My notions of radio control began as a teenager in Omaha, Nebraska. While in study hall at Papillion Junior High ideas far from study would gel. I suspect no-talking was the rule, but a fellow sat across from me whose name I can only recall as Stewie. We talked. One day he was “studying” a magazine on radio controlled cars and planes and very soon those seeds began to germinate through my eyes.
Those seeds rather immediately grew into conviction. A radio control airplane would surely be more desirable than anything else. So began the pestering of parents. I never got a plane, but oh how I wanted it. One piece of advice that came from dad was “start with two dimensions.” That was a good idea. An adage I recall from the 80s was that an RC plane costs $25 a week and a car 5. In today’s dollars that is so little, but still the point is there. I did get a car and ended up spending $800 on it over the years back then. I raced and raced electric cars with the Tamiya Frog my car. I even spent $50 on a set of shocks. I would remark that that was as much as shocks for a real car (I was driving a 1978 Pontiac Bonneville…with electric windows!).
Those years came and those years went. The trophies are still in my shed. The batteries won’t charge. The racing differential and the modified motors sit long unused. Every now and then my dad will send along a photo of me smiling and holding that Frog by its bumper. Since I tend to keep things the original box (it really has great cardboard) is still in the closet of my daughter who is older than I when I bought that car. That box holds drafting squares, colored pencils, cassette tapes, baseball stickers and other things kept for their sake. If we think of something we may just say, “its in the Frog box.”
25 years or so after the car took its final turn came January of 2015. Another box and another experience arrived this time in Augusta, Georgia. I could not wait for UPS to bring it so I went to the distribution center. It was the just released DJI Inspire 1. In that not so large box a not so small experience flew out. I had been bitten by the notion of buying a drone in the fall of 2014. Like Achan at Jericho I looked upon that thing and desired it. Thankfully the Inspire 1 was not plunder owed to God so I did not have to hide it underneath my tent. It was not long before I took it to Warren Road Elementary school and by simultaneously pulling the joysticks down and in the blades spun up for its first flight.
There was this fellow named Paul who told some Corinthian converts that as a child he thought as a child but as a man those things are left off. Unfortunately, it seems that a thing one loses with the passing of childhood is awe and amazement. Things become so normal, so common place, so “I get it.” Well, then came this drone and something happened to me again. Awe popped up. The “are you serious?” of it happened. The “no way!” of an open jaw or a gawk jumped out of me. That was really neat.
Now I have been spinning those carbon fiber blades for a year now. I have taken a lot of pictures and some of them I will put here in the galleries. Maybe I’ll even start another website for these things. Part of that or part of this will be the also very cool experience of photogrammetry. There is some awe there for me and hopefully will be for you too.
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