Author: Jim T Graham
Edition: Model Aviation - 2012/03
Page Numbers: 84,86,87,88,89,90
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Jim Martin: The Man Who Electrified RC

By Jim T. Graham

[email protected]

Introduction

If you have been in this hobby for the past eight years or so, you will have noticed that there are a number of airplanes powered by electric motors. When I started flying, this wasn't the case. You may have seen some homemade foamie airplanes at the field, but you never saw an electric-powered .40-size model.

I was lucky enough to get into the hobby at a magical time. A man named Jim Martin pulled me aside at our field one day to have a talk. Jim is the founder of a company named Hobby Lobby International, Inc. He invited me to join him in his quest to bring electric flight to the RC masses.

From where I stand, I could say that Jim Martin changed the face of RC. He nurtured electric flight in the U.S. and ultimately made power systems and airplanes that would change our perception of electric flight. Jim is 78 now and I thought it would be interesting to find out how our hobby was "electrified."

Has flight always interested you?

JG: Has flight always interested you? JM: Oh God, yes. My first waking thought after I was born was, "I gotta fly!" I've always been intrigued by flight. Any kind of flight—birds, airplanes, anything. As a kid during WWII, I built all the kit airplanes of the time: the Ott-O-Former planes, the Strombecker solid-wood identification airplanes. I actually did jump off our barn roof with a pair of wings made of corn stalks. They folded, but it wasn't a big deal because I jumped into a haystack.

The strange thing is that I prefer flying RC model airplanes to flying the full-scale ones. In a full-scale airplane you have to mess with constant training, reading, work, knowledge of charts, maps, NOTAMs, and most of the flying is about as interesting as bus driving.

You don't get to do the fun stuff, which is contact flight doing Cuban 8s and Split Ss while you're listening to Strauss waltzes. And even in these fun aerobatics, the airplane never moves—only the earth moves around you. With a model airplane you get to watch the airplane move. With park flyers and slow flyers you get to watch close-up.

From pilot to store owner

JG: How did you go from being an RC pilot to owning an RC store? JM: I flew tanker airplanes in the Air Force as a pilot. I was a good pilot. I got the top aerobatic pilot award in primary training and the top instrument pilot award in basic—B-25s if you can imagine. Then I flew tankers in SAC and the National Guard. When I got out I had a job open with DuPont in Niagara Falls, New York, where I had worked before I went into the Air Force.

There was a recession, and suddenly I was out of work and living with the in-laws. This was not good. My father-in-law had a chain of five-and-dime stores. I got a loan and opened my own dime store in Nashville, Tennessee, on Franklin Road. It supported us, but it was awfully boring. So across the street I opened an RC store called Hobby Lobby. It was strictly intended to be an over-the-counter hobby store. The whole store was 600 square feet—the size of a living room. I did that in 1964.

We did $22,000 the first year and actually made a $15 profit! It didn't support us and I didn't take any money out of it for five years. Then a Kmart opened up down the street, and I closed the dime store and focused on the RC store.

What did you sell back then?

JG: What kind of things did you sell back then? JM: (Discussion of early product mix and the market evolution.) At the time, outrunners had not been developed, gearboxes were being used, and the only batteries were Ni-Cds. Early electrics were limited, but then we started to see 10-pound airplanes going straight up and in five seconds they were out of sight. It was unbelievable. From that point on, I thought electric was it. The potential of it was wide open. That's all I thought about from that point on.

Betting on electric

JG: Was it then that you decided to put your money on electric? JM: To stay in business you have to go with what sells, but from that point on, I started pushing it. We were going to have to develop slowly. I kind of eased my way into it with whatever worked. It was an evolutionary process, really.

JG: Were you on your own with this idea about electrics? Or did you have help? Was LA Johnson your senior tech at this time? JM: I wish I had known LA Johnson years before. I didn't get the benefit of his knowledge until the mid-'90s. There is a guy on Long Island named Carl Schwab, and he is a great engineer and a friend, and he would straighten me out about electric motors and propellers. He's also an active RCer.

The next big jump

JG: When did the next big jump in electric happen? JM: The next big thing was the discovery of the balsa slow flyer, sometime in the early '90s. I have to give the credit to Norbert Gruentiens in Germany, who was the helicopter champ of Europe. He flew every kind of RC and was and is a brilliant man and businessman.

At one of the Nuremberg Toy Shows, I walked by Norbert's booth and I saw this balsa-wood slow flyer, and it hit me: this is the beginning of my business. When I saw this thing I realized, here is something absolutely anybody can fly.

I wouldn't go see him until the very last day, because I knew that if I went then, the first day, I wouldn't do anything else for the rest of the show. That was the beginning of slow flyers and park flyers and all that. It sold very well.

JG: That was a huge part of your catalog after that. JM: Everybody could fly them, and you could fly them anywhere, you could fix them ... it was just incredible. That got the U.S. into electric-powered models.

JG: What was the next phase? JM: People started thinking electric. These planes would stay up a good 10 minutes, and people were beginning to take electric seriously. In the mid-'90s, I walked by Aeronaut's booth at the German Toy Fair, and I saw a young man with some very odd motors. The inside of the motor was fixed to the floor and the outside turned. They told me that these things were called "outrunners" and that they were going to be the next big thing, but I thought that they were too expensive.

