I'm a craftsman for money. I deal in engineering and manufacturing in middle-tech industry and I'm good at it. I understand the demands and capabilities of the resources I'm working with. So when it comes to my hobby I'm similarly charmed by the design parameters dictated by stick n' tissue construction and driven by the arguably predictable and unarguably strict energy-return system of rubber power. It's an achievable puzzle and a grand joke in one. I love the life lesson F/F teaches. The great majority of the fellows I've run into in this hobby are pleasant and easy-going types, guys with a quality of acceptance. Briefly put, there's a sense of "what's in front of us is what we deal with," what Jimmy Buffet once called "Want What You Got" and I blame F/F. Look? I build a model based on those parameters mentioned, I set up its flying surfaces the way I've learned to make it do its thing, I put all the preparation into it that I know, then I wind and toss and it's up to the model after that. I do all I can, then it's literally out of my hands. When I let go, I truly have to let go. How many of us really live that, in our "Real World?" How many R/C guys can relinquish that control? I think it's a quality that figures hugely in the F/F personality and a lot of pretty easy going guys may be the proof. So that's why I do it. Michael J. Heinrich, 1 Aug 07

To which, this response - Geez, you make it sound like a metaphor for parenthood or something and maybe that's not such a bad thing. Eisenflugel, 1 Aug 07

We had a perfect Bangers n' Mash outing at Epsom Racecourse Wednesday. The weather could not have been better with the drift taking our models diagonally across the Downs to "Bookies' Hill" and beyond.  Project that line on your GPS and you hit Heathrow, which we could see in the clear air and the new Wembley Arch and if retrieving from the golf course next to the grandstand, the London Eye. I mean, Wow! There were about twenty of us including a contingent from Crawley and further south headed by Keith Miller who turned up with a Sandgrown Jenny. (SAM 35 Yearbook #14, P127). This 24-incher is the nicest little model aeroplane I have ever seen and flew accordingly on this blissful day. Wakefields...Vintage coupes...a Hyperion A2, a little Halfax Roamer, the very same model which put the big vintage gliders to shame at Oxford in June.  Oh, and who should turn up but the world's best professional jazz sax player, Pete King, with his state-of-the-art modern coupes. You ask, Why Free Flight? I tell you what, Ramondo. This WAS free flight! Add in the derring-do adventure you speak of and we have that magical mix which Dave Hipperson once famously described as "a brief flash across the spectrum of mankind's achievement." By the way! Does the term "aeromodelling" apply solely to free flight? I mean, who has ever heard of radio-controlled "aeromodelling"? Peter Michel, 3 Aug 07

Hanging, building and then flying with Buds. Steve Price, 3 Aug 07

"Thrilled" is the way I feel as I watch the plane climb! It's one of the few thrills I can handle anymore! Everything else either requires too much exertion or isn't good for me! Dick, 3 Aug07

Free Flight is like "de-evolution" for me. An ardent R/C modeller for many years, pattern, pylon, slope soaring and yeh, had a ball doing it. Frenetically prepping, practising, performing. There was a part in me that wanted to simplify the experience and joy of modelling. A lot of effort goes into producing these frail craft but just letting go of the need to control is amazing and the rewards huge for a good PB flight time. It is also about sharing the hobby and it is still a joy to watch the eyes of young kids light up when they experience the thrill of flying for the first time. Those who follow the trials and tribulations of stick and tissue they know why they do it. Maurice, 3 Aug 07

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