Carl Goldberg: Reflections on an Aeromodeling Icon-2012/11

In his 72 years of life, Carl Goldberg held many titles. Boss,
co-owner, fl ier, club founder, Hall of Famer, entrepreneur,
“father of model aviation,” Nats champion, “Mr. Modeling,”
perfectionist, husband, and dad are some of many. But to all
who ever had the privilege of knowing him, the legendary Free
Flighter was simply known as friend.
October 27 would have been Carl’s 100th birthday. He
accomplished more in his lifetime than any modeler or
designer of his time could ever dream of, but his daughter
believes that most remember him for who he was, rather than
what he accomplished.
“The thing that everybody always said to me was that he
treated them so well,” Carol Lieberman, Carl’s daughter, said
after shipping orders at Jet Glues—a spinoff company from
one that her father started.
“He had no sense that everybody wasn’t equal. He really
liked people and that was the thing that I think impressed
most people.
“He had this huge respect for life, all life. He believed all
people have creativity within them and they needed to be
nurtured. He believed all people had the same basic desires for
a good life and deserved a good life. He just took people for
the best that was in them.”
Jack Butler created artwork and plans drawings for Carl
Goldberg Models from 1968 to 1985. Jack stated, “He was a
wonderful guy. He was very honest, very straightforward. He
was just a gentleman. He was a good boss.”
And when it came to what Carl did for a living, his work
was top-notch and original. “He was probably one of the best
[model airplane] designers in the country,” Jack said.
Carl utilized a wind tunnel for testing,
as shown in this photo.
Carl and Jim Clems prepare a
model for flight.
Carl worked with the Comet Model Airplane
Company creating war identi cation models.
Carl spent much time at the
dra ing table putting his
creations to paper.
“He believed all people have
creativity within them and
they needed to be nurtured.
He believed all people had
the same basic desires for a
good life and deserved a good
life. He just took people for
the best that was in them.”
Some of the models Carl designed
include the Valkyrie, the Clipper, the
Zipper, the Blazer, the Ranger, the Eagle,
and the Sky Tiger. One of his models,
the Gentle Lady, was created in honor
of the love of his life, his wife Beth, his
daughter said.
“Carl was always thought of as the
father of model aviation,” Jack said.
“Everything that we came out with was
a best seller and a good fl ier.”
Carl’s passion for designing, building,
and fl ying model airplanes apparently
began when he was a child. “The
designing started at a very, very early
age,” Carol said. She has assignments
from elementary and high school on
which her father doodled airplane
designs. “It was, without a doubt, a
lifelong love for him,” she said.
After graduating from high school,
Carl enrolled at the University of
Wisconsin. While there, he sold model
airplane supplies through mail order.
He had to withdraw because he had
no money for tuition. Carol recalled a
video interview conducted by AMA
employees in the early 1980s where
Carl admitted that he had no funds for
college because he was spending most of
his money on airplanes.
Carl opened a hobby shop in Chicago
in 1935 and continued to build and
fl y airplanes. He created the Valkyrie,
a gas-engine-powered model, in 1936.
Some models he fl ew weren’t of his own
design.
After unsuccessfully fl ying an aircraft
designed by the Comet Model Airplane
Company, he decided to voice his
dissent. “Dad wrote a letter to Comet
complaining about their advertising
claims and saying that they weren’t true
and [the aircraft] couldn’t fl y as long
[as claimed], etc. Louis Kapp, one of
the three owners of Comet, paid him a
visit. Louis came by the model shop and
discussed the thoughts [Dad] had and
Louis asked, ‘Can you do any better?’”
Louis left the shop with some of
Carl’s models, tested them, and sold
them. From there, came the contract
for Carl to work for Comet. Carol said
she has the contract of employment
her father signed. It was signed in April
of 1940, with a beginning salary of
$40 per week. It later increased to $45
per week, she said. “That was pretty
“I think he was an original thinker.
He really didn’t believe in putting
limits to creation or imagination.”
Carl in New York
with a FF model.
hilarious, how he came to work there,” she said.
While working as chief designer at Comet, Carl met Beth,
a secretary who was Louis’s cousin. “Most people think
of [model aircraft] as my dad’s industry. It was my mom’s
industry as well as dad’s because of her family,” Carol said,
adding that her mother was not a modeler at that time. “They
met and fell in love and married,” Carol said of her parents.
