3 Builds At Once. Over Achiever or Attention Deficit Disorder?.

If you have been following along with me through my FlyBoyz saga, you know that my aviation modeling interests are somewhat varied. I enjoy several aspects of the hobby especially if they entail actually building models. Of particular focus for me are 3 niches within the hobby. I re-entered the hobby wanting to pick back up on my control line flying while also learning to fly R/C. Then, last year, I picked up a new interest in free flight modeling and flying.

If something interests me, I will most likely dive into it without knowing totally what I’m doing but the resulting learning experience is half the fun. Because of my many and varied interests, I tend to think of myself as a ‘jack-of-all-trades and master of none’ when it comes to expertise in any one particular modeling niche. While I would like to increase my building and flying skills in all areas, I recognize that I will most likely never be a ‘master modeler’ or contest level flyer in any one of these niches. But that’s OK, because there is a lot to enjoy in any given modeling niche even if one is only a dabbler in it.

And so, because of these varied interests, I currently find myself with three model builds actively in progress! What seems to happen is that I start one particular build to satisfy my interest in one niche and as it progresses, something somewhere else catches my attention and I switch over to focus on it for a bit. And then yet another thing catches my attention and I switch directions yet again. And of course, the over achiever in me fully expects that I can multi-task and work on all these builds at the same time. To some extent that works but what usually ends up happening is that the latest attention getter wins out and consumes most of my time and energy resulting in a backlog of partially built models. Here is a photo of my building shop with those three major builds currently in progress.

 

 

Build #1 is an R/C PT-20 trainer that I started building last year. The intent was to have it finished by this past April so that I could join the R/C flight school that my local club, the STARS, offers once a week throughout the flying season. As you can see from the below photo, it didn’t make it to the flying field this past season. But it will be ready next April!

 

 

Last year, I also discovered the vintage line of control line models that were once published by Berkeley. Their line of scale WWII warbirds really caught my fancy and I purchased several of these vintage kits off of eBay. The Focke-Wulf 190 was first to make it to my building board and the wing was in progress when my attention got diverted by a couple other control line builds (the Li’l Wizard and the Sterling P-51 Mustang) as well as my Kharkov free flight build. But now, the FW-190 has risen back up near the top of the build list and attention is once again being focused on it.

 

 

Build #3 is another free flight model. After seeing all the great planes at the FAC NATS this past summer, my attention was again diverted by the desire to build and fly a more ‘entry level’ free flight model. I decided to look for a model that was a ‘quick build’ (for me that means something that can be built in less than 100 man-hours!) and easy to fly. The Easy Built Models ‘Junior Commercial’ seemed to fit the bill so I added it to my inventory of kits and it has currently been the primary focus of my building efforts.

 

 

In the course of building this model, I have been trying to incorporate the building tips and techniques that were shared with me by some of the expert modelers I met at the FAC events over the summer. So far I like the results. While there is still plenty of room for improvement, I think the results of utilizing these building techniques has resulted in a far better looking model than I’ve built to date. Hopefully, some of those improved results can be seen in this photo of the fuselage that I just completed for the Junior Commercial.

 

 

Each one of these builds will be documented in their own build thread here on FlyBoyz. At the very least, my desire is to complete all three of these builds over the course of the winter so that all of them are ready to fly come next Spring. But, is it overly ambitious to expect that I can complete all three of these builds by next spring? Failure to do so would subject me to yet another round of  disappointment which often manifests itself as the result of me being an over achiever. Or, will my attention span be diverted yet once again by as yet unforeseen new attention getters? Or, will I be able to remain focused on these builds and have three wonderful new planes ready to fly next Spring? Stay tuned!