Member Article

Member Article Reflections of Christmas Past by Scott McNickle

{Editors Note: This article was authored by D4 VP Scott McNickle for the January 2017 KFactor. We resubmit it for your pleasure.}

Fathers and Sons and What We Leave Behind

Because of lead times (these columns are due on the 15th of the month before the cover date) I’m writing this before Christmas, so Christmases past are on my mind.

For about as long as I can remember Christmas meant hobby stuff. Kits and tools and engines and supplies for airplanes and any other hobbies I was interested in at the time. For a while that was slot car stuff…I was the unbeatable driver at a couple of our local raceways in 1966 and 1967…but it always came back to airplanes.

Hobby time meant time with my dad and my grandfather. They went about as far back in model aviation as you could go, back to the days of Brown Juniors and Comet Clippers. The photo is them in 1948, holding a Contester powered Goldberg Sailplane. Those were the days when model airplanes were THE hobby for boys and young men and they learned about it together. They did free flight before WWII and control line, mostly speed, after my dad came home from serving in the Pacific. They put their heads together and flew as a team with great success. My dad had the fastest control line airplane in the world for about two hours sometime in the late 1940’s with a flight of 151.1 mph. I still have his Dooling .61 engine and a piece of the airplane.

Model airplanes and the things those two guys taught me have been part of my life forever. Every time I sit down to build I hear my dad’s voice saying “Take your time. Make good glue joints.” and my grandfather saying “Aw, you can do better than that.” They taught me to take pride in my work and to ‘own’ it, to use the current idiom. They taught that I wouldn’t always be able to do my best…they couldn’t either…but that it was important to try, every time. They taught me to honor my competitors by giving my best effort every time I entered a competition. They’re both gone now, gone wherever model airplane guys go after their flying days here end, and I like to imagine that they’re waiting for me with an airplane in some golden flying field on some perfect afternoon. Until that time they’re with me every time I build or fly. The person you see when you’re with me is what they left behind.

The Guys Who Got Me Started

As a result of my happy introduction to aeromodeling I get a lot of joy seeing fathers and sons competing together at our contests. It’s been fun to see the Finleys, Atwoods, Pritchetts and Sobelewskis enjoying time together and mentoring one another. It goes both ways, in some cases the son is mentor to the father. It’s been fun to see relationships grow from fatherto-son to man-to-man.

Something I learned really quickly when I became a dad is that kids don’t just learn what you think you’re teaching them, they pay attention to everything you do. If a dad acts like a jerk at a contest that’s as much a lesson to the son as the part about centering your rolls on a line. If a dad complains about having to judge, or expects special treatment or belittles a competitor or treats someone unfairly or whines about a bad break that’s a lesson too. Contest officials (and in our district that works out to most of us) make mistakes and need to know when they do, but there’s a gentleman’s way of doing that. A private word is much preferred over behind the back sniping. As Crosby, Stills and Nash said, teach your children well…and teach your parents well.

Don’t think you’re off the hook if you don’t have a son in the hobby, either. Newcomers, and guys who have been around a while, too, look to the proficient pilots for clues about how to go about becoming winners. Not just equipment or airplane setup or how to do a snap roll, but how to be a contest flyer. There are many honorable paths to success and some crappy ones, too. Never forget that you’re a teacher and what you teach has a bearing on everyone’s contest experience. You aren’t going to be here forever. Leave something good behind.

I guess this column is supposed to be about Pattern….so, be sure your wings are level starting each maneuver, and don’t forget to renew your NSRCA membership. Stay warm. Have something ready to practice with when a nice afternoon comes along. Dream big dreams.