Model plane hobbyist flying high

Kuala Lumpur: As a child, Anuar Nordin longed to play with one of those fancy remote-controlled planes he had seen on television.

But being a kampung boy, he thought his wish was merely a pie in the sky and had to contend with traditional pastimes like top spinning and shooting with catapults in his village in Johor here.

As he grew older, Anuar never gave up on his dream of flying his own remote-controlled aircraft although he put it in the back-burner when he joined the Royal Malaysian Navy in June 1987. The retired RMN warrant officer, now aged 51, only managed to get hold of one of those gadgets after he left the navy in June 2012.

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What started as a hobby soon became a passion and before long, he was designing and making his own remote-controlled planes. And, he has become so adept at it that his “toys” are being snapped up by fellow enthusiasts, thus providing this self-taught model aircraft maker with an income stream post-retirement.

Recalling the first model he owned for which he paid RM950, the single father of six said since he had no idea how to operate it, the plane “crash-landed” each time he tried to fly it and was eventually damaged.

“I had some friends who shared my interest so I learnt from them how to operate a remote-controlled plane. Due to my deep-rooted interest in these gadgets, I was willing to spend a lot of time learning the technical ins and outs of operating them,” he told Bernama, adding that he also learnt from YouTube videos and blogs.

Anuar said it took him about a year to learn to fly a remote-controlled plane skilfully. Not only that, but he also managed to create his own designs, based on which he constructed his own models out of foam board.

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“Initially, I was only interested in finding out how remote-controlled planes function and the techniques of flying one. But over time my interest deepened and I envisioned designing my own models,” he said.

Anuar’s first properly constructed remote-controlled plane was modelled after a Sukhoi su-35 aircraft that cost him RM950 to make. – Bernama

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