How Far We've Come in RC - Where are We Going?

[WickedFog]

So who here remembers having a wired RC as a kid? Mine weren't quite this old, but this is a pic I just stumbled across that brought up a ton of memories.

Share your memories of RC as a kid. And what do you think we will see next?

For me personally, I have mentioned it began with my father building RC planes in the early 80's, but seeing the pic above made me realize it actually began way before then. We had model rockets, the Cox tethered planes, and Cox powered dragsters years before that. Who here had Stompers?

It's amazing what a simple picture can do with regards to your memory. I had completely forgotton about a lot of these. But brief glimpses of the times we were playing with stuff like this, and images of the actual toys, are flooding back right now. So I thought I would share some of these thoughts here.

All this thinking about the past got me wondering - What will my son remember? And what will he be looking back on as relics of a hobby he loved as a child? Will RC still be a thing? And what hobby or love in the future will he think back on and say "It all began with RC cars". It's pretty vague thinking what could be the next evolution of this hobby and those who partake in it.

I am confident 3D printing will continue to play a bigger role in manufacturing. And that to me is both exciting and scary at the same time. What will happen when kids grow up and don't work with their hands, except to move a mouse and punch some keys on a keyboard?

Wait a minute! Do you see what I did there? There likely won't even be a mouse and a keyboard! Will they still have Transmitters at all? We went from having to get up and walk to the TV and turn the channel, to being able to talk to the TV or talk some invisible assistant into turning the channel for us. All within 40 years time.

Share your thoughts.

 

[tntpoof]

Oh I remember the wired cars..Never had 1 but I did have the nitro string cars..My projection for the future. We will have a optic implant that gives use fpv controller thru implanted brain chip and car .plane or rc will have the nuclear waste diamond batteries..yes its way out but hopes are High..oh yeah a 1 way trip to Mars I do plane on going for a few rides in either vegas or cali in the tunnel cars at 600mph

 

[pug]

HD FPV!

 

[Tunedfrog]

I remember them, whenever I accidentally drove the wrong direction, I would just give the cord a yank and amazingly enough, it came right back to me...

 

[WickedFog]

...I do plane on going for a few rides in either vegas or cali in the tunnel cars at 600mph

Now that would be fun! But a ride in an F16B would be near the top of my bucket list.

 

[biggman100]

So who here remembers having a wired RC as a kid? Mine weren't quite this old, but this is a pic I just stumbled across that brought up a ton of memories.
View attachment 135655

Share your memories of RC as a kid. And what do you think we will see next?

For me personally, I have mentioned it began with my father building RC planes in the early 80's, but seeing the pic above made me realize it actually began way before then. We had model rockets, the Cox tethered planes, and Cox powered dragsters years before that. Who here had Stompers?
View attachment 135658

It's amazing what a simple picture can do with regards to your memory. I had completely forgotton about a lot of these. But brief glimpses of the times we were playing with stuff like this, and images of the actual toys, are flooding back right now. So I thought I would share some of these thoughts here.

All this thinking about the past got me wondering - What will my son remember? And what will he be looking back on as relics of a hobby he loved as a child? Will RC still be a thing? And what hobby or love in the future will he think back on and say "It all began with RC cars". It's pretty vague thinking what could be the next evolution of this hobby and those who partake in it.

Now you're making me feel old lol. I had a bunch of the stompers, and a couple of the late 70's early 80's cable connected radio control cars.

 

[tntpoof]

wf you need to go to the oshkosh fly in been there a few times..make sure you have a fat wallet..

 

[WickedFog]

wf you need to go to the oshkosh fly in been there a few times..make sure you have a fat wallet..

Wish I could man. I am unable to venture more than a few miles in a car anymore.

