You may have seen covers of many cars and bike magazines such as Easy Rider, Hot Rod, and Lowrider that featured beautiful women on their covers. However, another type of magazine competed with those muscle car magazines, radio control airplane magazines.
Radio-controlled aircraft (also known as RC planes) are flying machines controlled by a handheld radio transmitter from the ground. An external transmitter sends signals to a receiver on the craft, which moves servomechanisms (servos) based on the location of joysticks on the transmitter. The control surfaces, in turn, determine the orientation of the craft. Radio-controlled models were first made in 1936, though no contestants flew them. The first official RC contest was held in 1937. The popularity of this form of aeromodelling did not begin until the 1970s.
