Everyone Has a Story

I was sucked into this hobby by a friend who showed up one day in the ‘hood’ with a simple flyer called a Slow Stick, and he had mounted a tiny video camera onto the wing top. He taxied down the street and lifted into the air while video recording the incredible sights of our mountain home and the land beneath the wings. He then made a slow descent, lined up for the final approach, crossed the imaginary runway threshold and at about three feet off the deck, ran into our neighbor’s parked SUV. 

After a few minutes of conflict resolution, we immediately ran into the house and threw the mini SD card into the laptop. “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Halle, Halle, Hallelujah” There was this wonderful video of our hilltop neighborhood and our homes. It was a friggin miracle.
 

Well, two things happened that day; Day One. First, I caught ‘Remote Control Disease’ and second, I first learned of HobbyKing. HobbyKing! Where everything is amazing and really cheap. At this point in my life, I had to make a choice between HobbyKing and my kid’s inheritance. Let me tell you, this choice was not easy. Of course, being focused only on myself and my immediate needs satisfaction; I opted for HOBBYKING.

That is when my hobby life began and started to unravel, all at the same time. I saw the amoebas of life reconfigured into a new formula.  A formula of cheap China parts and unreadable user manuals.  Screw the user manual, I can figure this shit out by myself. How hard is it to fit Piece A into B, through hole C. Oh, there is no piece B and piece A is the wrong size. Oh, and hole C is actually on a different airplane. 

My first remote controlled airplane along with a brand new HobbyKing transmitter costs $110 and the plane never flew and I threw the radio away as well. And it began! Cheap part after cheap part from every corner of the People’s Republic. This $5 part and that $7 part and $36 for some weird freight through some rich ass Hong Kong dude. Bravo! Good for you guys.

As I said, that first plane never got into the air. Nor, did the second one. Forty seven days later, plane three did fly; 28 seconds. My maiden flight was over. It was then that I had another one of those friggin opportunities to learn; I needed to buy two of everything from HobbyKing. Shit doesn’t work. Shit doesn’t fly. And if it does fly, I will crash it faster than you can log onto HobbyKing.com.

Sometime about one year later and after more mangled airplanes than I can count, I read about quadcopters. Finally an air worthy flying machine that hovers. Stops in space. Defies that gravity thing.