 

[STONER RC]

What is next is a great ? Never had the wired RCs but do remember them. At this point can only get bigger and faster one would think. Some will do a VR RC car or truck..we all can only hope for better stock plastic parts

 

[WickedFog]

What is next is a great ? Never had the wired RCs but do remember them. At this point can only get bigger and faster one would think. Some will do a VR RC car or truck..we all can only hope for better stock plastic parts

People have been running FPV systems in RC for a long time now. I would love to get some 3d goggles with head tracker and put a 2-axis gimbal mounted camera in the driver's seat of a big scale RC to drive by. That would be fun.

 

[STONER RC]

People have been running FPV systems in RC for a long time now. I would love to get some 3d goggles with head tracker and put a 2-axis gimbal mounted camera in the driver's seat of a big scale RC to drive by. That would be fun.

No poop I got to look into that one. That would be crazy

 

[WickedFog]

No poop I got to look into that one. That would be crazy

Yeah, there are lots of vids on YT about it. And FPV Race drones are basically the same thing. But with head tracker goggles, if you have the camera mounted on a gimbal and turn your head, the camera on the drone follows your head movements. People have put these into RC crawlers and stuff too.

 

[Greywolf74]

Loved stompers! Had several as a kid

 

[Doom!]

I still have a brown Toyota pickup Stomper somewhere, I need to remember to dig it out.

I can't even fathom how far technology will advance in the next 50 years. We have amazing technology at our finger tips right now, and if anything it's made the general public dumber. I can't help but think of Pixar's Wall-E. as being a prophecy.

 

[WickedFog]

Loved stompers! Had several as a kid

I remember calculating how much money I would have each week delivering newdpapers to spend on Stompers

I still have a brown Toyota pickup Stomper somewhere, I need to remember to dig it out.

I can't even fathom how far technology will advance in the next 50 years. We have amazing technology at our finger tips right now, and if anything it's made the general public dumber. I can't help but think of Pixar's Wall-E. as being a prophecy.

Yeah, Wall•E sure makes ya think. Idiocracy is another one that predicted the future.

 

[Dread Pirate Notty]

No poop I got to look into that one. That would be crazy

I got into rc a few years back for an fpv car. First one was an scx24 with budget quad fpv stuff. Problem with faster cars is gimbles or camera stabilizers didn’t work at small scale. Videos you see are often a go pro with stabilization in post video is what they show. What they don’t show is the nauseating bouncy jittery camera you’d see at the time of driving in fpv. Not sure if that’s been sorted out in the past 3 years. Planes and quads don’t bounce around like a car or truck does.

Overall I’ll add tech has made us dumber in some ways. We don’t have to remember phone numbers, facts, specifics even recipes. We just look it up when we need to.

Many predict we’ll reach a more divided society with people living in space houses and lots of tech and knowledge while others are hitting each other with sticks. I think we’re already there. Many work their simplified prefab industrial line job for low pay while others have seemingly lots of skills or zest for life. While at the same time I think it’s true it takes money to make money and as always it’s easier to pursue academic learning and arguably to be a better person if not worrying about paying the bills and basic survival. The educated people from 1400 were princes who had the time and leisure for such things. You also have to be hungry though to strive sometimes so it’s not exact.

Watching the good place with the old lady had similar thoughts last night about ethics and the intro to philosophy class that that show seemed to me. That it’s easy to be moral when not already desperate or suffering but that’s well trodden ground in ethics and many grow up poor and do not turn to a life of crime and there are surely temptations and problems with being born into money. So I'm not entirely decided on that.

Rc cars though who knows. Electric has made its way to full size cars. We want to know what’s next in rc’s. New materials, new power sources, new ways of transmitting the information not radio waves or Bluetooth. We’ll want to extend our range and run time, power, go faster. Military and others have long range fpv drones across the English Channel. Maybe eventually be able to control in real time on the other side of the world. Currently the digital stuff lags enough to not be able to drive tight corners and analog radio signals have limited range.

 

[WickedFog]

I got into rc a few years back for an fpv car. First one was an scx24 with budget quad fpv stuff. Problem with faster cars is gimbles or camera stabilizers didn’t work at small scale. Videos you see are often a go pro with stabilization in post video is what they show. What they don’t show is the nauseating bouncy jittery camera you’d see at the time of driving in fpv. Not sure if that’s been sorted out in the past 3 years. Planes and quads don’t bounce around like a car or truck does.

