Written by AMA Staff (12/2009); Formatted by JS (04/2010)
Captain Tom Huff graduated from the naval academy and realized his dreams of becoming a fighter pilot and then test pilot, yet he has never totally left behind his childhood love of Radio Control.
“I never let go of the modeling bug,” he said. “I still enjoy RC and Control Line and sharing that with my kids and my brother’s kids.”
Tom has landed F-18s on carriers at night, been shot at, and tested jet fighters to the extreme, yet he still has the modeling bug.
“My interest really lies in trying to make an airplane fly as perfectly as I can.” He said. “Building it straight, rigging it, taking control slop out, tuning the engines, taking your flying skill to the next level- those are things that are really where my interest lie.”
Tom is the consummate Navy test pilot- a captain in the Naval Test Wing based out of Patuxent River, Virginia. He was licensed to fly an airplane before he could get his driver’s license.
His club, the Patuxent Aeromodelers, works with local youth, guided by the national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) guidelines, even bringing rocketry activities to his air base.
“In talking with youth, the conversation often goes to the sUAS (small unmanned aerial systems),” said Tom. “If I had known how far the technology could go when I was flying RC models, I would have retired early to sell sUAS equipment to the military! Things are being done now that we couldn’t have ever dreamed of back then.”
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