(Larry chuckles) - Have I ever crashed an airplane or helicopter?

I can't count on my hands how many times.

- I kind of like it when they crash.

(laughs) I mean, I realize it's a heartbreak for the person who's operating the plane, but, you know, everybody loves a good train wreck.

(laughs) (upbeat music) - [Larry] I can give you, in one word, the difference between flying a helicopter and an airplane.

The helicopter is unstable.

It doesn't wanna be there.

- It'd be interesting to see what my watch says my heart rate is right now, too.

- It wants to crash any way at all.

- Oh no, it's gonna dive!

- Down, down, down!

- It wants to flip over, it wants to dive, it wants to come back, everything.

You are on the sticks, or on the controls, all the time.

- This is why you bring tools along.

(upbeat music) (aircraft motor buzzing) - The only maneuver that's limited, very, very limited, is to fly underground and come back up whole.

(aircraft motor buzzing) (car engine humming) (aircraft motor buzzing) (gentle cheerful music) - I'm Ed Pollack.

I am the club president for Tuscarora Flying Club.

I became president, I guess, eight years ago.

I've been here ever since, trying to improve what we have.

(cheerful music) I painted that sign, by the way.

I didn't letter it, but I painted it, though.

I don't do lettering.

(cheerful music) (aircraft motor buzzing) The club started back around the end of World War II.

All the military guys who were in the service came out, and they decided they're going to continue their passion of flying, and they opened the flying club field.

Our mission right now is just trying to introduce kids, people, adults, anyone, to the art of flying R/C plane.

- So here it comes, Blake.

- I was told a long time ago, do not ever fall in love with a plane, for the simple reason, you will lose it.

(chuckles) Not that you want to.

(mechanisms whir) (motor buzzing) - [Ed] I probably started doing this, I'm gonna say '74, '75.

1983 I started, I guess, full-time hobby.

And that's it, one new windsock.

(upbeat music) - My name is Larry Smith.

I am a former vice president of the Tuscarora R/C Flying Club.

You wound that rubber band up tight, it would turn the blades, and this turned this way, and the tail rotor turned to keep it stable.

I've been flying models since I'm a kid.

At that time, it wasn't R/C, it was free flight, it was on its own.

You had an engine on it, you launched it, and you measured the amount of fuel you put in so it wouldn't fly away.

Later on, I ventured into radio control.

It wasn't around.

I was one of the first ones in it.

- Larry, Larry has been around forever, I guess since the beginning of the club.

He is very opinionated.

- Oh yes, I am.

I will be the first one to tell you that.

(chuckles) - He likes people, he'll talk to anyone.

He's one of our pillars of the club, he is.

- Hello, everybody, I'm here.

I'm late, but I'm here.

- [Ed] Our next biggest event, that's at the end of April, and what happens there is, around dusk, they start setting up at nighttime.

- This is my night flyer.

I do not fly, night fly, with a helicopter.

There it is.

As you should see, it's quite visible.

The LEDs go right through the styrofoam.

(dog barks) (metal clanging) - My name is Kyle Snyder, and I'm the club secretary of the Tuscarora R/C Flying Club.

I first heard about the Tuscarora R/C Club all the way back when I was a little kid.

My mom had actually seen a newspaper article about the Aerorama show, and she took me up there as a little kid, probably only 11, 12 years old, and then that was my first introduction to it.

- Kyle is unique.

He's not like most of the young people today.

In fact, for the longest time, I called him Young Kyle.

He's now older, so I usually don't refer to him as Young Kyle, but he's much younger than I am.

- Set these right in here.

I would have to say that this club is like a family, because Ed, the club president, he got me into beekeeping, and so he's helped me get that set up, and I help him when he needs it for different things like that.

This is one of my beehives.

Right now, there's nothing in it, because I'm in the process of waiting for a nucleus colony of bees.

- Probably my best friend now is Kyle Snyder.

Kyle and I, I think, are a team that, by pure happenstance, pure luck, got to be together, and now, because of that, we grew the club.

And personality, I don't know if the guy get angry at anything.

- Yep, and just like that, we have an official flag.

One of my good friends in this club would be Ed Pollack.

He is definitely a unique individual.

He's one of those guys that, when you start talking to him, you think he should be about 700 years old.

(engine growling) - Oh my god.

- [Larry] Ed is very outgoing.

- Now, we have our toys for tonight for the kids.

The light-up toys.

- Ooh, a fun staff.

- The club pays for some of it, but it's just my donation for the kids.

- I want one.

- Say thank you.

- He is really the best president we've ever had.

Now, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have some wrong things.

- You know, I'm getting older right now and crankier, I guess, but there's still things to do that are still fun.

It's still fun.

I enjoy it.

- That's Rosie.

- She's like, well, hey, if we're gonna be on camera.

- Hey, Rosie.

(uplifting music) (aircraft motor buzzing) - [Kyle] When we're out there flying and, like, I'm out flying on the flight line, and then you come down to land and you turn around and you see all the kids along the benches there, and they're just enjoying it and watching it and they want to know how the helicopters work and how you can fly upside down, 'cause they all say, wait, it shouldn't be able to do that, and they all want to see, like, well how does that work?

So you take it over to 'em and move everything around so they can actually see how it works.

- Look how high.

Look at it.

It's twisting.

(aircraft motor buzzing) Oh my gosh.

- [Kyle] Some of that, that's planting a seed in their head so that somewhere down the line, who knows?

They might be a mechanical engineer, they might go into flight of some type, or there's lots of different avenues to go from there.

- I thought it was a good family activity, come out and support the club.

We attended their Trunk or Treat event in the fall, and they put on a very nice showing then, so we thought this would follow suit as well.

- Okay.

We'll get a countdown, and see if everything works.

(uplifting music) This is the launcher.

Three, two.

(rocket hissing) There it goes!

It works!

- Oh, God.

I can't even look up that high.

- We were asked, back in 2020 when COVID hit, if we could cover this for, it was for Marian High School.

The Blue and Gold Club is the fundraising part of the school, and what we do is we offer these to our booster clubs to give them a chance to make a little bit of extra money for their clubs or whatever the case may be.

- [Ed] And it's quality food, homemade food, most of it is, and it's, last year, they paid for some uniforms, they paid for the traveling out of the money they made at our airshow.

(uplifting music) - I mean, it keeps shutting off.

(chuckles) - This hasn't flown since last year, so hopefully it's still good yet.

(mechanisms whir) Well, everything moves.

Let's try it.

(grand stirring music) (aircraft motor buzzing) The hopes I have for the Tuscarora R/C Flying Club would be to actually to see it grow, get more members, reach out to the community.

It would be nice to start actually going to different schools and getting in as part of their STEM program to get them involved in this, because there's so many different ways that kids could learn.

I mean, we have everything from your radio technology to your mechanics to your material sciences to flight in general, 'cause you can get people that'll wanna be pilots out of this and just to do something on that line.

(cheerful music) - [Larry] It's to promote flying a model aircraft, and that's about it.

(cheerful music) (aircraft motors buzzing) (sunny cheerful music)