I wore out the pages of Ray Hostetler's Book on RC helicopters. My first helicopter was a Concept 30 with a Futaba tail gyro, you had to actually let it spin up and a transmitter from Circus hobbies that I believe was the original JR Propo's. Dave Brown put out a simulator for the PC and I got really good with it using the "switched inverted" flying. The TOC was always a great event to watch, especially the lunch time Helicopter demos. I look at my fleet now of SAB's, Align and Goosky and can't help to think where we started. Electric motor, ESC and battery technology have really added to the reliability. The modern FBL units have made it possible for many to be able to successfully learn to fly. I remember a good flying day was when you could hover long enough to see if your blades were in track.
It makes me so happy reading your comment, unfortunately kids of today are more into tik tok than doing things like rc. I am now 50, I was like you are now, always playing with rc, building planes buggies etc, enjoying life as a young kid should. I didn’t force them to, but tried to get my kids to do more adventurous hobbies but I can’t compete with the mobile phone and PlayStation attraction they have. Enjoy your flying and learning, you will have a wonderful future
Great video! Fascinating how much engagement, perserverance and engergy the first pioneers invested to make their machines overcome all obsticles and fly, even if only for a few seconds! Thats what passion is all about! Newcomers like me are having it much easier today: open a box, take out a OMPHOBBY M2 and start to fly. Still we have to learn to fly but it's so much easier with todays great flying models! Thanks for sharing this video!! It was a pleasure to watch it!!
My first heli was American Mantis, fixed pitch from Tower Hobbies. Bought it with my paper route money. Very hard to fly, very disappointing. Then someone in a club clued me in on Schluter. Found a Heli-Star for sale and never looked back! It was amazing to hear Dieter talk in this video. First time I heard his voice. We lost Dieter in 2021. Thank you Dieter for pioneering this hobby.
I wish I could have met Dieter, My dad got into helis in the mid 1980s and centered in on Schluter helis as his favorites. We still have a Champion fully restored with modern radio gear. for the time it was built very well and almost all metal. The Magic and other later developments were also fantastic.
In the seventies I was learning to fly fixed wing RC aircraft in a Sylvania parking lot in Danvers Massachusetts with a wonderfully talented gentleman Kenny Walker. During my training I’d occasional see a man who flew scale aircraft in a scale manner, his flying ability was unmatched, I felt a bit of a total putz in his presents. Cut lose from training and soloing now this individuals pull up on a Honda Goldwing with a beautiful custom and purpose built trailer with a nitro helicopter attached to it, a bizarre sight but as a motorcyclist myself even more so. It was the 1st RC helicopter I’d seen and the trailers paint job matched the Gold Wing perfectly. He unloaded the helicopter, prepped and started it, takes off vertically, and hovering over a nearby grassy area he kills the engine and autorotates down for a perfect landing. Letting out a jubilant cry, hands in the air, I ask why the excitement and he says it’s the 1st time an RC helicopter has ever auto rotated. Wasting no time he re-fired the model, climbed vertically, killed the engine and auto rotated perfectly onto, yes, the pavement!!! His excitement was palatable. This man was Ernie Huber, a local owner of a successful aircraft engine machining facility in Middleton Massachusetts (explaining the custom trailer) which I later came to do business with in my career as Buyer in the aerospace industry. I was in the presents of a very unique event and accomplished man but at the time I hadn’t a clue. Of course Ernie was a very prominent presents in the RC world but you’d never know it, he was truly very humble, having no airs about him what so ever. This video came up in my feed so watched it hoping to once again catch a glimpse of his superlative flying abilities. RIP Ernie and thank you for providing me with a lifelong memory of a historical event in the RC world. I fly RC to this day but never approached his level of expertise, he was truly inspirational. Thanks for sharing!!
A favorite movie of mine growing up was 'Capricorn one' (1977), which features some RC helicopters used as miniatures for shots like when the Cayuse helis crash into the mountain at the end of the biplane chase. The 'miniatures coordinator' is listed as 'Ernie Huber'. perhaps it's the same Ernie Huber.
