My beloved husband is very talented. He doesn’t feel that he is because he doesn’t feel that his talent is very useful in regular life. Yes, he can do some pretty neat tricks with his airplanes and he knows how to power them up to get the best performance out of them, but to him these aren’t useful skills.

I am going to set out to prove him wrong. Please allow me this post to brag on him.

Most R/C airplanes come as ARF’s. ARF stands for Almost Ready to Fly. The company does the building and covering, leaving it up to you to assemble the parts, add the electronics and power system, and then fly it. Depending on what plane/jet you are building it could either come almost fully assembled with just the power system needed, or you get them in a box like this HET Sniper XL.

Now, if you can find an actual kit it means that you get the plans, the pieces of wood (most of them) and then it’s up to you to completely build the aircraft and cover it. Back when Jay started to fly RC planes in the 80’s this was the only way that you could get a plane. You had to not only know how to build it, but know how to put it back together when it crashed and broke apart. Most of the guys just getting into the world of RC would run quickly the other way if you tossed a kit at them. Heck, even if you need to do some work on an ARF to make sure that it’s going to fly correctly, they will stay away from that model.

Not my Sweetie. He knows what he wants to fly, he reads the various threads about the models on the most popular RC message board on the internet, and for the most part he knows what he’s getting into when he purchases a kit or ARF. This is the inside of the HET Sniper XL that he received for Valentine’s Day. This jet took him a bit of time to get ready for assembly. He had to add extra stuff to make sure that the structure was stiff enough to take the beating of a flight. He had to modify the tail a bit, and then he had to do some extra work for the retracts.

It’s not as intensive as building from scratch, but it still takes a fair amount of knowledge to know how things are supposed to fit together and how they are supposed to function. If Jay didn’t know how the intake of an EDF jet works, then how is he going to know how to reinforce it so that it won’t collapse during flight?

So, maybe I haven’t done much to convince you about how talented he really is when it comes to other things. Jay’s mind works creatively and he knows how things should go together. My proof?

Have you ever seen anything more gorgeous? Many people would be intimidated to take on a project like this for their wife. These shelves were his own design (with a little inspiration from another shelf that I own), and he built them all by himself. Maybe they aren’t airplanes, but he used the same talent for putting wings together as he did to assmble these. Does that not impress you? No? Hmm…

Okay, now most women probably wouldn’t brag about this, but I’m not a typical woman. Jay bought me this island for Valentine’s Day, and yes it came in a box so that he just had to assemble it. However, he assembled it without once looking at the directions. His brain just knows the basics and how things should fit and function. Not everybody has this kind of common sense.

So, even though building R/C planes may not be looked upon as a huge talent to boast about, I’m going to do it anyway. Why? Because I benefit all of the time from his beautiful brain. My bookshelves, my kitchen island, and other little things that he does for me. He has more talent than most people and I wish that he would recognize this. Of course, I am biased.