Born to Fly-2011/07

76 MODEL AVIATION
Jim T. Graham | jgraham@Born to Fly rcgroups.com
A Pilot’s Perspective: Team JR Captain Pete Goldsmith
Above: Pete Goldsmith at age 16, posing
with his Sail Air Viking.
Right: Pete designed and built this 46%
TOC Cap in 1999. It weighs 43 pounds
and was powered by a Desert Aircraft
DA-150 engine. He retired the model
after more than 3,000 flights.
PETE GOLDSMITH has been a good friend
of mine for a long while, but to most people he
is the face of Horizon Hobby. Pete started out
as a 5-year-old boy watching RC airplanes
through a chain-link fence. He took his love of
flight and turned it into his living.
In this month’s column I interviewed Pete
about his love of our hobby and how he turned
that into a lifelong adventure. We also spoke
about the things young aspiring RC pilots need
to know to one day have a job in the RC
industry.
JG: Can you tell me your earliest memories of
watching people fly RC?
PG:My father was a fisherman and used to
drive down a road each weekend to his fishing
location. On the way he noticed an RC club. I
was 5 years old at the time and already had a
fascination with anything that would fly. I
would build any model I could—kites,
Guillow’s models, etc.
My father, knowing my love for model
aircraft, told me I had to go see the model
airplanes fly, so each weekend he would take
me there. I remember standing at the fence and
watching the RC planes fly for hours while my
dad would sit in the van and read fishing
magazines. It was very peaceful and one of the
coolest things my father has ever done for me.
JG: How long did it take to go from watching
them through the fence to having your own
airplane?
PG: I think I was 9 when I purchased my first
RC system. It was a Futaba two-channel
system called a Bionic Baby. My first RC
aircrafts were sailplanes. I had a hill near my
home and I would see how far I could make
my sailplane fly in a straight line. I would
glide as far as I could, and each week I would
glide a little farther. Then I started designing
my own sailplanes to make them go even
farther. My first year of flight I never actually
made a turn!
JG: How did that lead to competing with
sailplanes?
PG: I met up with an RC pilot on the hill one
day. He watched my straight-line flights and
offered to take me bungee flying. He told me
there was more to life than flying straight.
We flew my sailplane off a bungee soon
after that day and it changed everything. Now I
could fly in circles! I had this whole new space
to fly in. The new goal became to see how
long I could keep my sailplane in the air, not
how far I could make it go.
Coming from a very competitive family I
soon started to enter Soaring competitions.
From my memory, my first
actual competition was in
1974. I took my beat-up
sailplane and started
competing. From that first
competition I was hooked and the seed was
planted. I remember getting a score for landing
which was a big thing for an 11-year-old; I
was “somebody” because I got a landing score.
From the ages 11 to 15, I was competing
nearly once a month.
JG: Did this lead to you winning big events?
PG: I won a few regional events, nothing on
the national level. It was quite an achievement
for me at the time because I could barely
afford the models, so my equipment was
subpar to most of my competitors. In fact I
only owned three servos, which got swapped
from model to model.
JG: How did you get into aerobatics?
PG: I was also heavily in Slope Soaring. It’s
free power. Providing the wind is blowing the
right way, you could have unlimited flight
times. In the summertime I would surf in the
morning and then I would fly sailplanes in the
afternoon, when the sea breeze would kick in.
In the winter the winds would blow off shore,
away from the hill, which meant no Slope
Soaring during those months.
I had the idea to put a motor on my Slope
Soaring plane, so I could perform most of the
aerobatic maneuvers I did in the summertime
on the slope. That led to me doing more
traditional aerobatic routines. I flew in my first
aerobatic competition in the winter of 1979, in
which I won the Sportsman Class which was
the entry class for what is now known as F3A.
07sig3.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 10:17 AM Page 76
July 2011 77
Pete prepares his Pike Perfect with an 11X radio
at the AMA Nats.
Left: Pete’s Miss Ashley Unlimited Racer features
a fuel-injected alcohol Desert Aircraft DA-150
with a JR 12X radio.
This family
flies together!
Pete’s wife,
Caroline, is
also an RC
pilot. They’re
posing with
his JetCatpowered
Skymaster
Hawk 120SX.
Pete, along with the author, also
plays bass in a band composed
of RC pilots. You can hear Pete
in the SEFFtones at SEFF and in
the Nallman Brothers at Joe
Nall each year.
JG: What kind of airplane would you fly for
things like that?
PG: I was flying a Norm Page Mach One.
Around 1977 this was a popular full-house
Pattern ship with tuned-pipe retracts, etc.