@@chrismofer none other my friend, Ernie was amazing to watch fly, especially when scale flying. From taxi and takeoff to landing it was like watching a real aircraft, just incredible. He when on to do the flying in The Towering Inferno and other Hollywood stuff, quite accomplished in all that he did in life. Be well.
Some of these helicopters are back in the 19 70,s when I started flying that makes it 50 years ago. Wow time flies when you're having fun. My first Heli was Heli Baby.
Excellent video 🎉🎉😊 Those were definitely the best days of the hobby! I've noticed that a lot of those helicopter models were huge! 500-750 scale! And, mostly nitro powered. Also with the flybar. The radio and receiver were ancient. Nowadays, modern rc helicopters are electronic, with, better radios and receivers, and are easier to fly out of the box!
I bought my first GMP Cobra in Albuquerque from a man by the name of Rom McCray. I love doing scale flying. Eventually, I got married and sold my heli to Larry Jolly, for a movie that he blew it up in. I'd sure like to get back into flying a heli again. Would like to build a Hughes 500 E
Wow. You met Larry Jolly. As a teenager in the 1980s, I remember seeing him in the RC Heli magazine, behind the scenes photos of his Airwolf workshop in CA. I thought he was an RC god. Flying with no gyro, as I recall. Every week on CBS, I'd try to watch Airwolf TV show really close and see if I could tell if it was a model or not. In reality, most of the TV show footage was the real thing. Not too many models, except, for crash aircraft. I think Larry is into gliders now? I need to get up to Muncie IN AMA glider competition some year and maybe see him there, if it is the same Larry Jolly. It looks like he lost a lot of weight, since the 80's. I would like to shake his hand.
great video love see to old pylon racing in Bakerfield, CA. I was was their every year. great seeing Nick from TSK Helicopters doing the died chicken. Love to is Curtis fly 3D Tooo Smoooooth. The God father of 3d Flying.
Wow. My 1st heli in the 80s was a MFA 500 fixed. I worked all summer to get heli.... now i fly vario scales. I love this hobby. Special thanks to all the pioneers. Without Mike Mas there wouldn't be Curtis Youngblood.
7:00 My only guess as to why JFK was the award comes down to the fact it's 1968 and America was about to land on the moon, a mission put forth by JFK. These heli enthusiasts and builders are likely mostly air and space engineers
Great video. Having run Dr. J's west coast hobby wherhouse in the late 80's and 90's, Mike Johnson and I were at most trade shows and fly ins. Great times for sure!
Mine was a Kobe Kiko Hughes 300 from California Model Imports, Dave Robertson, I believe. Anyway it was between 1/5 & 1/6 scale. Flew great, especially after he called me and said I’ve got this new thing called a gyro. Around 1980. Never forgot it. Those were the best of times.
As a somone who own a few of these helicopters in this video today, and modern ones, it was great to watch this. I have over 30 vintage helicopters i have been collecting. Some rare, so mass produced. My old schedulers are a work of art to me. I still fly them all too!! But to see the movie guy build them know they will be destroyed on purpose is sort of heart breaking.....
Back to the 80s, when I first time saw RC helicopter pilot flying auto rotation landing in a flip and before back landing was by Curtis Youngblood when he visited Hong Kong for an unofficial demonstration.
My first was a American Mantis fixed pitch. I didn't know any better. Supposedly "beginners". The vertical lag and cyclic lag was horrible. I had the dowels and wooffle balls on it. Dad got tired of seeing me hoop it around, 1" off the ground. He got impatient, said, "give it some throttle and get it in the air!". I reluctantly handed him the TX (he had no RC experience), he throttle it up, it rose to 2-3 ft, and gently rolled over. Crash! I was devastated, and so was he. After rebuilding it, we decided we need some help. Southern MN, nobody flew RC helis at our club. We heard of a guy 1hr north, who flew helis. We took the Mantis to him and met him on a rainy day in a Mall parking lot. He looked it over, we fired it up, and he sort of hovered it, barely got it down safety. He then said, what you need is a collective pitch machine. Some how, we heard of someone in a near by town who had a Heli-Star for sale. All we knew was it had collective, and that's what we needed. He was a paraplegic in a wheel chair. He had just finished building it, maybe started the engine once, but was nervous about flying it, so it was for sale. We bought it, and what a night and day difference.
