"Focus on Education" Column
Model Aviation Magazine
October 2004

Harold Reuter is someone who believes in doing personal outreach for his flying club. His work for the AMA Skymasters, a club that flies out of a field at the Bald Mountain Recreation Area in Lake Orion, Michigan, is an example of how creativity and persistence can pay off to improve community relations.

Harold has been flying models since 1936, the year the Academy was founded. He began his interest with simple, rubber-powered FF models that cost only a nickel, a dime, or a quarter. Fifty cents was a lot to spend in those days for a model airplane, and as Harold notes, “you wouldn’t do that too often!”

Gas engines were expensive and rare in the 1930s. Harold’s move to the big time came when his father bought him an all-spruce CL model, powered by a May Motors Rocket, outfitted with a spark plug, coil, and a condenser.

Harold graduated from high school in 1947 and worked for General Electric for a short time before he was drafted by the United States Army and spent two years in Germany serving as a communications specialist. Following his military service, he returned to the Detroit area and was hired by Fisher Body, a division of General Motors. Harold thinks he found employment easily as an apprentice tool-and-die maker, in part because he was a modeler.

“A lot of the guys looking for jobs in those days couldn’t read blueprints. Because I spent so much time building models, when I picked up a set of plans, I knew what I was looking at. They needed people with those skills.” Harold worked his way up to production engineer at the company before retiring in 1987.

Harold began flying RC after he retired and joined the Skymasters, the local RC club at Bald Mountain. As with many AMA flying fields throughout the country, the club’s field is shared with others who use the area. It is managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the club’s use of the park is based on yearly approval.

When Harold learned that the Friends of Bald Mountain, a local self-help group, was looking for volunteers to build birdhouses, he signed on, beginning an outreach effort as a one-man ambassador for his flying club to others who use the park. Eventually Harold recruited more than 60 club members to help with the annual cleanup of the park.

“What I found out is that perception matters. How model-club members are perceived by neighbors and other users of the recreation area is important. Negative first impressions can be changed. You have to represent yourself as a desirable partner so others don’t view your presence as an infringement on space they consider theirs.

“We now have a corn roast and a fun-fly every year and we invite those living in the neighborhood to join us. It builds simple respect and consideration for one another.”
Harold also had an interest in sharing what he knew. “I always thought it would be nice to work with kids. I soon learned that you had to have something they wanted to learn, not something you thought they ought to know. You don’t have the kind of influence over young people these days as you used to, so you have to look for other ways to spark their interest.


Harold introduces a student to the art and craft of building a rubber-powered FF model.


Club members prepare for demonstration flights at Scripps Middle School. Classes were dismissed so students and even a few teachers could take turns on the sticks.

Harold found his way of influencing young people through modeling classes he organized at the public library. It began as a simple idea to display a few model airplanes in the lobby. Originally, Harold offered to hang models for a one-week exhibit. The idea was received so favorably that one week became a month, which became a second month, which grew to a year, and then two!

He started the exhibit by doing small displays that helped the library promote books and programs as well as historical events—anything that would stimulate the public’s interest in what the library had to offer. The exhibit grew into two huge mobiles, each with two dozen airplanes including park flyers, rubber-powered FF, CO2, and CL models.

This exposure led to a request for model-building classes for kids of all ages. To avoid becoming the “community babysitter,” Harold insisted that parents accompany and help their children. The success of these classes eventually led to Harold’s request for an Education Committee YES grant.

With seed money provided by AMA, Harold bought tools and equipment including saws, miter cutters, and even the sandpaper that would be needed to offer the classes twice a month at the local middle school. For four years, with help from other Skymasters, he offered it as an after-school activity.

The ultimate compliment came when the local high school technology-education teacher personally began recruiting Harold’s “graduates” for his classes. Some of these students later became members of the high school robotics team.

Harold likes to move on to new challenges and his current project involves model building at the local senior center. He started the group with several adults, but he scheduled sessions in the afternoon so that one of the neighborhood kids could participate. The senior center director helped him make his model-building class one of its first intergenerational programs and he hopes to attract more kids and seniors.

Harold knows that the going will be slow, at least at first. “I am probably never going to get a huge response; however, what I do get is recognition for modeling as an asset to the community, rather than have the club viewed as a liability.”

In a sense, this is the whole point of Harold’s work. All of his projects have been part of general outreach to the community. He likes showing people that modeling is a worthwhile endeavor. He enjoys giving kids a positive activity with hands-on experience, personally helping out with other groups’ activities such as building birdhouses and other woodcraft projects.


Harold (R) and students of his first class at the local senior center, begin work on a trainer that will be used for flight training.

Harold notes, “Anything that gets kids away from television and computers! We’re becoming a nation of unskilled people who don’t know how to do anything with our hands. You have no idea how you will impact young people. The important thing is to do something. You never know where it will lead.”

In Harold Reuter’s case, his commitment to public service on behalf of his club led him from entry-level volunteer work at his flying site to educational outreach programs at the local library, the senior center, and the middle school. He carved out the role of “community ambassador” for his club.

Harold’s work proves that one person can make a difference!

Education Committee Chairperson