a wealthy life then.
Awesome! The title is an exaggeration to make a point. Don't let folks make you feel bad for having opportunities.
Honestly for me it's the cost and the space. I'm a huge aviation buff and an Aerospace and Software engineer. I've long debated getting into RC planes, but honestly for the time and money I'd rather keep playing MSFS doing 100% accurate flights learning and practicing actual SOPs while saving my money for my actual PPL. A fact enhanced by the fact that I have nowhere nearby I could go to fly RC planes. You go to a park and the police are going to shut you down (after some Karen freaks out on you).
RC planes are a stop gap for people who want to fly and can't fly real planes. And flight sims have really kneecapped that demographic.
intesting news for me as i am about to get my first rc plane, the areoscout at 10 years old
My dad is the reason I got into rc cars and I love it🔥
I think the biggest limiting factor which also limits a lot of adults is price. What teenager has a couple of grand to drop on a plane and a controller when they can play a fight simulator on their computer for free and feel like they're in the airplane? It's the same reason there aren't a lot of adults joining this hobby. It's expensive. I remember when I was on 7th grade and I went to the library because I was super stoked out getting. I think it was an A6 intruder model. That was when ducted fans first came out. This is like oh Jesus 1993 maybe. Anyway, I vividly remember looking at the magazine in the back where you ordered stuff and saying the prices and thinking to myself. Maybe I can do this when I'm grown up. And I stopped looking at the magazine forever. Still never have flown an RC plane. Seems pointless. I can do more for less with VR.
I'm gonna make a ww2 p-40 warhawk. I think the reason why you don't see younger people flying rc planes is because of the popularity of drones.
I'm trying to get into rc planes due to my love in military aircraft planes. I'm just wondering what is good foam board for planes? I bought dollar store foam board for 12 bucks and its crappy . Pls helppppp
Great video guys!
I'm 11 and just got my first RC plane a few days ago, it's not so good the plane that i got and my city doesn't have space for an RC plane flight, my friend is getting one soon so at least i have someone to keep me in the hobby, there aren't an fisical store nearby me to buy one, so i rely on the internet to buy my plane, its really cool, even my plane that don't have airleons and ruder
Hold a festival at parks for kids so they can fly trainers and see cool tricks from other people
I ised to love rc cars and i got reccommended these bids again so thats how i started
Set it up so an 'instructor' radio plugs into a usb port and uses game controllers. Kids know how to use game controllers.
Well... I started at 27MHz. Quit, cars girls. Got back for 72MHz. Quit, oily mess. Checked back years later and electric wasn't ready yet. Now I'm 70 have an advanced ham ticket and I look back into it again and now you have connected mode radios yet you still call the transceiver, in the vehicle, the receiver. The vehicle is the server and the ground station is the client. (and for gods sake, use vertical polarization, cross polarization will cost you 20dB)
I wanted to build some flying saucers with collision avoidance and a 14' ceiling, so it's a hovercraft ground vehicle. By the time I got a proof of concept going there was no RC equipment evolved anymore.
I really really want to fly but since i dont live in a country that has a big rc community, hell theres not even a hobby store that sells RC planes under €1000 near me, its near impossible for me to fly any plane since i cant find one
NUMBER ONE is the PRICE of ready to fly AIRPLANES and the VERY few kits of Balsa wood. hell try and find Balsa
My dad makes 90% of his RC planes himself and he made me one a couple of years ago as a birthday. present he has made me 2 the "little plane" and the newer one that i have not yet tested because we never get to go to the Rc flying club
YEAH, MY PLANE GO VROOM. much fun, and yes, I did just lose my plane to a rice field
As a 20yr old who is cursed with ugliness, this hobby is one of the few things that keep me sane
Trust me, lots of people will find you attractive. Watch what you wish for though…relationships definitely won’t help keep you sane! 😜
Don’t sweat it, everybody is beautiful to someone.
That's the problem .
