“I am still kind of formulating my thoughts; however, thinking out loud below are my reasons why flying matters to me: – It is very therapeutic to me; I lose track of time when I fly. – I enjoy building airplanes (FliteTest planes and my own). – I enjoy experimentation through trial and error (will the final product fly, if so, how well). – practicing skills on traditional helicopter (starting to learn inverted flight). – I would enjoy flying more with friends but life commitments (full time job, my family small children, etc) and distance/schedule of my flying friends makes it more challenging. My story: I am in my 40’s and have enjoyed all things that fly since I was about 5 years old. Till this day I still remember a couple specific toy airplanes that my mother bought me at that age. One of them was for use on the ground. It was very cool; it had lights, made sounds and I think it would move forward on it’s own. The other airplane was one that had a functioning propeller in the back; the airplane was made to hang from the ceiling. when you turned on the propeller it would fly around the room in circles while tethered. When I was about 9 or 10, I remember experimenting with a (non-RC) glow plug powered helicopter. If you search the Internet for “COX .049 Gas Powered SKY JUMPER Marines Bell UH ID Huey”; my helicopter had a different style body but same engine. The way to use it was to go to a big field, put some amount of fuel in the helicopter, spin the propeller until the engine started then let the helicopter fly straight up. It would fly up until the fuel ran out then it would auto-gyro back down gently on it’s own. I remember I used the old Cox glow fuel (for example, “Cox 400 All-Purpose Model Engine Starting Kit”). When I was a teenager, I remember attending an open house at my parents job, General Electric. At that open house, for the first time, I saw a demonstration of a guy flying a radio control (traditional) helicopter flying inverted. Watching that helicopter fly was amazing. Fast forward a number of years to my early 20’s, when I could afford it, I got into the RC hobby. I remember I had a couple of co-workers at the time; who were both in the hobby. They flew RC airplanes. At that time, I ended up getting my first RC aircraft. It was an electric Kyosho EP Concept Helicopter. Awe man I had lots of fun (and many crashes) learning how to fly that thing. Then one of the co-workers started getting interested with RC helicopters (likely because of me). He purchased a Thunder Tiger Rapter 30; that helicopter was very common at the time. I ended up purchasing a nitro helicopter as well. I decided to purchase a less popular helicopter; a Quick .30 helicopter (I don’t think these are in production any more). I had lots of fun with that one. I remember I had some frustration with learning how to properly use its nitro engine. I ended up buying a very useful book about RC Helicopter (“Curtis Youngblood’s R/C Helicopter Book of Questions and Answers”). After much fun I took a break for a few years; I don’t remember why. My next helicopter was a Horizon Hobby E-Flite Blade 400. I put that through many flights. I still have that helicopter; it still flies despite some slight vibration issues. The story goes on with me learning how to fly airplanes then subsequently get into building (foam and depron) airplanes. I have done some flying of quad copters as well. Later, I had children. I have done some launching of rockets with them…and have built a couple FliteTest airplanes with my oldest son. I have also done some experimenting with my children using another scratch built foam airplane. That airplane started out as a glider, then became a RC glider, then we mounted an engine to it and it became a full RC airplane. This was all very fun and engaging. A number of years ago, I got my brother into the RC aircraft hobby as well. We have done some RC flying together on many occasions. Actually, we both drove from Massachusetts to Ohio and attended FliteFest 2015. In addition, there a couple of other newer co-workers that I had got into the hobby as well; we’ve done some indoor flying at work with smaller RC aircraft.”