FLYING OHM By Roy DeCamara
Relive the days of early R/C with this vintage model and modern electronics!
PHOTOGRAPHY: ROY DECAMARA M 18
y connection with the Flying Ohm really began during the Spring of 1949. My interest in model airplanes began when my
uncle gave me some model magazines in 1947. I lived on a ranch in California’s San Joaquin valley, so toy stores and hobby shops were unknown to me. Sometime in 1948, while in the town of Los Banos, I hap- pened upon a hobby shop. I heard a loud noise coming from the back of the store. A man and a boy were running a model en- gine. I didn’t know what it was then, but years later I realized that it had been a Drone diesel. That gave me a clue of what a model en-
gine sounded like. I continued trying to build Comet kits, model car kits, things from the variety store. So, on a spring Sunday morning in 1949, I had just gotten out of
Sunday school class when I heard some sounds coming from the high school nearby. I told my mother that I wanted to go over to the high school while she was in church and see what was going on. Well, the sound turned out to be model airplanes. There were quite a few kids a lit- tle older than me that had a model. Some were just trying to get the engine started. I noticed that some models had much smaller motors than the fellows that were flying. These were the first 1⁄2A engines. There was one fellow a bit older and he seemed to be the best flyer. He had a tool box that had his name and address printed on the side of the box: Ray Morgan, Patterson, California. I ran back to the church when Mom came out and I begged her to take me back to the high school for a while longer. I soon found out that Ray Morgan had a
hobby shop behind his home. Patterson did not have a hobby shop downtown. The near- est hobby shop was in Modesto, about twen- ty miles away. I also learned that the kids at Patterson High School belonged to a mod- el airplane club named the Patterson Balsa Butchers. One afternoon when we were in Patterson, I asked Mom to stop at Ray’s house so I could meet him and check out the hobby shop. I needed some rubber strands for my Comet model, so this was my ploy to stop by. Ray was very friendly and by golly, he stocked the rubber I needed. I asked him about the small motors I had seen at the high school and he showed me a K&B Infant Torpedo .020. After that I begin to work on my Dad to get me that Infant Torpedo. One Saturday afternoon, not long after
the visit to Ray’s hobby shop, Dad was head- ed to Patterson for some kind of errand and
MAY 2012
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