@@dickiewongtkain't know way boy
Ah well, most folks get their RC planes sent to them in black plastic bags these days - so you and me are all set up, Kemo Sabe! 😜🙄😂
I'm an 18 year old who got into flying about 4 years ago, one of the biggest engagers to me was flite test and peter stripol and after watching their youtube videos it got me hooked. It also was one of the reasons i'm going to college for aerospace engineering.
lol same
I love flite test
I got into it largely cause of the same channels around early high school as well. By then I already knew I wanted to do it regardless, but it just reinforced my desire to go to college for aerospace engineering. Here I am at the end of my last semester, about to graduate and with a job already lined up. Good luck with your studies!
Same. And I did become an aerospace engineer (now retired, but still playing with toys).
The barrier to entry into R/C aircraft has always been high. Mainly because of the cost and the learning curve. I didn't get into it until I was a senior in HS when I had a job. Crashed my Kadet II and had to wait until I graduated college to be get back into it. That was back in the 1980's. Best chance to get into the hobby at a young age is to have a parent who's already hooked.
I think quads are getting the kids into rc these days. For 150 you have a complete beginner set with charger and goggles.
@@aviatoFPV for $159 you can get a top quality 17" Pitts Special with a gyro.
It's less than a PlayStation! Learning isn't that hard with all the safe technology. As long as you leave it on. Unlike I did. 😂 My first crash was 5 minutes into flying. Nose first at pretty high speed. Still only cost about 30 bucks to repair.
me and my father tried to revive an old nitro rc car that was given to us, spent a significant amount of money to fix it but never were able to make it run. back in the 90s we had no knowledge, friends or internet to learn from, so yeah, the barrier was huge.
and maybe using fomies that you have to flay at max speed into a tree or a metal pole to make any damage, mine shrugs off hard (like nose into the ground hard) landings and always just got up and kept flying
As a 16 year old, I love flying my Rc planes. I started at like 12 years old and I have had so much fun. I consider myself lucky as I started this hobby with a friend and that I live in a fly in community, but now he is always gone to military school so I'm left alone, and I always wonder why none of my other friends want to do Rc. I still fly and I hope to make the best of my skills.
Start your own club with your friends. Come up with ways to get them engaged in the hobby with you. Flexibility is key. Good luck and keep at it if you enjoy it.
Keep at it and congratulations. You probably know by now that RC can give you WAY more skills than just flying, not to mention guts.
same here!
Hobbies don't really translate across relationships in my experience. When I was in a local RC club, it was just me coming together with other people that enjoyed that. Currently, I'm into boardgaming and kiteboarding as hobbies. My wife reluctantly humors me from time to time. Otherwise, my interactions are with other people, not in my friend group, that also like those things.
Same
And that’s why as a fourteen year old, I fly helicopters so I don’t have to worry about space. Plus helicopters are easier to fly in my opinion.
Im 14 yo too, but i got into FPV Drones 3 years ago, I started flying rc planes 5 years ago
But im getting sick of it right now, every month something of my equipment breaks (I think its because of me only ~30% of the time) and I need to spend 30€-300€ to repair it, im always broke, ive spent 2000€+ on this hobby.
Im getting into mountainbiking now, its also expensive but my bike doesnt break every month.
When I was 14 I was only allowed to build planes for my old man, then watch him crash them. The local clubs snubbed my brother and I out too. In my 20s I got back into rc, but with helicopters. I liked the little ones, I could fly them in the house. I started buying bigger ones for more stability. Experimented with early foam electric planes, but they were more fragile than balsa. The new epo foam planes are reasonable in price and very forgiving. I have a small squadron of them. Six months ago I bought my 1st drone. Gotta admit, I kinda regret that was a snob about refusing to try them for so long. Those things are fun and much more forgiving than helicopters.
But the helicopters were my gateway drug into powered flight.
Same here, and then it evolved into flying fixed wing in state parks
I’m looking into rocketry instead and because all rockets are kits it’s very rewarding. When I go to a event I’m one of the few kids who made their rocket and fly it by myself and didn’t come along because I had to.