Then I found the AXI outrunners in 2001. The company was Model Motors and the designer paid attention to what he was doing. He just simply never let go. Everyone else would try something and jump out. Not him. He kept going and he never got out. The outrunner changed everything.

Speed controllers and industry partners

JG: Tell me about how the Jeti speed controllers hit the scene? JM: Mr. Jelen, of Jeti, approached me to buy his controllers. He had on a worn, ill-fitting suit. His briefcase was made out of cardboard with a simulated leather print. He and his partner, Mr. Tinka, had been fighter pilots in the Czech Air Force and they were looking for a new career after the Soviet Union collapsed. He showed me his speed controllers and we started there.

Five years later, I saw him and he picked me up in his Mercedes and he was wearing Italian suits! It was phenomenal to see these guys doing so well.

3-D, foamies and the public

JG: With the outrunners and the LiPos, everyone began cutting out their own airplanes. 3-D was being picked up by the public. You were not a fan of 3-D, were you? JM: I'm Joe Average flier. Pilots like Jason Cole, who worked for us, can fly anything. So can you, but I can't!

JG: This is when I stepped into the company as the PR marketing person. I have a story that I tell. I always say that when I was really trying to get Hobby Lobby to pick up 3-D, Jim Martin would say, "That's not flying, that's a travesty!" JM: Ha ha ha! That's right. If I couldn't do it then I wasn't a big fan of it. I was fine with it as long as other pilots out there wanted to do it.

JG: We worked with Mike Glass, and he designed the first preprinted foam airplane. It was a 3-D plane called the Mini Gee Bee and you backed me on that airplane. That became our first 3-D number-one seller in a long string of 3-D airplanes that all sold in the top 10. JM: I guess I get to make some mistakes, right?

JG: From where I was standing back then, we created the 3-D foamie craze. We pushed the whole electric scene in the RC world. Hobby Lobby was the company that pushed electric-powered airplanes to where they are today. JM: We were so good at what we did because we were doing what we loved. We sold things that we loved to fly. I look at companies that are much larger, like Tower Hobbies and Horizon. They are brilliant at what they do, but I don't know if they had as much fun as I had at the time. I picked up products that I liked. I figured if I liked it, then everybody would like it too.

The Internet and catalogs

JG: How did the Internet change things for Hobby Lobby? JM: We started with catalogs and that became an art form. You have to look at the catalog the way the customer would. They want to see what the parts are. They want a closer look. You have to tell them what they are looking at. Then we had the Internet. We could show more photos and we could show videos. The pilots don't want to hear music; they want to hear the plane. They want to see how it looks when it lands.

JG: At this time, Hobby Lobby was the first to have a video for each airplane. Hobby Lobby also invented the "Here's What You Need" list of parts. This helped pilots figure out how to pick the right motor and speed control. It made going electric easy. JM: My wife, JoAnne, is responsible for a lot of the good things that happened for me businesswise. I would write the ads and JoAnne would do the graphics. One day I really wanted to show what the plane needed. JoAnne yanked the ad out of my hand and an hour later she handed me back an ad. She invented "Here's Everything You Need." It helps pilots buy not only the plane, but everything that it needed. It worked really well. With the Internet all of that was just a click away.

JG: You also pioneered online advertising when no one else was doing it. JM: I received a lot of advice that the Internet was not worth our time. I thought that the Internet would be huge and we better get into it and make our mistakes while no one would notice, and we did. It grew like crazy and we were there with the right stuff. I could not understand why my competitors weren't all over RCGroups buying ads.

Reflections on partnership and legacy

JG: I want to tell you, Jim, that I feel privileged to have been brought into the industry at that time by you. It was a magical time in RC, and I was proud to be doing all of the marketing for Hobby Lobby. I couldn't quit my job fast enough to get over to your company. JM: When I ran into you at the flying field, my only thought was to get Jim Graham working for my company. Whatever it would take. It was one of the greatest matchups I have ever had in my life. I had to have you working at Hobby Lobby. To this day, I wish I was still there working and you were still there doing the things you do best. You were the man! You had a hell of a lot to do with that success and it was the second-best marriage I have had in my life.

JG: So your company was at its peak, running on all eight cylinders, or maybe all eight volts. You were leading the industry in the electric side of RC. You were dominating online advertising. When did you decide to step off? JM: My son David had been in the company a number of years. He left and now he runs Sig. So the idea of making it a continuing family business wasn't going to happen. I was making money and having fun; why sell such a thing? But, at some point I had to sell it, as much as it would hurt. I sold it to a Nashville investment firm. I was 72 at the time. I gave them a price and they paid exactly that.

Today

JG: What do you do with your time now? JM: I'm still excited by sailplanes, but I don't fly as much. I paint a lot and sell my paintings now. They do well. This Saturday night I will be downtown in Nashville with my paintings in the Art Crawl.

JG: This year, I walked up to the field we flew at together and I noticed the sign had changed. It said, "Electric only. No glow- or gas-powered planes allowed." Did you ever think there would come a day when electric airplanes would dominate the hobby, and are you happy the way things have turned out? JM: Yes, I knew they would. For 40 years I owned and ran a business that dealt in stuff that I love, with people that I love. I'm a very lucky guy.

Sources

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.