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James Tang, MD, has invested thousands of
hours in building and flying
his RC aircraft.
The US Air
Force's loss is plastic surgery's gain.
Eyesight that didn't pass muster for
fighter-pilot training was good enough (with
corrective lenses) to allow James Tang, MD,
of Houston, Texas, to excel in plastic
surgery. As for jetting off into the wild,
blue yonder, he takes flights of fancy with
RC airplanes and helicopters he builds and
flies.
" ... I'm quite nearsighted," he
said. "I function quite well with my contact
lenses, but the Air Force had other ideas.
In another life, I would have loved to have
been a fighter pilot, perhaps a 'Flying
Tiger' of World War II."
James says his
childhood dream was to emulate his heroes—the
fighter pilots of World War I and II—and
become one of the celebrated flying aces who
patrolled the skies and kept the world safe
from tyranny.
He spent a good part of his
childhood building model airplanes and
flying rubber-band-propelled airplanes. But,
as often happens, James set aside the
hobbies of his youth for more adult
pursuits.
That is, until he discovered the
fun of flying RC models and joined the NASA
Radio Control Club in Houston—not far from
the University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston, where he did his plastic-surgery
residency. James is currently a member of
the Northwest Radio Control Club.
He said:
"I've built about 40 RC airplanes since I
started my practice in Houston in 1983.
"Most were built from kits and some were ARF
planes—almost ready to fly. They take
relatively little work to complete. But
today I have only three airplanes and three
or four helicopters."
James says he would
have more in his fleet, but that would mean
time spent with his hobby and less with his
wife, Elizabeth.
"She'd like me to spend
more time with her," he said. He adds that
plastic surgery and his hobby have several
elements in common: "the precision and
patience required for excellence and
satisfaction gained in a job well done."
"The two fields have a strong correlation,"
he said.
James has never lost a patient, but
he can't say the same about his aircraft.
"I
was flying a propelled glider, which uses
power to climb and then glides back after
the fuel runs out. I sent one quite high,
where it was just a speck in the sky. I gave
it a downward command and expected to track
it in, but I lost it early on and never saw
it again. I drove around for quite a while
but couldn't find it; it simply disappeared.
That was a strange experience." MA
Reprinted
with permission from the August 2007
Plastic Surgery News
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