Re: The demise of Indoor FF
Nick, you are so right when you said it's the awkward, shy, introverted kids who usually get involved. Kids who can't or don't want to do sports, who are fairly smart but not social. That was me and the 3 other kids I knew in my model airplane club of 80 adults. We found fellowship with our own kind when we flew Indoor and R/C models. We found excellence and hidden talent when we built our own models, first from kits, then plans, then our own designs. All of us eventually became full scale pilots. One of us :-D became a full-scale airplane builder. I still dabble in models when I get the bug and get time. When I have children of my own someday, you can bet I'll do whatever I can to present modeling to them and teach them whatever they want to know about building & flying models.
As an introvert, I didn't care much about competition when I was that age--I was happier with beating my own personal best times than earning a red or blue ribbon. Competitive kids I knew were more likely to be involved in school activities like sports, debate team, etc.
The only reason I even knew about indoor flying was because for a period of about 5 years, from about 11 to 16 years old, a few individuals in the local R/C club arranged to use the gyms of two local schools on alternating Saturday mornings or Friday nights during the winter for indoor free-flight. (Winter didn't interfere with their normal R/C flying time.) My parents drove me 20 miles early each Saturday morning on icy Wisconsin country roads to one of the schools more times than I can remember. I won lots of ribbons and built lots of scale models, EZB's, & parlor mites, and had a complete blast. The pride of building my own airplanes that flew surpassed anything else I'd ever done. It is a hobby that changed my life's path and will never leave me.
This wouldn't have happened if the two or three adults at the core of the Indoor interest in the R/C club hadn't put forth the effort to arrange this time with the schools and assure them the models wouldn't cause any damage. It wouldn't have happened if they hadn't spent the time to teach us how to build models in the first place. What am I doing to give back? Nothing, right now, unfortunately. I guess I'm where many of you are, wondering how to get started, how to find the time, and how to keep going with it. My friend Tim Lavender of Smyrna, TN dedicates one evening a week to "his" Indoor kids during the school year. It's a huge committment! But... If the premier local flying sites are school gymnasiums, and the target audience is kids ages 10 to 17... Kids and schools go together. Maybe a grassroots Indoor aeromodelling movement is in order? Something smaller and more focused than SO? Something that embraces the new, dazzling indoor R/C and park flyers as well, to attract kids AND a bigger pool of adult mentors? (Go ahead, flame suit on and zipped.)
There will probably never be as MANY kids involved as there were in the 30s & 40s, when aviation was new and saving the Western hemisphere at war. But, please don't ever say Indoor is "dying." It is intrinsically cool, and will always have a special appeal for the "nerdy" kids with a passion for flight. Now, it's all about quality & depth of interest, not quantity of bodies.
Katie Bosman
--- In Indoor_Construction_at_yahoogroups.com, Nick Ray <lasray@...> wrote:
>
> Tom,
>
> That's actually sightly worse than I had thought. I was going to leave the
> point of making indoor activities alone because that goes so far against
> indoor's open door policy that I thought it would be dismissed out right.
>
> When I was in middle school a SO mentor and indoor flier or some renowned
> washed his hands of me because my middle school had no chance of making it
> to SO nationals. I was disappointed by this as you can image. At that age I
> was very enthusiastic for anything that flew. Thankfully, My mom made the
> three hour drive once a month so I could fly with people like Bill Gowen,
> Chris Goins and Steven Richmond. After I made the US junior team the mentor
> in my home town that had wanted nothing to do with me became amicable again
> and actually tired to claim credit for helping me to be successful.
>
> Of the handful of young indoor fliers I know, very few of them were
> remarkable as kids. In fact, many of the best of them were awkward as kids,
> and very introverted. I think that majority of us would have fallen through
> the cracks of the education system if it wasn't for indoor and the
> generosity of a few mentors.
>
> Indoor has the problem of being intrinsically exclusive due to the large
> number of specialized skills required to build a completion model. I think
> if we try to filter kids in anyway we will miss at least half of the kids
> that would be interested and would benefit from the hobby. The kids at the
> top of the selection process will have all kinds of opportunities to do
> wonderful things because they have been recognized for being at the top of
> their peers. Lets go after the kids that wouldn't be doing anything else. I
> know that our goal is to perpetuate our hobby, but on some level the hobby
> also changes the lives of the people who practice it.
>
> Lastly, I've flown in Lakehurst alone a few times, its very lonely. If take
> I take only the "chosen" I'll be able to comfort myself when there are no
> flying sites left with the fact I am one of a handful of people that can
> pour microfilm or build a .4gram model. Where's the fun in that?
>
> Nick
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 2:32 PM, Thomas <parkreation_at_...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Nick,
> >
> > My recommendation for using guidance counselors and teachers was in
> > reference to selecting kids to be in a national competition AND NOT the
> > training. Mentoring, training and timing can be done by anyone.
> >
> > A guidance counselor at our high school has recommended kids to become a
> > "Natural Helpers". Yea, I never heard of it before either but she read the
> > info that came across her desk. Through a selection process 20 kids at our
> > high school were chosen. It seems to be a neat opportunity.
> >
> > That guidance counselor HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TRAINING for Natural
> > Helpers. All she did was help confirm the best kids for the opportunity.
> > That was the format I suggested for the indoor national postal contest for
> > students. Why not ask those in guidance, teaching, administration who know
> > the students' skills the best and allow them to make that positive contact?
> >
> > Tom
> >
> >
> > > Lastly, I think we should place the burden of starting indoor promoting
> > > actives on people who don't currently fly. Guidance councilors have there
> > > hands full with children whose parents are meeting their children's basic
> > > needs. Teachers, especially public school teachers make all of 1000
> > dollars
> >
> > > On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Thomas <parkreation_at_> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
>
Received on Sun Oct 17 2010 - 19:07:22 CEST
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