[South Pender]

I've been invited to introduce myself (although I've already posted a thread minutes ago--probably the wrong order of things!). I'm an old guy (I live in Vancouver, Canada) with grandsons. One of them will be turning 10 shortly, and I was thinking of getting him a model plane. When I was a kid, I loved model airplanes and built a lot of control-line and free-flight models using half-A glow-plug motors. I gather that electric power has really come of age, though, and this makes sense given the population densities in many areas. I could never afford radio-control in my modeling days, but it seems to have come down into the affordable range in the past few years. I'm not sure that I want to get back into this hobby myself, but I did want to be able to provide my grandsons with the necessary equipment and encouragement so that they could experience the fun I did lo those many years ago.

[jimstrex]

You are never too old to get back into the hobby. Over here on Vancouver Island we have a number of club members in their 80's and they build and fly extremely well. As for advice, I'd go talk to the folks at Norburn Model Supplies in Burnaby. They are very knowledgable and give good advice. If you are looking for clubs in the area go to www.maac.ca and click on Zones/Clubs/Fields to find a club near you.

Hope this helps

[South Pender]

Many thanks for the encouragement, jimstrex. As you can probably tell from my screen name, I spend a lot of time on South Pender island, going back and forth to Vancouver. I contacted a guy here on Pender (I gather that there's a small group here on the island that fly models), and he has offered to help me with my questions. My only real concern is that I will have to learn to fly these planes myself before it will work with my grandson. I was hoping I could just get him the plane, accompany him in his first few flights, and bow out, so to speak. Interestingly, when I was about his age (maybe 11 or 12), I didn't have any help; I just built a model, cranked up the .049 engine, and proceeded to crash my control-line plane! Things got better after that....

Best regards,
Ralph

[fhhuber]

Often a youth's biggest hurdle is getting transport to the flying field...