Carl worked for Comet for roughly five years before starting
his own company with Mike Schlesinger and Sidney “Sid”
Axelrod, with whom he had worked at Comet. American
Hobby Specialties, later known as Top Flite Models, began
operations in 1947 and sold gas
model propellers called Top
Flite and Power Prop.
In 1955, Carl decided to
venture out on his own and
start a company with his
wife. Carl Goldberg Models,
and what he created while
operating the business, likely
made him a household name.
“It was just kind of a natural
thing [for him to start the
company] because of his
design background,” Jack said
of why he believed Carl started
his own business.
In the beginning, Carl
Goldberg Models sold a simple
line of $1 scalelike kits, mostly
made of balsa. The company
later expanded to include glue.
Carol said her father was
reluctant to charge more than
necessary for his products
because he felt they should be
obtainable for everyone. She
said this likely stemmed from
the fact that Carl’s father left
his mother when he was a year
old, and she struggled to raise him on her own.
“Like most small businesses, my brother and I occasionally
did a few things,” Carol said of Carl Goldberg Models. Carol
helped do mailings in the summer. She became more closely
involved in the business shortly before her father passed away.
“I had a role at the end. My mom was much more involved.
“I ran [the company] for about the last six years.” Her father
passed away in 1985, and she sold the company to Lanier R/C
in 2002.
Jack noted that Carl designed most of the airplanes that
his company sold until the 1960s when an employee took
over. Carl Goldberg Models is known for airplanes such as the
Senior Falcon, Eaglet, Swordsman 18, Shoestring Stunter, and
Junior Tiger.
Jack said nearly everything Carl built flew perfectly. “Carl
was very much a perfectionist.” Jack said the designer likely
had some airplane designs that he didn’t like hidden in a closet
somewhere, so no one would see them.
Carol agreed. “He was never satisfied with himself. I think
he was an original thinker. He really didn’t believe in putting
limits to creation or imagination,” she said. “It’s clear to me
that he excited people with what he was able to accomplish
that hadn’t been done before.”
Carl was a perfectionist when it came to flying. He won first
place in the 1934 and 1937 Indoor Nats. Carol remembers
him staying up all night working on his models in the hangars
at the naval bases where the Nats was held.
“From as long as I can
remember, we would
all go to contests on
the weekends. Every
summer our vacation
was going to the Nats
and we would take the
’52 Ford. Dad loved
to drive. He was very
particular about how
the car was packed.
That was quite a ritual
and it was quite tense.
And then when he got
behind the wheel, you
could literally see him
unwind.”
Carl demonstrates how to make
microfilm.
“From as long as I can remember, we would all go to contests on the
weekends,” Carol said. “Every summer our vacation was going to the Nats and
we would take the ’52 Ford. Dad loved to drive. He was very particular about
how the car was packed. That was quite a ritual and it was quite tense. And then
when he got behind the wheel, you could literally see him unwind.
“I remember the planes going up. Still, for me, watching FF models go up
is one of those amazing things to watch. [I remember] those airplanes going
straight up in the air with that engine screaming. Then, you jump into the car
and [are] told ‘don’t take your eyes off that airplane.’ It was a fun way to grow
up.”
“He was a wonderful Free Flight fl ier,” Jack said. “He wasn’t the best radio fl ier.
I fl ew a lot of his airplanes for him.”
Jack was a member of the Suburban Aero Club of Chicago and said Carl was
one of the founding members. Carl also founded the Chicago Aeronuts club
in the 1930s. Carol said the primary focus of the Aeronuts club was to share
aeromodeling knowledge with others, in an effort to advance the sport. “He was
a great believer in openness,” she said.
This belief in being forthcoming was something Carol and her brother, Bob,
honored after Carl’s death. Their father had open-heart surgery in 1981, during
which he was given blood transfusions. At least one of the units of blood was
contaminated with AIDS. He passed away on January 28, 1985.

AMA Fellow
Model Aviation Hall of
Fame
National Free Flight
Society Hall of Fame
Vintage Radio Control
Society Hall of Fame
Howard McEntee Award
Society of Antique
Modelers Hall of Fame
Kits and Plans Antiquitous
Hall of Fame
1959
1969
1978
1984
1984
1992
1996
Carl Goldberg, Al Horback, and Robert
Reder at the Comet Model Airplane
Company in 1941.
