Fun read! Starting in about 1958 I was doing the same sort of stuff, but with airplanes... ooooh! I constantly dreamed about flying, and started building those plastic Revell and Monogram models, but they didn't fly! (Well, they sorta did, once each, like a brick.) 10-cent balsa gliders came next, then the rubber-band-powered ROG's that would "fly 1/10th of a mile!" Started cutting and gluing and hacking together multi-engined rubber-powered planes, then graduated to built-up 3-D models covered with "Japanese silk paper." God answered all my prayers one Christmas morning when I was about 8 and I found a Wen-Mac PT-19 U-Controlled gas model powered by a .049 under the tree.
Long story short - I retired 5 years ago from several interesting careers adjacent to or directly involved in aviation. It's been a great life doing what I love and feel passionate about -- just as you have. That is the key to a happy life -- figure out what you love (and it may not even be obvious to you at first), and then DO THAT.
Larry, thats a great story! I did the same with the Revell models, firecrakers and bottle rockets were involved though. I love hearing how you took something you loved and stuck with it, just bigger.
Fun read! Starting in about 1958 I was doing the same sort of stuff, but with airplanes... ooooh! I constantly dreamed about flying, and started building those plastic Revell and Monogram models, but they didn't fly! (Well, they sorta did, once each, like a brick.) 10-cent balsa gliders came next, then the rubber-band-powered ROG's that would "fly 1/10th of a mile!" Started cutting and gluing and hacking together multi-engined rubber-powered planes, then graduated to built-up 3-D models covered with "Japanese silk paper." God answered all my prayers one Christmas morning when I was about 8 and I found a Wen-Mac PT-19 U-Controlled gas model powered by a .049 under the tree.
Long story short - I retired 5 years ago from several interesting careers adjacent to or directly involved in aviation. It's been a great life doing what I love and feel passionate about -- just as you have. That is the key to a happy life -- figure out what you love (and it may not even be obvious to you at first), and then DO THAT.
Larry, thats a great story! I did the same with the Revell models, firecrakers and bottle rockets were involved though. I love hearing how you took something you loved and stuck with it, just bigger.
Enjoyed this. How'd you finance it all?
You mean the Homebrew computers. I worked as an electrician. Every weekend, and every summer particularly after summer school lol