'Not just a hobby': Model airplanes bolster connection between family, friends

MALVERN – A small yellow model airplane glided peacefully through the air, about 50 feet above a wide, open field. Soon, a smaller model plane with red wings flew up behind it, bumping it from beneath. The yellow plane was sent spiraling, crashing nose-first into the field.

And with the plane's destruction, onlookers cheered.

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"Oh, you got him!" a man shouted into a microphone while dozens of model planes circled above. "Whoever got that one, come see me. We've got a prize for you."

The spectacle, aptly named "Combat," is part of Flite Fest 2022, the largest electric flying event in the world. For four days in the summer every year, model plane enthusiasts come from all over the country and the world to buy, build, display and fly model airplanes.

But flying model planes isn't the niche, expensive pastime that some might assume. In fact, one of the event's organizers said, it's the exact opposite.

"It's not just a hobby," said Josh Bixler, president of Flite Test, the model plane company that runs the event. "It's a lifestyle, and it's something that can give you a career path and something that can be beneficial in schools."

Bringing families together

Bixler, 43, explained that he and his wife created the family-operated Flite Test after they observed a trend of disconnect within families. They wanted to give parents and children a way to express their common interests through an activity that was fun, challenging and rewarding.

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The idea for a model plane company came from Bixler's own experiences with his father. When he was 7 years old, he said, he and his dad spent months building a model airplane. When it was finished, they took it outside to send it on its maiden flight.

Then, Bixler crashed it into a tree, and it broke to pieces. But his dad encouraged him to rebuild, an experience that was very formative for him. Now, he wants others to experience that same feeling through model planes.

"I remember those memories being very impactful. But now, dads don't know how to encourage their kids, moms don't know how to embrace that craftiness," he said. "Do this as a family unit and make it a lifestyle."

That aspiration of connection can also be applied to friends, Joshua Orchard said. Orchard, 41, of Frederick, Maryland, was at the fest to showcase and fly the model planes he's built. He started building them as a hobby, he said, but it soon transformed into a way to make friends with those who appreciate aviation history like he does.

Enthusiasm for model planes bridges peoples' differences unlike anything he's ever seen, Orchard said. He's made friends with people of all ages, backgrounds and professions. Ever year at Flite Fest, he meets up with the people he's met to catch up and share tips and tricks about building model planes.

"If you allow it to, you can create some really deep personal connections," he said. "When you work together to build something and then there's that culminating moment when it goes into the air, it truly is beautiful."

'We had to make the experience economical and quick.'

Bixler said a large hurdle to getting people to embrace bonding around model planes was that it was perceived to be expensive and time-consuming. But by using common materials like foam, glue and popsicle sticks, Flite Test was able to get people to buy in to the lifestyle, he said.

"In order to do this successfully, we had to make the experience economical and quick," he said. "So now, for as little as the price of a video game, you can actually get the air."

Once people bought and built the simpler planes, they started looking for more complex planes to build. So, Bixler enlisted the help of John Overstreet.

Overstreet, 48, of Fayette, Missouri, got involved with Flite Test after he and his son visited Flite Fest in 2017. They wanted to build a plane, and because Overstreet had experience building aircraft out of metal, he applied the same tactics to building smaller versions out of foam.

Soon after, he started working with Flite Test to design all of the company's master series aircraft, which are much more complex and harder to build than other designs. He "never thought in a million years" that people would want to build complicated airplanes, but his designs took off, he said.

"People are really longing for connections with one another," Overstreet said. "It's really interesting to see how people of all walks of life come together through a common activity."

One of the largest model planes at the fest was a quarter scale version of a Douglas C-47. Ben Harber, of Guntersville, Alabama, built the plane. With a wing-span larger than 20 feet, he believed the plane was the largest model C-47 in the U.S. to fly, he said.

Despite its size, Harber said the plane weighs less than a hundred pounds. He build it mostly from foam, glue, iron-on plastic and wood. And it took over a year.

"By my standards, that's longer than I should've taken to build it. I was slow," Harber said. He motioned to some smaller-scale fighter jets sitting near his trailer. "Those normally take me less than a week."

Like Bixler said, that's part of the draw for most people. The crowd who cheered at the small yellow airplane's fall from grace did so because that's exactly what's supposed to happen.

"We had to make it so if you fail or you crash, people celebrate that and then go back and build again," Bixler said.

Harber attested.

"Fly, crash, repair, repeat," he said. "That's our motto."

Contact Ryan via email at rmaxin@gannett.com, on Twitter at @ryanmaxin or by phone at 330-580-8412.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Josh Bixler's name. 

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Flite Fest 2022 connects model plane enthusiasts in Malvern