Photos courtesy of Carol Lieberman
“My brother and I chuckle that he was always a man ahead
of his time. He didn’t fi t the profi le for how people contracted
AIDS back then,” Carol said. “We felt we should make
public how he died because we wanted to help people in the
modeling community become familiar with this disease.”
Carl’s accomplishments did not go unnoticed, even after
his death. He was named an AMA Fellow in 1959, and was
one of the fi rst people inducted into the Model Aviation
Hall of Fame. He was named to the National Free Flight Hall
of Fame, the Vintage Radio Control Society Hall of Fame,
and received the Howard McEntee Award in 1984. He was
posthumously inducted into the Society of Antique Modelers
Hall of Fame and the Kits and Plans Antiquitous Hall of
Fame.
Carl and Beth also ensured that others would receive the
recognition that they deserved. They created the Carl and
Beth Goldberg Vital People Award in 1983 to honor “vital
people in the background of the modeling movement whose
efforts to enhance the enjoyment of the hobby and whose
accomplishments are seldom formally acknowledged.” Beth
passed away in 1997.
Carol doesn’t have any defi nite plans for honoring her
father on the 100th anniversary of his birth, but she likely
will refl ect on the vivid memories she has of him when the
day arrives.
“The people who knew him very well sometimes had a
love/hate relationship with him. He could be demanding,
diffi cult. He was not a saint.”
She said some may be surprised to learn that her father
loved music. He had a beautiful singing voice and enjoyed
composing music, she said. “From the time I was a small kid,
I remember hearing him sing while shaving in the morning.”
She said he also loved to write poetry.
“He was an extraordinary father despite his faults. People
could tolerate his faults because of the wonderful things about
him.”
—Rachelle Haughn
[email protected]
SOURCES:
AMA History Program
Carl braving the cold in Chicago.
Tablet Exclusive!
Watch a video in this month’s tablet app as Carl
Goldberg shares his experiences and memories
from aeromodeling.

In his 72 years of life, Carl Goldberg held many titles. Boss,
co-owner, fl ier, club founder, Hall of Famer, entrepreneur,
“father of model aviation,” Nats champion, “Mr. Modeling,”
perfectionist, husband, and dad are some of many. But to all
who ever had the privilege of knowing him, the legendary Free
Flighter was simply known as friend.
October 27 would have been Carl’s 100th birthday. He
accomplished more in his lifetime than any modeler or
designer of his time could ever dream of, but his daughter
believes that most remember him for who he was, rather than
what he accomplished.
“The thing that everybody always said to me was that he
treated them so well,” Carol Lieberman, Carl’s daughter, said
after shipping orders at Jet Glues—a spinoff company from
one that her father started.
“He had no sense that everybody wasn’t equal. He really
liked people and that was the thing that I think impressed
most people.
“He had this huge respect for life, all life. He believed all
people have creativity within them and they needed to be
nurtured. He believed all people had the same basic desires for
a good life and deserved a good life. He just took people for
the best that was in them.”
Jack Butler created artwork and plans drawings for Carl
Goldberg Models from 1968 to 1985. Jack stated, “He was a
wonderful guy. He was very honest, very straightforward. He
was just a gentleman. He was a good boss.”
And when it came to what Carl did for a living, his work
was top-notch and original. “He was probably one of the best
[model airplane] designers in the country,” Jack said.
Carl utilized a wind tunnel for testing,
as shown in this photo.
Carl and Jim Clems prepare a
model for flight.
Carl worked with the Comet Model Airplane
Company creating war identi cation models.
Carl spent much time at the
dra ing table putting his
creations to paper.
“He believed all people have
creativity within them and
they needed to be nurtured.
He believed all people had
the same basic desires for a
good life and deserved a good
life. He just took people for
the best that was in them.”
Some of the models Carl designed
include the Valkyrie, the Clipper, the
Zipper, the Blazer, the Ranger, the Eagle,
and the Sky Tiger. One of his models,
the Gentle Lady, was created in honor
of the love of his life, his wife Beth, his
daughter said.
