On Indoor Flying

From: Yuan Kang Lee <ykleetx_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 16:24:45 -0000

Larry Cailliau is one of the inductees to the NFFS Hall of Fame in 2013. Here is what he wrote in 1984 about why he (and we) fly indoors.

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By Larry Cailliau

I often ask myself why I travel half way around the world, expose myself to physical exhaustion and spend hours at painstaking precision model building. I most often ask myself this question after a rough day of flying when all I got to show for it is a fist full of extremely light micrometer cut balsa sticks.

All this effort is certainly not due to monetary value. Then why am I doing it?

Some people feel that friendship and competition is worth it and they have a valid point. Model building and flying – particularly indoor flying – is great therapy to take one's mind away from the hustle and bustle of the modern-day world.

There is something indoor flyers have in common that I can't put my finger on. I do know that it has something to do with the flight of the model aircraft. It is the slow, graceful and dreamlike image that an F1D gives that makes people stare in wonderment. Cezar Banks calls it an "aura," for the lack of a better description.

The Japanese, known for their philosophy, seem to relate it to freedom. According to the president of the Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting Col, the "sight of model airplanes flying unmanned through the air seems to embody our subconscious desires for freedom."

If you are the kind of person who stops to watch a hawk float effortlessly in the sky, then indoor flying could be the answer to recapture those calm and peaceful moments that are so rare in today's fast-paced life.

I still can't put my finger on the exact reason why I enjoy indoor flying, but maybe the models, seemingly suspended in mi-air, transfer naturally to me that tranquil feeling that so many people seem to have lost in the 20th Century.
Received on Tue Aug 06 2013 - 09:24:46 CEST