Overall I’ll add tech has made us dumber in some ways. We don’t have to remember phone numbers, facts, specifics even recipes. We just look it up when we need to.

Many predict we’ll reach a more divided society with people living in space houses and lots of tech and knowledge while others are hitting each other with sticks. I think we’re already there. Many work their simplified prefab industrial line job for low pay while others have seemingly lots of skills or zest for life. While at the same time I think it’s true it takes money to make money and as always it’s easier to pursue academic learning and arguably to be a better person if not worrying about paying the bills and basic survival. The educated people from 1400 were princes who had the time and leisure for such things. You also have to be hungry though to strive sometimes so it’s not exact.

Watching the good place with the old lady had similar thoughts last night about ethics and the intro to philosophy class that that show seemed to me. That it’s easy to be moral when not already desperate or suffering but that’s well trodden ground in ethics and many grow up poor and do not turn to a life of crime and there are surely temptations and problems with being born into money. So I'm not entirely decided on that.

Rc cars though who knows. Electric has made its way to full size cars. We want to know what’s next in rc’s. New materials, new power sources, new ways of transmitting the information not radio waves or Bluetooth. We’ll want to extend our range and run time, power, go faster. Military and others have long range fpv drones across the English Channel. Maybe eventually be able to control in real time on the other side of the world. Currently the digital stuff lags enough to not be able to drive tight corners and analog radio signals have limited range.

As for range, I am fine with what we have now for our cars. I can drive farther than I can see with the awfulest of Chinese offerings, and that becomes a shorter distance every day. Pretty soon the old cheap FM transmitters will seem to be way over-engineered for my eyesight

And as far as the FPV stuff, the government is not content with civilians having any kind of flying devices, and I believe they will slowly take away freedoms of people until the only place we can fly them is a tiny spec of land in the middle of Kansas off I-70. Oh, and mind the encroachment of the endless line of grass on fire heading your way, being driven by the wind. And the flaming tumbleweeds which are moving at speeds that are often seen outrunning cops in a high speed chase.

This alone makes me think the future tech we see in the RC world may start to slow down if the governments have their way. RC fanatics of the aerial nature were marveled by technology that allowed us to build drones that could fly many miles away from us. And you can still build them and buy them. You can fly DJI drones for miles away from you. But that is now illegal in a lot of places. So before long, they won't need to add that kinda range. That's like "Reverse Technology of the 2nd kind".

And before long (if they haven't already started the process), the electronics will likely be required by law to shut down once they are out of your line of sight, or won't be allowed through customs. Just speculating here mind you, and yes I am reaching, but something like this could affect a lot of things in this hobby. Not just drones, in the very near future.

I find it kinda tragic that we finally reached a point where we could see so much of the world through the help of RC and FPV technology, and before long they could take it all away. They are doing it slowly, right before our eyes. And most people don't see it. And without advancements in our hobby, the lack of joy will be leaving my kiddo to find better entertainment staring at a screen in his hand versus going outside and driving an RC car. Because by law maybe it can't be more than 50 feet from you traveling at a maximum allowed speed of a whopping 15mph.

Or maybe we will all have rocket ships!

 

[Doom!]

@WickedFog I vote for rocket ships! What could go wrong?

 

[primebeatz]

I had a wired 68 Camaro when I was 5 or 6. Painted a maroon stripe down the middle freehand. At the time it looked cool but I bet it looked like crap lol. Had a remote helicopter attached to a semi rigid wire and a handle with batteries in it. Had a blast playing with both of them.

 

[Doom!]

I had a wired 68 Camaro when I was 5 or 6. Painted a maroon stripe down the middle freehand. At the time it looked cool but I bet it looked like crap lol. Had a remote helicopter attached to a semi rigid wire and a handle with batteries in it. Had a blast playing with both of them.

That totally reminded me of Vertibird's