Text by AMA staff (12/2011); Updated by JT (12/2014); Formatted by JS (01/2012)
Jeff was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 2011. His “History Project” biography was originally printed in the January 2012 issue of Model Aviation by AMA staff. The article was updated in 2014.
Jeff Troy
Jeff Troy was born and raised in New York City. He is a 30-year veteran of the rock & roll stage, the former editor-in-chief of Park Pilot magazine, and a seasoned modeler with many years’ experience in competition, publishing, leadership, and design.
Jeff began building model airplanes in the early 1950s, and in 1984, was elected vice president of the Valley Forge Signals (Pennsylvania). He later served as president of that club in 1985 and 1986, and is now a member of the Lancaster County Radio Control Club (Pennsylvania). From 1981 through 1986, Jeff and his wife, Lisa, ran Allied Hobbies in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where he helped customers from kids to seniors learn to build and fly model aircraft. Jeff provided several of his school-age students for the AMA video, Inside the AMA. Jeff is a former Nats Soaring, US Scale Masters, and Top Gun Invitational competitor. He has achieved Level Four in the League of Silent Flight, and won numerous awards for aeromodeling craftsmanship. He is currently active in the Vintage Radio Control Society. Jeff is an AMA Life Member (L79), CD, and Leader Member. In 1988, he helped organize the AMA Nats in Washington State, and in 1989, took part in the evaluation and selection of all sites for the Nats in Lawrenceville, Illinois, for which he was awarded the Key to the City of Lawrenceville. From 1986 to 1989, Jeff was the assistant director of public relations and Nats assistant manager for the AMA, which was then headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Jeff has enjoyed an extensive writing/publishing career in the hobby industry, starting in 1987 with business articles for the trade publication, Hobby Merchandiser. He developed many instructional materials for Coverite and Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC) products, and in 1989, Jeff authored Sportflier’s Guide to Finishing and Detailing Flying Models for Motorbooks International. In 1991, he wrote The Sportflier’s Guide To RC Soaring for Tab Books. No stranger to innovation, Jeff designed and developed the F-14 TAMEcat Trainer. This model debuted as a construction article in the June 1990 issue of Model Aviation, and in 1992, was internationally distributed as an almost-ready-to-cover (ARC) kit for the Altech Marketing division of MRC. In 1994, Jeff visited with Irvine in England in an effort to promote Irvine engines in the USA. Then, in 1995, he conceived and developed a five-year warranty plan for Enya engines. Jeff’s updated F-14 TAMEcat Trainer ARF and its smaller, electric-powered offshoots are now distributed worldwide by AirBorne Models in Livermore, California. In 1987, Jeff demonstrated his unique model covering techniques at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Throughout the 1990s, visitors to American hobby shows were entertained by Jeff’s aisle-packing seminars for Coverite 21st Century covering materials in Toledo, Ohio; White Plains, New York; Atlanta, Georgia; Puyallup, Washington; Las Vegas, Nevada: Orlando, Florida; Timonium, Maryland; Long Beach and Pasadena, California, and Chicago, Illinois.
Jeff wrote for the AMA’s Model Aviation magazine as the “RC Scale” editor beginning in 1991 through 2000. He edited MRC’s monthly Altech Marketing dealer catalog, The Altech Advantage, and from 1996 to 2009, served as editor-in-chief of Hobby Merchandiser. He was the head of Park Pilot magazine from its inception in 2008 until his retirement in 2014. He currently writes the “Model Builder” column for Park Pilot and the instructional series, “Build,” for RC Sport Flyer magazine.
Jeff is a prolific modeler, and never has fewer than 10 airplanes under construction at any given time. His alternate hobbies are building and racing vintage go karts, building and driving fullscale kit cars, and restoring professional, vintage stage gear—guitars, basses, tube amplifiers and PA systems. Whenever possible, Jeff flies RC demonstrations at full-scale car gatherings and race tracks, where he also distributes copies of Park Pilot and speaks with interested spectators about model airplanes and the AMA.
Jeff Troy in 2008.
In addition to aeromodeling, Jeff’s
passions include building Volkswagenpowered kit cars, and racing 1960s-era vintage go karts. The model he’s holding is his original-design F-14 TAMEcat EP ARF.
In 1987, Jeff demonstrated his model covering expertise at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Jeff and his daughter, Devin. She is a master criminologist with the City of Philadelphia, a published writer and concert violinist, and an AMA member who builds and flies RC aircraft.
Jeff and A Few Too Many Fitta Sagitta, his 11foot Airtronics Sagitta XC sailplane at the 1983 AMA Nats in Chicopee, Massachusetts. In 1985 and ’86, Jeff and his group of volunteers from the Valley Forge Signal Seekers ran the Nats Soaring events in Chicopee and Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Jeff Troy and Maynard Hill on launch with Jeff’s LJMP Meteor sailplane at the inaugural AMA National Fun-Fly in Reno, Nevada.
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