This article from 2019 originally appeared in The Selected Curve and is reprinted here with the permission of the author. It includes new material not found in the original article.

On a whim in the summer of 1976 — no doubt in part because he wanted to drive his shiny silver Alfa Romeo on the twisty and dangerous road through the mountains — my father suggested I have a stab at the Model Aeronautics Association of Canada National Championships held that year in Calgary, Alberta. This was on the strength of some spotty success at similar local model airplane competitions…

In his first monthly editorial, Terence C. Gannon, the recently appointed Managing Editor of the NEW R/C Soaring Digest, pays tribute to the past and talks about the future of the publication.

I am both humbled and honoured — and a little nervous — to bring you the very first issue of the NEW R/C Soaring Digest. Officially, this is Volume 36, Number 1 which means that RCSD published for an unbroken run of over 400 issues sweeping across 35 years concluding in December of 2018. Most recently, it was very ably published by Bill and Bunny Kuhlman. My first…

My mother and I took Wardair to the UK in late 1973 to visit my still hail and hearty grandparents. The same could not be said for the UK itself which was suffering high inflation, pervasive labour unrest and a growing malignant malaise which would beset the nation for years. None of that had any effect whatsoever on a 12 year old living it up in the Pythonesque, quirky home of his ancestors while having the unalloyed attention of his doting grandparents and mother.

I spent my days ‘working’ at my grandparents clothing factory on London Road in Manchester. Getting…

If I was an airline executive — I’m not even remotely close — I would spend all of my waking hours thinking about what my airline is going to do to ensure every passenger who gets on every one of my flights is as 100% COVID-free as humanly possible. Pre-flight blood tests, nasal swabs, quarantines, COVID contact tracking apps or whatever other newly invented magic is available are all on the table. Whatever it takes. I absolutely would not be waiting for new regulatory requirements to come down the pipe. They may well be in the ‘risk reduction’ realm as…

Before I go any further let me clearly state that not being able to watch sports on TV is a concern not even remotely close to the trials routinely faced by health care and other essential workers in the time of COVID-19. We already owe them a debt we cannot hope to repay. Also, it almost goes without saying it’s not even in the same universe as those who have already lost loved ones to the diabolical virus or may be suffering with the disease itself. Compared to these things, not getting the see how the Raptors’ season turns out…

It has been a long time since our last Ignition Sequence Start article here on Medium. We kicked off the publication with a couple of articles and dewey-eyed hopes that an oil & gas industry still reeling from the 2016 price crash would be interested in taking advantage of the latest in IT to make their operations more efficient. It’s not an exaggeration to say these articles landed with a dull thud layered over the the sound of crickets.

Then recently, as well all now know, everything changed in an instant.

To anybody who will listen, we tell a story…

In the first article in this series, I kicked off The Sailplane project with the story of how it all began. On the face of it, that was September of 2019 at Pacific City, Oregon after a stunningly beautiful day of skimming my Dream Flight Ahi a few metres above the dunes rising from the beach. But this story of creating an entirely new sailplane design really begins 50 years earlier with a Guillows Javelin when my late father, brother and I stood “beside the Trans-Canada highway in suburban Montréal…as it curled into the summer sky." …

I have built and flown model aircraft for over 50 of my 58 years. They have provided all manner of rewards punctuated with some hard lessons which have served me well in life. For an avowed and unapologetic avgeek, they offer a connection to aviation, an unmatched creative outlet and an endlessly intriguing intellectual challenge.

The type of model aircraft in which I’m most interested are gliders, which are controlled from the ground by the pilot with a radio link to the airplane. Gliders, or sailplanes as they are often synonymously called, are like any other aircraft absent any means…