Radio Control Scale
Stan Alexander [[email protected]]
Farewell to Claude McCullough
I had intended to start this column with an update of contests you might like to attend this spring. But that will have to wait.
On January 30, 2008, Claude McCullough, AMA member No. 10, passed away at his home. He was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he grew up. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, as did many others of his generation.
Claude had a career in farming and began modeling competitively in 1935. He entered his first AMA National Championships in 1941.
He embraced the AMA and served on many committees from 1948 until his death. Claude was elected AMA president in 1957 and was inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame in 1979. He served as an AMA volunteer for more than 59 years, which is believed to be a service record for an AMA member at the national level.
Claude was a technical writer. He also designed kits (the Kadet, Senior, Seniorita, etc.) for Sig Manufacturing and created his own scale designs, which were published in several magazines over the years. A photographer as well as an experimenter, Claude kept busy with many projects.
One of the many things modelers around the world admired about Claude was his willingness to help them with documentation or to find a unique way to solve a problem. He never owned a computer, but he wrote many articles and magazine columns and took many cover photos.
Later in life, Claude realized that his piloting skills weren't up to snuff for competition. Team Scale became his event, with either Mike Gretz or Scott Christensen as his pilot. Some of my many memories of the Nationals are of Claude sitting on his milk stool, working on a model and getting it ready for the next flight.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
