[m4rtink]

I still remember those from my airplane model building years! When I joined the airplane modeling club at the local House of Youth here in the Czech Republic, we had a few of them still hanging around under the ceiling - but we never flew them by that point.

People were mostly building analog glow spark or detonation engine powered planes or electric and unpowered gliders.

Interestingly the thing basically all people built at tje start was a throwing balsa plane and then an uncontrolled glider, that you would drag up using a line, kinda how manned gliders are lofted with a winch.

Then every year we would hold a competition where members would compete with the planes they built - IIRC my glider was in the A3 category but I don't think I won any top spots back then. Also one way to assure victory was to build a bigger glider in one of the categories no one else competed. :-)

By doing it this way the club members learned how to use the tools and materials to then build more advanced designs - I managed to also build a RC plan eventually, powered by a 1,5 cm3 glowspark and controlled by a SkySport 4! I think 9 still have it somewhere.

Then high-school started and I had much less time and that was it with airplane building back then. :P