Written & Submitted by DVM (02/2006); Edited by JS (02/2006), Reformatted by JS (10/2009)
Douglas V. Mac Brien submitted the following autobiography in 2006.
Model Biography of Douglas C. Mac Brien The Beginning
I was raised out in the country, 120 miles north of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, on the shore of a beautiful lake. My brother, Bob (two years older than I), came home from Toronto where he was attending Central Technical High School with a small rubber-powered model that you could fly around indoors! I was hooked!
I built a lot of scale models all through high school – they cost about a quarter then. In my twenties, after joining the U.S. Air Force, I started to fly U-Control. I flew a .29 – powered trainer a lot and had it rigged with a second pair of lines for throttle so I could shoot landings. It was a lot of fun.
I built a six-foot-span Radio Control Cub, an escapement set-up. I went to a big meet in California where I was stationed, but only one model could fly at a time. I had to wait in line (not much action) so I did not stick with that. I did not do any more model airplane flying until I retired from the Air Force. Around 1976, I built a Radio Control trainer with a .25 OS engine. Eddie Kopec gave me my first training flight. It was a short lesson; the wing folded in-flight and the model wrecked!
Next, I built a Pietenpol from plans, put a .40 engine on it and floats, and took it up to my cottage in Ontario. I soloed off the water but crashed. It was a very nervous flight. After a few more trainers, I could fly okay and got into bigger models. I built a giant scale Stearman from Don Godfrey’s plans, then started designing and building my own: a 1/3 scale Druine Turbulent (7’ span), a 1/5 scale Dalotel (7’ span), a 1/5 scale OS2U Kingfisher (7’ span), a 1/6 scale OS27 Kingfisher (6’ span) and a Curtiss SOC Seagull (7’ span). I sold plans all over the world, though not in great numbers except for the Seagull, and another modeler beat me to it. I was not happy with the flight characteristics of the Seagull anyway. It tended to porpoise, whereas the Kingfisher never had that problem. My training as a civil engineer helped in the design work. I also took classes in drafting and taught it at Easthampton High School for one semester before I went back to school to get my engineering degree. Lately, I have had health problems and stopped flying, but I am still very active in photography.
Competition
I only flew in one competition, at the 1984 AMA National Aeromodeling Championships (Nats) at Westover Air Force Base, where I flew the 1/5 scale Kingfisher on wheels. I did not place, but I did not crash either. It was very hot and I did not really enjoy it, so I did not do any more competition.
Leadership
I served as Treasurer of the Hampshire County Radio Controllers for a couple of terms years ago. Publishing Experience
In 1985, Norm Goyer, who used to publish Radio Control Scale Modeler, asked me to write an article and let him publish my plans for the 1/5-scale Kingfisher. This appeared in the February 1986 issue of Radio Control Scale Modeler with nice color photos to accompany my article on construction and flying. (Previously Norm published color photos of the big OS2U in the December 1985 issue of Radio Control Scale Modeler. The Kingfisher showed up again briefly in the October 1994 issue of Radio Control Scale Modeler.)
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