Kay

Hudasch

, Hillsboro

, Oregon

, United States

Posted on
2020-02-22 11:47:01
“I’m now almost 50 years old. I’ve got introduced into model aviation in the age of 5 by my daddy, “God bless his heart” way back in the socialistic part of Eastern Germany (DDR) within the boundaries of our walls that we were captured in. Others called it “The Iron Curtain”. Surprisingly though – most people probably don’t know – our Socialistic Government, back then, actually funded, supported and sponsored our Hobby. We were very poor and had not much available on the cool things like remote controls, receivers, servos and motors – that was for us normal working People, like my parent’s, way too expensive and almost unaffordable – But, our federal organized “GST” stepped in to help with education and training of the youngsters in the age from 14 – 16/17. “GST” stands for “Gesellschaft for Sport and Technik” = “Society for Sport and Technology” and had its own “Model Aircraft Division” where we interested kids could join in after school and had the chance to learn everything and anything about aviation, build models in teams with very smart teachers that opened up the skies for us and this beautiful hobby. We’ve learned about the Aviation History as far back as the “Brothers Lilienthal” from Germany invented the first manned aircraft over the “Wright Brothers” that wrote history here in the USA. We were thought about Airfoils, Aerodynamics, thrusts, Flaps, Rudders, Body shapes and all sorts of knowledge about materials such a Balsa Wood and Plastics and how to engineer and build wings with single cut rips/spares. Our Creativity was the limit. In 1989, my Generation evolved the Perestroika Movement and we finally took the wall down, which opened up much more advanced supplies for our Hobby that also now became affordable for us enthusiasts and we kept building, improving, developing Models – which was also considered a “Sport” by then. End of 1999 I left Germany for good and legally immigrated to the USA. In my suitcase, I kept that old book that my Daddy already used to build the models and I continued here in the USA with my Hobby, I got deeper into the remote-controlled things, learned about Helicopters, rebuild old and crashed Models and learned how to fly (hover) these in my backyard end enjoyed much fun and pleasure. Assigned as an Expatriate I was able on a long term Job assignment in Germany to get my 14-year-old now daughter into this Hobby and thought her, what once my Dad thought me, and she started to fly fixed wings, up to 3m Gliders, at my old home in Germany – again supported by a nationally accredited organization – like the AMA over here. in 2003 I bought one of the first toy quadcopters on the marked available “SilverLit” and messed around with this totally unstable thing. Always inspired by a stable, hovering RC aircraft I followed closely that development of technology and also the associated public concerns. I believe I was one of the first guys that addressed the concern about the entire RC Aviation Hobby is going to get a bad twist soon the moment I understood what “They” meant with their definition of a “UAS” Now here we are – facing a governmental total control disaster, likely also invasion into our privacy by regulating our personal and private Hobby. I wasn’t thrilled with the fact that I had to label-identify all of my “Toys” with an FAA-issued registration number about 4 years ago. We’re maybe just a few hundred-thousand RC Model Aviators here in the United States that get now harassed by the American FAA – soon Canada and the rest of the World will be uniting Millions of Hobby aviators and enthusiasts and potentially get also threatened by their governmental aviation control agencies because the USA is going to set a prime example of something and other nations and countries will follow this control madness. I wish and hope for all of us that we all unite quickly to fight against this personal intrusion into our Hobby, that we all come up together with a good conclusion to satisfy the governmental security and safety needs and not to destroy our all hobby that we’re having since decades started from our childhood. Kay Hudasch, Oregon, USA”