Site Hosted by:

President - Chris Vanderbilt -

email address- chris (dot) vanderbilt (at) gmail.com

Secretary/Treasurer - Ralph Snow -

email address- ralphsnow (at) alum.mit.edu

Safety Officer- Frank Korman

e-mail address - FSKorman (at) sbcglobal.net

Newsletter Editor- TBA

Web Master - Greg Judy

e-mail address-vgg1 (at) sbcglobal.net

Officer Biographies below:

Like a lot of people, I started my journey through model aviation with free flight models.  I was too late for the "dime scale" scene, but did build a number of rubber scale models, and even got a handful to fly.

My RC escapades started in junior high school with a Hobby Lobby Recruit trainer with a Cox Golden Bee .049.  Since I lived in a small town in the middle of Kansas, I didn't get any help on the first flight. Result: the flight lasted 2.356 seconds before total destruction. 

So, I saved up more money and tried again with an Ace Wizard powered by the same Golden Bee.  Result: flight lasted 10.24 seconds before total destruction.  Next victim was a Goldberg Gentle Lady glider.  This was better.  I learned to fly by chucking it around the high school football field.  It managed to survive the ordeal, but with many, many repairs.

After graduating from KansasStateUniversity, I moved to Dallas and started flying sailplanes again.  I flew hand-launched gliders at Eastfield with SLNT for a few years.

My first electric model was a sailplane named the Electra-Lite.  Boy was it heavy!  It was the classic 6-cell, underpowered, overweight sailplane and could barely climb. Next was a Great Planes Electra Cub, built in 1993. While flying the Electra Cub at Eastfield, Frank Korman introduced himself to me and invited me to a DEAF meeting.   I think I still have that first DEAF Notes newsletter somewhere (okay, so I'm a pack rat). The Electra Cub has progressed from the marginally performing stock configuration through several power system iterations.  It now flies well with long flights and better power than a real Cub.

In 1997, I attended the E-Nationals at Muncie. What a great time to see some really great modelers in action.  I managed to finish comfortably in the middle of the pack in the events I entered. Since the trip to Muncie,  I have been flying sailplanes much less and small sport and scale models much more. I've managed to open the hobby up to several friends since moving to Dallas in 1989.  Currently, a group of friends get's together every Monday to go flying (during daylight saving time) and work on models (during standard time)  The clean, easy operation of e-models has turned  on these people to the RC hobby.  Okay, the near indestructability of EPP foam planes (like the Push-E-Cat and Zagi ) hasn't hurt either.

So, what's in the future? Well, I'd like to model a WWII warbird or two in a larger size, and learn to fly aerobatics better.  My wife has been learning to fly and has moved up to an aileron equipped sailplane (she'll be free from the buddy box soon).

As for the non-modeling world, I work as a software engineer for a large defense contractor.  I earned my private pilots certificate about 10 years ago, but family events caused me to stop flying and I discovered that I liked flying models as much as flying the real ones.  My wife and I are overrun with a beagle, a bassett hound, and two cats.

Vice President - TBA

-  I was about 10 when I started to build model airplanes, rubber powered, hand launch gliders and tow-line gliders. The kits were Comet, Joe Ott, Peerless, Megow, and Cleveland, and were sold in all the department stores, ten-cent stores and even hardware stores. I belonged to a club that met in the basement of the neighborhood hardware store. One year when I was in Junior High the manager of the W.T.Grant store downtown  [similar to present day K-Mart] called my school and asked the principal to suggest someone to demonstrate model building in the store on Saturdays. That was my first job in aviation. It didn’t last long because when I returned from summer vacation there was a new manager who didn’t think much of the idea.

During the war the models didn’t perform very well, due to cardboard ribs and formers and hardwood strip wood, but building was fun anyway. A neighbor who went into the Navy gave me a half finished Berkeley Buccaneer free flight and a Synchro B-30 engine.  I finished the model but could never get the engine to run.

At about the age of eleven or twelve I had a chance to go up for my first plane ride in Clarence Chamberlain’s Curtis Condor.  But, I had looked at all those struts and wires and decided it didn’t look safe to me, so I said “no thank you”. About a year later I got another chance, this time in a Stinson  SR-7, which was much more my idea of a modern airplane.

After High School I entered M.I.T. to study aeronautical engineering. While there I belonged to the Tech Model Aircrafters [still in existence] and the Glider Club. Many of the members such as Walt Mooney and Dick Baxter belonged to both clubs. We flew control line outdoors and rubber power indoors. Mooney was always dreaming up new indoor events; models which fit in a cigar box or a cigarette carton when disassembled, etc. This later lead to peanut scale.  The Glider Club owned a war surplus Schweitzer 2-22 training glider and a winch for launching it. We kept the glider and winch at a small airfield on Cape Cod and flew when the weather permitted. A flight consisted of a tow up to about 1100 ft. altitude followed by a circle of the field and a sideslip in to land as close as possible to the end of the field. I logged about 100 of those flights. There was never any soaring possible there but we did take the glider and winch to Harris Hill at Elmira, NY one summer after school was over and tried to soar in the slope lift, with not much success.

After getting my B.S. in 1950 I went to work for what was then Convair Aircraft in Fort Worth. I worked on the B-36, YB-60, and B-58 programs until 1957, when I transferred to the Astronautics Division in San Diego. At Astronautics I worked on the Atlas Launch Vehicle program and met my wife Marian. In 1968 the future wasn’t looking too good at Astronautics so I transferred back to the Aircraft Division and we moved with our two kids back to Fort Worth. I worked for two years in Preliminary Design, on proposals, which Convair didn’t win and was laid off in 1970. I then joined what was then Menasco Manufacturing in Euless, where I worked on aircraft landing gear design programs until I retired in 1997.

I got involved with radio control models sometime around 1954, with rubber powered escapements and tube radios. Later came pulse proportional [galloping ghost] systems. My modeling activity was pretty much confined to periods when there was a lull in the design activity at work, with the result that I never flew enough to gain any proficiency. About the time I retired I became interested in electric power and joined the DEAF club. I’ve been having a ball ever since!

I’ve been flying all of my life. My Dad flew home from college, landed in the pasture, and told his folks- “I bought an airplane!” I’ve always enjoyed building models, but our folks would never let us buy an r/c set, so we were stuck with free flight.  I eventually learned to fly at Oklahoma State University in 1980 and later became co-owner of a Cessna 172. But, it was not until 1986 or so that I had to learn to fly all over again. It was tough being on the ground and not being in the cockpit. I survived and I’m glad that I’m a better full sized pilot when I consider my model crash rate!

I joined DEAF around 1988 and later sold all my gas equipment as I learned to build lighter and stronger.  We’ve seen lots of developments in that time frame and I hope to see many more! I really enjoy the fellowship with in the club and the free flow of ideas and information. It’s been fun working on the DEAF Notes Newsletter for the past 5 years, but I look forward to this change of pace.

I feel very blessed to have always been able to work in the aviation field, both military and commercial.   Currently I’m a Manufacturing Engineer at a local defense contractor in Fort Worth and have operated a sign and laser engraving shop for the past 10 years from my home.