Built 2 oldies but goodies this winter. My first RC plane was a Falcon Jr. with a Babe Bee .049, covered in silk and dope. This was 1966! My dad was a Ham operator so he decided to build the transmitter on 6 meters and we purchased a Citizenship receiver to activate the rubber powered escapement, probably a Bonner. The transmitter had tubes and ran off an inverter, all to send a simple tone when one button was pushed. Well, the Tx never worked well and max range ended up being about 50 yards. So I ended up flying it free flight one spring day over a farmers plowed field. Plane flew great. Started up in a nice circle and ran for about 3 minutes. Trouble started when after the engine quit, it kept climbing higher. Got into a thermal and that was the last I saw of it until the next fall when the farmer called to tell me it had be found over a mile away. Good thing I had a phone number on it. So, couldn't locate a Falcon Jr. to build but saw the 56 on Ebay and was fortunate enough it didn't get to expensive. Hope this one doesn't fly away!

My first successful RC was a Sig Kadet I built in 1973 while in the Navy in Puerto Rico. I purchased and built a Heathkit 3 channel for this Kadet. After leaving the Navy and when I had a few extra $$ I built a Midwest Strikemaster as my first 4 channel plane. I bought a Cox/Sanwa 6 channel radio for it, and if memory serves me, it cost about $300, a lot for 1977. But it was a great flyer, even competed in my first pattern contest with it. So when I saw this kit for sale on RC Groups, I broke down and bought it.

So this winter is my winter of nostalgia builds. I located a picture of my first Strikemaster and a handsome young man to go with so have posted that as well as the 2019 builds.