One more hobby shop has died

M&M Hobby Center is the one that closed.

W Hobbies Radio Control is close to work but has no kits, only RTF and a very limited supply of balsa. They DID have z pliers and a wire bender (I bought the last one), but no sanding sealer or dope. Maybe 10 rolls of Monocote. I went in there to get some leading and trailing edge. They had a slot for it in the balsa area, but it was empty.

All the others are at least 30 miles away. I live in a city of 4 million, and all I see is the hobby going away.

It just seems like hobbies (that is building and tweeking) has gone away. RTF toys are the only thing left. Instant gratification is the order of the day.

John do you fly with the NASA guys? Mike McGraw used to fly with them. He was one of our favorite fuel suppliers until he died, in 2013 at 55 years old. At his job. His brand was Glowplugboy, and if you bought 2(I think) quarts, he would give you any ratios you wanted at no extra charge. I was just wondering if you knew him.
Rusty

I noticed this 30 years ago that most hobby shops were on a down spiral. They were small in numbers here and were downsizing incredibly fast. Many of the hobby shops at least in this area converted to trains as they seemed to be the dominant force in sales. I was fortunate to be in the right place at that given time due to being able to pick up many engines which I still own and field support supplies for half the listed cost. R/C trucks and cars were becoming increasingly popular and the shelves of the hobby shops were overloaded with major brand items like Tamiya products. To my surprise, these items stayed in stock for incredibly long periods of time and the craze certainly benefited many hobby shops. Unfortunately I think this also persuaded many of us including myself to go in that direction. The business districts of the suburbs in these parts demand extremely high rent. Thousands of people pass through these areas daily and while we desire the business end of things, the owners of these properties also have $$$$ in their eyes. The rent of these properties are incredibly high and I can't imagine that changing from a geographical standpoint. I find it extremely difficult to find these shops paying their employees, paying their rent and the owner walking out the door with a decent paycheck.

For myself and many others in the suburbs, flying fields were non existent and school yards and business parks were the places to fly. These soon were becoming problematic due to being chased out and signs exclusively stating no model airplanes. I found this to be a real heart breaker. I did it anyhow and many times was chased out by police. It always seemed ok for the minibikes and small cc motorcycles to tear around the schools and fields but DON"T FLY AIRPLANES.

When I evaluate what happened in these parts over the past 30 years, I can see from a business standpoint why the products and materials disappeared from the shelves. WHy build if you can't fly. The electronic age with home video games dominated from the mid 80's- to the present. The electronic generation isn't interested in glue and sticks. This generation has never experienced model airplanes. When I roll out a plane and a set of lines, people stop and ask "Where did you buy that and where can I get one?" When I tell them I made it, the first reaction is that they could never do that.  These things have been around as long as real aircraft has but the public seems to have lost touch with this great hobby.   The only hobby shops that survived were the ones located within 10 miles of dedicate r/c  flying fields. When they dried up one by one, a certain particular shop in my area was quite old and was the only true hobby shop left. The owners claimed if it wasn't for internet sales they would've had to claim bankruptcy 10 years prior. While we hear that internet sales is the result of many hobby shops closing down due to the big box hobby shops, this particular shop needed the sales to survive. That hobby shop closed officially last year sadly however the stock is still being liquidated on Ebay. One thing I can say is that from the control line end of the hobby, John Brodak essentially purchased most of the big named companies and offered their products once again. The hobby is not John's bread and butter and to be able to put so much effort into the things he has from a sideline hobby is incredibly amazing. If it wasn't for him, I feel the control line side of the hobby would've absolutely gone out many years ago. Ken

John , i feel your pain it hurts to see another favored Hobby Shop go away, my closest one was 30 miles away and they retired this year. But i can say they went out with a bang as everthing was discounted nicely so i did get to stock up some Eric

The hobby has changed a lot over the years, and the modern hobby shop is one that can adapt to it. Unfortunately, most can't because this hobby has become so diverse.
Quadcopters and FPV, giant scale gas, foamies, UMX, and parkflyers, and the old style glow engines on modern planes, and even a little bit of CL still lives. Most hobby shops that try to specialize in one thing don't have the customer base any more, and the ones that try to diversify can't move enough stock to make money on the local level.

Who knows, this hobby may even return to its roots as hobby shops go away and more people start trying to build their own equipment. If you look at the "innovations" people are coming up with, you see foamboard planes built from dollar tree foam and multirotor drones designed on CAD platforms. The days of the FF cox powered guillows plane and trips to the LHS may be gone, but the hobby will live in one way or another.

Well, I admit I have bought into the on-line quick fly foam experience.



Electric fly is neat, clean, and quiet but it gives none of the viseral experience of nasty old gas powered engines noise and all.

There are two hobby shops within 25 miles of me (Hobby Hutt and Hobby Town) but even they feature foam and electric power. Signs of the times, but at least balsa and gas are still available if we continue to support them.

