Remote-Control Hobbies Serve Up Thrills in Air, on Water and Land

If you’re walking in the park and hear a loud buzzing, chances are you’re not being attacked by a new breed of super mosquito. More likely you’re near an airfield of the Lilliputian Air Force, where scale-model, remote-controlled Zeros, Corsairs and Messerschmitts are dive-bombing the suburban greensward. Continuing your stroll may take you to a park pond that is being churned by radio-controlled speedboats, some of them miniature versions of those on the big-boat racing circuit, right down to the “Ms. Budweiser” decals.

Further travels around Southern California may introduce you to pint-sized, remote-controlled trucks such as a 1/10th-scale Ford F-150 Ranger Blackfoot or the Monster Beetle, both duded up like their larger counterparts and looking rugged enough to conquer Southern California’s desert.

According to John Cochrane, it’s “the environment and the fun” that have popularized these remote-control hobbies. Cochrane owns Radio Boat, a Southgate store that deals in radio-controlled planes and cars and “specializes in 100-m.p.h. (miniature) race boats.”

Of the remote-controlled boats, he said: “You run them at a cool, shady lake, which is nice--and they go like the dickens!”

Remote-control hobbies can be initially expensive. To put a new boat in the water may cost $800 for a “gas-powered” model; from $100 to $300 plus for an electric model; from $125 to $1,000 for a sailboat. (“Gas-powered” boats burn a fuel mixture that includes nitromethane and costs about $25 a gallon.)

Off-road vehicles can cost from $175 to $600 and up.

Model planes start at about $170 for a Styrofoam aircraft body, an engine and a two-channel radio. The price would be closer to $400 for a wood plane kit, including engine and four-channel radio (to regulate engine speed, rudder direction, elevation and banking). And one “pilot” says the cost of getting off the ground “can go from there to infinity.”

Most remote-controlled planes, boats and ground vehicles must be assembled. However, at hobby shops you usually can find help and advice, if not someone to actually build one for you. Cochrane said, “We’ll build a boat for about $200--but advice is free.”

The best beginning for a person who wants to get into remote-control hobbies? “Go out to the park on a Sunday and watch,” Cochrane said. “See what’s going on. . . . Then, on Monday, go to a hobby store and see what your pocketbook will bear.”

Some hobby shops not only offer advice, but also have tracks available where enthusiasts can pay a minimal fee to practice their skills, such as the Ranch Pit Shop in Pomona, (714) 623-1506, which has both dirt and asphalt tracks.

Here’s a list of 10 places you can find people practicing their remote-control hobbies.

OFF-ROAD VEHICLES

Radio Controlled Hobbies, 2011 Placentia Ave., Costa Mesa, (714) 631-1555. Open Sunday and Monday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Wednesday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. There’s an indoor track measuring 90 feet by 55 feet. The cost is $2, whether you come in for an hour or all day. There are races ($7 to enter) every Tuesday and Thursday from 7 p.m. to closing and every Saturday from 5 p.m. to closing.

AIRPLANES

Mile Square Regional Park, 16801 Euclid Ave., Fountain Valley, (714) 962-5540. The Hobby Area (for radio-controlled airplanes, among other crafts) is open from 8 a.m. till half an hour before sunset. If you plan to go on a Saturday, you might want to call ahead to make sure there isn’t a competition scheduled. The park’s vehicle-entry fee is $1.25. You should have liability insurance for the airplane from the Academy of Model Aeronautics or another insurance carrier. The premium of a liability policy is about $35.

Woodley Park, 6335 Woodley Ave., Van Nuys, (818) 989-8891. Open dawn to dusk. No charge. The park’s Apollo 11 Model Airport (not far from the intersection of Victory Boulevard and Woodley Avenue) has a reputation as one of the finest model airports in the Western United States. You are expected to have liability insurance. Call ahead here too, because when the field is used by the San Fernando Valley Radio Controlled Flyers for competitions, it is closed to the public. Art Pelka, (818) 341-7194, is the club’s liaison with the park.

Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, 1601 N. Rosemead Blvd., South El Monte, (818) 448-3711. Open dawn to dusk. The airfield is near the baseball diamonds on the west side of the athletic area. There is no charge to use it or for parking.

GAS-, ELECTRIC-, STEAM- OR SAIL-POWERED BOATS

Prado Regional Park, 16700 S. Euclid Ave., Chino, (714) 597-4260. Open 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. The lake is in the front part of the park, near the gate. There is a vehicle fee of $3. You must have hold an insurance card from the National American Model Boat Assn. and have a recovery boat should the radio controls on your model boat fail. (If you don’t have a rowboat of your own, you can rent one in the park.)

El Dorado East, 7550 E. Spring St., Long Beach, (213) 425-8569. Ask at the gate for directions to Area 2 in the North Lake. There is a $2 vehicle fee on weekdays; $3 weekends. The park is open from 7 a.m. until dusk. Electric and sailboats welcome; no gas-powered boats.

Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, 823 Lexington-Gallatin Road, South El Monte; (818) 448-3711. Open dawn to dusk. This location affords model boaters a more convenient access to the lake area than the South El Monte site given above for flyers. There are three small lakes in the park;

boaters are looking for the west end of the south one--Legg Lake. There are no restrictions and no charges to use the lake, but on Saturdays and Sundays there’s a charge for parking in the nearby lot, where you must put four quarters into a machine to get in.

Reseda Park, 18411 Victory Blvd., Reseda; (818) 881-3882. No charge; no restrictions. You’ll find a three-acre pond that remote-controlled boaters can use during daylight hours.

Cerritos Regional Park, 19700 Bloomfield St., Cerritos; (213) 924-5144. No charge. No gas boats allowed. The Maritime Modelers boating club uses the lake, which is near the recreation building and pool, on the first Sunday of each month, the only time boaters are allowed. Guests can join in three times before being required to join the club. Club members start about 9 a.m. and finish about 3:30 p.m. The group is covered by insurance and has a color-coded frequency-control board, each color corresponding to that on a beribboned clothespin you clip on your radio transmitter to show you’ve been given a radio channel. Contact Bob Gerber, president of the club, for more information: (213) 531-6540.

Model Yacht Basin, Mission Bay (West Vacation Island), directly off Ingraham Street, San Diego. No power boat may start its engine before 9 a.m.; area closes at sunset. No charge. Mondays through Fridays it’s virtually open water. Every Wednesday there’s an impromptu “Sail Meeting” after lunch. Saturdays you’ll usually find sailboats and scale-model electrics in the basin. Sundays traditionally are given over to gas-powered boats, but the San Diego Argonauts (contact Woodie Woodhouse, (619) 238-1267) use these waters for club events on some Sundays, so check first.