Born to Fly — 2011/07
A Pilot's Perspective: Team JR Captain Pete Goldsmith
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 aircraft 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 of 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 into 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 offshore, 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 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.
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 to 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. 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: 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 when I was a kid.
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 C’s”—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.
Source
Horizon Hobby www.horizonhobby.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
