As he recovered his careers seem limited but he pushed hard to become a Dive Master in 1986 and started a business cleaning hulls and doing instructional diving work. In 1995 he was placed on permanent state disability and now works for the Veterans History Project. He has been a volunteer since 2003 and now is the project coordinator. The Project goal is to interview war veterans and have them tell of their experiences which then get sent on to the Library of Congress memorializing their contributions to our country. Carl has done 59 of these and says he will continue until he cannot do it anymore.
In July 2010, a watershed moment occurred when he got his hands on an RC airplane catalogue and leaped into the world of radio control models. His first was a Super Cub with floats which took a beating and went on the shelf for a later time. Taking its place was an Easy Star glider that he was very comfortable with under the guidance of Dave Braithewaite. Dave helped him configure a flight station on the fence at Silent Electric Flyers of San Diego flying site near Sea World. This wood support attached to the fence allowed Carl to position the radio in such a way that he could use his left hand to manipulate the normal Mode 2 sticks to fly his Easy Star and after getting a launch he would sail around and then land. Jim Bonnardel from SEFSD got involved with his development when he saw how committed Carl was to progressing to a more challenging aircraft….which turned out to be a foam T – 28. This aircraft found itself in the weeds and in the fence numerous times and was faithfully glued back together over and over by Don Griffin and others to help keep Carl in the air. Steve Dente secured an invention that would allow Carl to use a handgrip device so that he could control everything with his one hand but it did not work that well and they gave up on it after several attempts to fly the well worn T -28. Many SEFSD members saw Carl’s passion and stepped up with motors, planes, radios, servos etc. to get him closer to his goal.
Don Griffin then called Tony Stillman from Radio South, as he had heard that Tony was extremely talented in creating special applications with radio control transmitters. Tony, a very busy man in the AMA doing site development chores, came up with just the right radio, a mode 2 radio with a knob for rudder on top of the right stick so that all control were on the right stick and a bar was attached to the throttle left stick that could be operated by Carl’s little finger. After getting the airplane trimmed by Jim Bonnardel Carl used this radio recently and found it to be just what he needed. He now is dreaming about the many options that are in front of him for different aircraft….including a reconstruction and modification of the Super Cub as well as an F- 14 that he put together for a later day. One of his favorite jets from the Kitty Hawk days is the Phantom F-4 and he has one of those ready to go also. It would seem clear that nothing will halt his ascent to achieve that ultimate goal of flying whatever aircraft that he wants to fly and that is in keeping with the numerous times he has faced challenges in his life and succeeded. SEFSD proudly salutes his passion and commitment to radio control flying as well as his other endeavors.
