Joseph and I were really having fun with the projects so far but it was still pretty small stuff.

I was at the local hobby store and they had an old model (apparently 30 years old) of a Cessna 172 tail dragger. It had a four channel radio installed but no motor. It called for a .40 engine so I bought an OS .46SF and the Richard the other of Discount Hobbies let me use his tools to install the motor right there on the counter. I installed the push rod for the throttle operation and everything so when I arrived home I’d have a “real” model airplane that was ready to roll.

Joseph was ecstatic. I brought him to Stetson Flyers and signed him up for the flying program to earn his wings and be able to fly at MAAC sanctioned flying sites unsupervised. He accelerated through the program because he had a little priming with the other projects plus we enjoyed visiting the field regularly.

At this point I wasn’t participating much (except with our smaller Lebreton Flats project) but I was enjoying bringing him to Stetsons field.

After a very short time period he (myself and others) felt that Joseph was ready to try out for his wings. Everything went smoothly and now he was able to start logging some quality time on a better plane.

The Cessna had “full house” including ailerons, elevator, rudder and throttle control. It was reasonably spirited with the OS SF motor and could run a good 12 minutes on a tank. It was also a very smooth and nice airplane to fly. It could do loops, rolls and all that good stuff.

He started to really enjoy zipping around and progressed. The Cessna was really in the intermediate space so I bet it felt very free to fly it after flying 1/2A class planes and gentle ladies and so forth.

He outgrew the Cessna in just a couple of weeks. He was flying back and forth doing loops and inverted passes and stuff and was managing his takeoffs and landings without any effort.

So went back to Richard’s (as everybody was calling Discount Hobbies) and looked for something at the next level. I found a lovely Webra 60 Speed black head that was used and I found this nifty ARF pattern trainer. The pattern plane was designed for a 40 but I figured the 60 would be okay if the speed were kept down and the extra power would allow for some nice climbing ability.

This project went very well. One day Max Feil was at the field with his high performance pattern plane with a tuned pipe and so forth. He was doing knife edge flybys and square loops. Joseph took interest in the square loops. I warned him that the air-frame would not take it but I think he didn’t understand that it was a real warning. That day the aircraft fractured in mid air.

We cleaned it up and I ordered an advanced level plane. I paid extra for the shipping. I think the plane was like 200 bucks and it was one of those new Asian built ARFs. We got that going. I knew continuity was important so I even bought one of the first indoor RC aircrafts (from Gerry Pronavost no less) so he could practice during the winters. Of course we got a G2 simulator as well. We even flew outdoors in the winters when it wasn’t too cold.

I started flying too and we enjoyed this hobby for a while.