JG: How did you go from there to being a
professional in the RC industry?
PG: I flew a lot of aerobatics and I guess it
defined who I was. It was good and bad. I
didn’t like being defined by my results. If I
won I was happy and nice, if I lost I was
unhappy and not so nice.
Over time I learned you can’t let the way
you place in a competition define who you are.
It’s a bad road to go down. From the late 1970s
to the early 1990s, I flew in a lot of aerobatic
competitions. In that period I represented the
Australian F3A team five times at the World
Championships. I was the Australian national
champion for many years.
Because of this I qualified to go the TOC
(Tournament of Champions) in the USA. In
1992 I met all the TOC crowd and they are
still my good friends today. It’s a huge
amount of effort building, flying, preparing,
and practicing for the TOC, so we all became
very, very close. Toward the end of my TOC
career, around 1999, I owned my own
marketing and design company and wanted to
do something different.
I cut my ties, sold out, and moved on. I
told this to Mike McConville and he told me
Horizon was looking for a creative director. I
interviewed at Horizon and they sent me an
offer of employment on Christmas Eve. How
exciting!
We put that offer under the Christmas tree
and opened it Christmas morning. Six months
later I was working in the USA! We were
excited and nervous. I have to give my wife
credit. She was a trooper and ready to go. We
were really excited to live in America.
Although we speak the same language,
there were some cultural differences we had to
learn and overcome. I love how Americans
are very proud and positive about their nation
and its achievements; it’s one of the reasons
we love living in America.
JG: How do you make the jump from being the
creative director to being the Horizon team
captain?
PG: Right. I was the creative director and in
charge of ads, box art, and things like that.
That was my specialty at the time and my
background for 30 years. Soon after starting at
Horizon I was a little burnt out on graphic
design and was looking for something
different.
I was offered my current position, “field
marketing manager,” which encompasses
everything at events. It also encompasses my
whole skill base, which is very satisfying.
When you see flags, banners, donations, demo
flights, and stuff like that, it usually went
through my office.
I also manage the Horizon team members.
There are three team sections: the helicopter
team, the air team, and the surface team. I also
design aircraft for Hangar 9 and E-flite. I really
enjoy that part of my job. That goes all the way
back to designing those planes back when I
07sig3.QXD_00MSTRPG.QXD 5/24/11 10:18 AM Page 77
was 9 years old when I was trying to make
them fly farther on that hill.
JG: What’s it like attending all the major RC
events in the US?
PG: I have been told I’m the face of Horizon
out on the field. “Boy, no pressure!” That’s a
wonderful thing for me and it motivates me.
The flying part is fun; however, I say people
only see the top coat of paint. They see the top
coat but they don’t see the sanding, rubbing,
and filling of the job.
There is a lot of email, a lot of preparation,
and a lot of teamwork to get ready for an event
so that everything is in place. I do about 28
shows a year. It’s great. It’s a good job and I
get to meet a lot of people.
The hard part is being away from my
family. My wife is a modeler and she is very
supportive, as is my daughter. Providing they
continue to be supportive and it doesn’t
disrupt the family, I will continue to do the
job.
JG: You and I both see a lot of young pilots
coming up through the ranks. I’m sure a lot of
them dream of being a sponsored pilot or even
working for a company such as Horizon. What
advice do you have for a young pilot such as
that?
PG: At Horizon we have the “3 Cs”—
character, commitment, and competence.
Those three things are very important, but
character is probably the most important. You
can have a very competent person who is very
committed, but if their character is poor, they
are just difficult to work with.
You also need to be competent and know
what you’re doing. You need to know how to
fly and manage an aircraft well in a team
situation.
Finally, there is commitment. How
committed are you to the company? Some
people will say they will work harder if you
pay them more. That’s not really commitment.
You have to work hard and then the fruits will
come. Study, go to college, get your degree.
A company such as Horizon has an
accounting department, marketing, sales, and
more. One challenge we often face is finding
marketing and creative people who know the
hobby. It is a unique skill set that is difficult to
find. We have a large pool of creative people,
and everyone thinks we are all modelers, but
in reality only 7-8% of the employees are
actually modelers.
JG: What is the future for Pete Goldsmith?
PG: The future for me is to continue to build
the Horizon brand. That is something that is
dear to my heart. When you say Horizon, I
really want things like “great experience,”
“great service,” and “great products” to come
to mind.
JG: Are there any final words you would like
to leave everyone?
PG: Live each day as if it’s your last and plan
to live forever. That’s how I live. MA
Source:
Horizon Hobby
www.horizonhobby.com