“Carl was always thought of as the
father of model aviation,” Jack said.
“Everything that we came out with was
a best seller and a good fl ier.”
Carl’s passion for designing, building,
and fl ying model airplanes apparently
began when he was a child. “The
designing started at a very, very early
age,” Carol said. She has assignments
from elementary and high school on
which her father doodled airplane
designs. “It was, without a doubt, a
lifelong love for him,” she said.
After graduating from high school,
Carl enrolled at the University of
Wisconsin. While there, he sold model
airplane supplies through mail order.
He had to withdraw because he had
no money for tuition. Carol recalled a
video interview conducted by AMA
employees in the early 1980s where
Carl admitted that he had no funds for
college because he was spending most of
his money on airplanes.
Carl opened a hobby shop in Chicago
in 1935 and continued to build and
fl y airplanes. He created the Valkyrie,
a gas-engine-powered model, in 1936.
Some models he fl ew weren’t of his own
design.
After unsuccessfully fl ying an aircraft
designed by the Comet Model Airplane
Company, he decided to voice his
dissent. “Dad wrote a letter to Comet
complaining about their advertising
claims and saying that they weren’t true
and [the aircraft] couldn’t fl y as long
[as claimed], etc. Louis Kapp, one of
the three owners of Comet, paid him a
visit. Louis came by the model shop and
discussed the thoughts [Dad] had and
Louis asked, ‘Can you do any better?’”
Louis left the shop with some of
Carl’s models, tested them, and sold
them. From there, came the contract
for Carl to work for Comet. Carol said
she has the contract of employment
her father signed. It was signed in April
of 1940, with a beginning salary of
$40 per week. It later increased to $45
per week, she said. “That was pretty
“I think he was an original thinker.
He really didn’t believe in putting
limits to creation or imagination.”
Carl in New York
with a FF model.
hilarious, how he came to work there,” she said.
While working as chief designer at Comet, Carl met Beth,
a secretary who was Louis’s cousin. “Most people think
of [model aircraft] as my dad’s industry. It was my mom’s
industry as well as dad’s because of her family,” Carol said,
adding that her mother was not a modeler at that time. “They
met and fell in love and married,” Carol said of her parents.
Carl worked for Comet for roughly five years before starting
his own company with Mike Schlesinger and Sidney “Sid”
Axelrod, with whom he had worked at Comet. American
Hobby Specialties, later known as Top Flite Models, began
operations in 1947 and sold gas
model propellers called Top
Flite and Power Prop.
In 1955, Carl decided to
venture out on his own and
start a company with his
wife. Carl Goldberg Models,
and what he created while
operating the business, likely
made him a household name.
“It was just kind of a natural
thing [for him to start the
company] because of his
design background,” Jack said
of why he believed Carl started
his own business.
In the beginning, Carl
Goldberg Models sold a simple
line of $1 scalelike kits, mostly
made of balsa. The company
later expanded to include glue.
Carol said her father was
reluctant to charge more than
necessary for his products
because he felt they should be
obtainable for everyone. She
said this likely stemmed from
the fact that Carl’s father left
his mother when he was a year
old, and she struggled to raise him on her own.
“Like most small businesses, my brother and I occasionally
did a few things,” Carol said of Carl Goldberg Models. Carol
helped do mailings in the summer. She became more closely
involved in the business shortly before her father passed away.
“I had a role at the end. My mom was much more involved.
“I ran [the company] for about the last six years.” Her father
passed away in 1985, and she sold the company to Lanier R/C
in 2002.
Jack noted that Carl designed most of the airplanes that
his company sold until the 1960s when an employee took
over. Carl Goldberg Models is known for airplanes such as the
Senior Falcon, Eaglet, Swordsman 18, Shoestring Stunter, and
Junior Tiger.
Jack said nearly everything Carl built flew perfectly. “Carl
was very much a perfectionist.” Jack said the designer likely
had some airplane designs that he didn’t like hidden in a closet
somewhere, so no one would see them.
Carol agreed. “He was never satisfied with himself. I think
he was an original thinker. He really didn’t believe in putting
limits to creation or imagination,” she said. “It’s clear to me
that he excited people with what he was able to accomplish
that hadn’t been done before.”