I have my share of foamies and leccys. Being in the position of cahs-strapped teenager, I fly pretty much anything and everything I can get. If that means getting somebodies worn out ARF with a half-dead engine for free or very cheap, I'll fly it till it breaks, fix it to the best of my ability, and fly it some more.

The only hobby shops that are 25 miles or so near me are a Hobbytown USA and then Chief Aircraft is right up the street. But Chief only does the Giant Scale 3D stuff, and full scale. And the hobbytown is just as worthless.

If I'm willing to go further, there is Graves RC and a few others in the Orlando area but those are an hour away. Graves RC does online orders, so you can get good stuff from them without the road trip the next day. Only problem is, they don't ship glow fuel. Which means you gotta go and buy three jugs of it every now and then. I always look forward to those trips, theres something about an LHS that the online order can't replace.

Ken Cook wrote:
For myself and many others in the suburbs, flying fields were non existent and school yards and business parks were the places to fly. These soon were becoming problematic due to being chased out and signs exclusively stating no model airplanes. I found this to be a real heart breaker. I did it anyhow and many times was chased out by police. It always seemed ok for the minibikes and small cc motorcycles to tear around the schools and fields but DON"T FLY AIRPLANES.

. Ken

Yeah, finding places to fly in the city is dicey. I was taken into temporary custody by johnny law in Eagan, MN for flying without a permit!

I have found one school yard, a corner of a field on the Rice campus, and two parking lots I can use evenings and weekends. Just to be safe, I avoid using any one more than once or twice a month hoping to not draw too much attention and get booted. No space to fly was my motivation to get back into CL. I just bought a couple Testors Flyems just to have something I can fly on 10 foot lines

getback wrote:John , i feel your pain it hurts to see another favored Hobby Shop go away, my closest one was 30 miles away and they retired this year. But i can say they went out with a bang as everthing was discounted nicely so i did get to stock up some Eric

That's what chapped me most: I DIDN'T KNOW they were going out of business and missed the chance to stock up. At least I made a craigslist buy a couple years back that supplied me with enough balsa to last at least a couple years.

1/2A Nut wrote:Perhaps a new way around location issue's: Outdoor backyard micro CL. Say 12ft lines with a lil stuntah running
on a .005 engine to keep the noise down.

Where the hell do you plan on getting a mass-produced .005 engine that actually runs worth a damn?

The smallest I would envision anybody going would be the .010, probably with a homebrew muffler solution.

1/2A Nut wrote:Ken your spot on, its how I have seen change too. ARF's or ready to run of any kind of RC and electric power is now the core of the hobby buy charge and fly in the same day or following day. No real time investment or creation thru design phase into the construction the flying being months in the making at times. When I designed and created big birds one took close to 4 months to complete. RC killed free flight and CL thus Cox CL planes went away. Simulators has even cut into flying time and going to club fields. Quiet electric has had many flying locally near home eating in to club participation.
Technology sold online has kept the hobby going or we would be in deep chit. Many folks these days can step up into flying full size planes or build kits more easy than back in the day so that has pulled some from the hobby. Other things such as small water craft has pulled folks away the auto world having so many hop up parts and tech in the vehicles have pulled talent away from the hobby. Adults simply trying to survive the ups and downs of the economy job loss etc.
Many factors have morphed the face of the flying portion of the hobby. First helicopters and now Quadcopters have taken or steered some away.
Perhaps the hobby of the future will be to build and fly out of the garage manned flying crafts such as quadcopters slow fly ultralight class airplanes using hybrid materials and cough, cough elect brushless motors. Drones off shute from the RC hobby has brought some folks back into the fold. CAD design has helped to keep things interesting enough for young folks to indulge the hobby and embrace construction again. We just have to be happy for what we can do and have enjoyed the future is what it is, people will have hobbies of some sort it's human nature to want to fly or at least control something that flies. Looking back at the order of things; balsa stick building to use low power small engines changed to plank sheet building making planes stronger to support new more powerful engines then light weight materials to support electrics now innovative materials to support powerful electrics. All this leads to enough power tech to build n fly in your own craft as a hobby.

What you guys describe is unfortunately a global issue. Where I live, in Budapest, the supplies of ARF-s and accessories to support my R/C plane hobby have never been so plentiful as these may still be in the USA, and given the electronics and other toys prevailing over mechanical stuff like model airplanes etc, the demand has dropped in the past decade so that retailers are shrinking their stocks. On top of that we, engine-powered pilots were given a fresh blow recently. Nitro fuel was made so expensive by special taxes here that retailers no longer sell them in Hungary.

So we need to blend fuel in our kitchens, with our anxious wifes looking over our shoulders to see if we inadvertantly pour nitro on the floor, providing these precious components are available.

I buy the methanol and castor in a chemicals store in Budapest, but if I want to have nitro also blended in my fuel - which I do want, given my fleet of COX engines - I need to drive 2 x 200km and cross the border to the next hobbyshop in Slovakia where nitro is sold.

The same goes with ARF plane kits that are a hard find here.

Anyways as long as we are addicts we keep running after our baits no longer where they are hanging. (Leaving Las vegas featuring Nicolas Cage)