Mr. Clarence Boudville (Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Tell us about yourself briefly?

Mr. Clarence Boudville: As a child I grew up with a passion in Aviation and technical stuff which stayed till adulthood. The early years of my childhood was greatly influenced by grown up friends who were both aeromodelers and engineering hobbyist. The association with them eventually shaped my own interest in Aviation and Engineering, ranging from building free flight aircraft, reading aviation books, building static models and building electro-mechanical projects. I am currently an Engineering Design Manager attached to a Construction Firm and I still have a keen interest in both Aviation and Engineering.

What made you come into this hobby and when did you start?

Mr. Clarence Boudville: With a lifelong interest in Aviation and Engineering, the passion for this hobby has always been there. However, during my teen years, as much as I wanted to take up this hobby, I just could not afford it. So I had set a goal to start this hobby once I gotten a job, which I actually fulfilled back in 1982. At that point in time, RC simulators, forums or even the internet did not exist and I really had no one to properly coach and advice me.

So after many months of saving, I bought a used airplane, complete with 4 channel Mode 1 analogue radio and OS .25 engine and off I went to the flying field. It was a scale 20 sized Cessna 142 and I made the classic newbie mistake of thinking that since full scale trainers are usually Cessna, the same should true for RC and no one advised otherwise. Big mistake!

With my “new” beat up Cessna, I went to the flying field and sought help from one of the hobby shop’s instructor to teach me. He fuel up, started the engine, took off and before I knew it, handed the TX to me and said “Here, now fly”. OK now, what? Oh boy, what a mess! I crashed and totally destroyed my plane in less than 5 minutes. My “instructor” calmly turnaround and said that I was totally hopeless and could never learn to fly and that was the end of it.

I was totally devastated by the crash especially considering the many months it took me to painfully save up for the model. That brief episode gave me a serious phobia about RC and I moved on to various flight simulators for the rest of the 80s and 90s until I accidentally stumbled across an RC simulator from Ripmax in late 2001. I gave it a try since I was really serious about flight sims at the time and had the full flight controls setup for my PC i.e. full scale joystick, separate split throttle quadrant and separate full size rudder paddles, I flew the RC sim in that manner for some time and eventually managed to handle the sim from a third person’s perspective on the ground as opposed to the normal first person’s cockpit view in a regular flight sim and I was hooked. That reignited my interest in RC again but at the same time the bitter experience of my first RC flight in the 80’s lingered on in my mind and I was indeed very cautious. As the saying goes "once bitten, twice shy".

So I decided to look for a better RC sim that comes with a dummy TX since this would be the only way of actually knowing if I could actually hack it and should I fail, the limited investment in the RC sim would have save me from another painful investment for the whole RC setup. Those were my initial thoughts and I bit the bullet and acquired Real Flight G2 and literally spent a good 2 months on simulated flights, flying trainers doing nothing but circuit and bumps to a point I was confident of handling take offs, landings, orientation and dead stick landings.

After the 2 month sim training, I finally mustered enough courage to buy my first Trainer. Not a scale model but a proper trainer and this time insisted on a Mode 2 radio (since it had the same familiar feel to my PC sim flight control configuration). The hobbyshop owner was shocked when I asked for a Mode 2 radio reaffirming that there would be no one to teach me since the predominant radio Mode used is Mode 1. Nevertheless I insisted on Mode 2 to the dismay of the hobby shop owner.

A week after my re-initiation back into RC, my trainer was ready and I went to the flying field. This time, the shop instructor introduced me to another modeler who flew Mode 2. He helped me check my Trainer out, started the engine, took off and trimmed the plane. Then he passed the TX to me and lo and behold I was actually flying the model. I must admit I was nervous but at least I had total control of the aircraft. It felt exactly like sim and I was amazed how comfortable I felt. Naturally, my buddy landed my plane and I was totally overjoyed and excited by the experience.

On the following weekend, I returned to the field and this time, my Mode 2 buddy was absent and the rest of the flyers were all Mode 1 and could not help. Since I was already there and have waited the whole week to fly, I told myself “what the heck, just bite the bullet and go solo!” The rest of the guys were already expecting an eminent crash especially considering I only had one flight the previous weekend and this newbie never landed. I started the engine and took off and flew circuits and all the while convincing myself that “It’s just a simulation” just to clam my jitters. Before long it was time to land and I just did what I did on the sim and landed in one piece. I must admit that I was more relieved than overjoyed. Feeling a lot more confident, I did several more solo flights that day and the rest is history.

What do you enjoy the most in this hobby? Is it designing, building flying?

Mr. Clarence Boudville: In a nutshell, what I enjoy most about this hobby is the opportunity to learn new things. This encompasses both aerobatic flying and the technology behind the entire spectrum of RC. There is always something new to learn and this has kept my interest going and RC has one of the widest aspects of incidental learning. The beauty about aerobatic flying is that there is simply no limit to the moves one could learn or dream up. This in turn improves flying skills and the understanding of aircraft design.

With regards to RC technology, there is so much to learn and in many aspects actually made me scramble back to my old engineering schoolbooks to understand the concepts and designs which I never paid much attention then. The knowledge that I gain through RC on many occasions have even been reapplied to my day job and vice versa. In this sense I see RC as personal development.