Carl was a perfectionist when it came to flying. He won first
place in the 1934 and 1937 Indoor Nats. Carol remembers
him staying up all night working on his models in the hangars
at the naval bases where the Nats was held.
“From as long as I can
remember, we would
all go to contests on
the weekends. Every
summer our vacation
was going to the Nats
and we would take the
’52 Ford. Dad loved
to drive. He was very
particular about how
the car was packed.
That was quite a ritual
and it was quite tense.
And then when he got
behind the wheel, you
could literally see him
unwind.”
Carl demonstrates how to make
microfilm.
“From as long as I can remember, we would all go to contests on the
weekends,” Carol said. “Every summer our vacation was going to the Nats and
we would take the ’52 Ford. Dad loved to drive. He was very particular about
how the car was packed. That was quite a ritual and it was quite tense. And then
when he got behind the wheel, you could literally see him unwind.
“I remember the planes going up. Still, for me, watching FF models go up
is one of those amazing things to watch. [I remember] those airplanes going
straight up in the air with that engine screaming. Then, you jump into the car
and [are] told ‘don’t take your eyes off that airplane.’ It was a fun way to grow
up.”
“He was a wonderful Free Flight fl ier,” Jack said. “He wasn’t the best radio fl ier.
I fl ew a lot of his airplanes for him.”
Jack was a member of the Suburban Aero Club of Chicago and said Carl was
one of the founding members. Carl also founded the Chicago Aeronuts club
in the 1930s. Carol said the primary focus of the Aeronuts club was to share
aeromodeling knowledge with others, in an effort to advance the sport. “He was
a great believer in openness,” she said.
This belief in being forthcoming was something Carol and her brother, Bob,
honored after Carl’s death. Their father had open-heart surgery in 1981, during
which he was given blood transfusions. At least one of the units of blood was
contaminated with AIDS. He passed away on January 28, 1985.

AMA Fellow
Model Aviation Hall of
Fame
National Free Flight
Society Hall of Fame
Vintage Radio Control
Society Hall of Fame
Howard McEntee Award
Society of Antique
Modelers Hall of Fame
Kits and Plans Antiquitous
Hall of Fame
1959
1969
1978
1984
1984
1992
1996
Carl Goldberg, Al Horback, and Robert
Reder at the Comet Model Airplane
Company in 1941.
Photos courtesy of Carol Lieberman
“My brother and I chuckle that he was always a man ahead
of his time. He didn’t fi t the profi le for how people contracted
AIDS back then,” Carol said. “We felt we should make
public how he died because we wanted to help people in the
modeling community become familiar with this disease.”
Carl’s accomplishments did not go unnoticed, even after
his death. He was named an AMA Fellow in 1959, and was
one of the fi rst people inducted into the Model Aviation
Hall of Fame. He was named to the National Free Flight Hall
of Fame, the Vintage Radio Control Society Hall of Fame,
and received the Howard McEntee Award in 1984. He was
posthumously inducted into the Society of Antique Modelers
Hall of Fame and the Kits and Plans Antiquitous Hall of
Fame.
Carl and Beth also ensured that others would receive the
recognition that they deserved. They created the Carl and
Beth Goldberg Vital People Award in 1983 to honor “vital
people in the background of the modeling movement whose
efforts to enhance the enjoyment of the hobby and whose
accomplishments are seldom formally acknowledged.” Beth
passed away in 1997.
Carol doesn’t have any defi nite plans for honoring her
father on the 100th anniversary of his birth, but she likely
will refl ect on the vivid memories she has of him when the
day arrives.
“The people who knew him very well sometimes had a
love/hate relationship with him. He could be demanding,
diffi cult. He was not a saint.”
She said some may be surprised to learn that her father
loved music. He had a beautiful singing voice and enjoyed
composing music, she said. “From the time I was a small kid,
I remember hearing him sing while shaving in the morning.”
She said he also loved to write poetry.
“He was an extraordinary father despite his faults. People
could tolerate his faults because of the wonderful things about
him.”
—Rachelle Haughn
[email protected]
SOURCES:
AMA History Program
Carl braving the cold in Chicago.
Tablet Exclusive!
Watch a video in this month’s tablet app as Carl
Goldberg shares his experiences and memories
from aeromodeling.