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Yuchol Kim  This
is Yuchol on his recent wedding day, looking somewhat different than you
might expect to see him at the flying field, no doubt!
Yuchol
lives in Lynnwood, Washington, which is about 20 miles north of
Seattle. He is an electrical engineer and he designs power and lighting
systems for commercial buildings and skyrisers all over the Pacific
northwest. Yuchol has bachelor degrees from Montana State University in
business management and electrical engineering with an emphasis in
semiconductors . He plays the guitar and keyboard and has played in
numerous bands including BlueJack, which recently toured with B.B. King,
but he left the band just in time to miss that! Yuchol
got married to Jennifer just this past June in Billings, Montana,
after dating for almost 6 years. Jennifer is a civil engineer with a
company called M.A Mortenson in Bellevue, Washington. She has a
bachelor's and master's in civil engineering from Montana State
University. Yuchol's parents and the
children moved to the United States in 1988 to start the "new
life" as many call it, and ended up in Montana. Yuchol started
flying mainly due to a guy named Don Hungerford who was his
science teacher in middle school.He bought his first plane from Don for
$20 - a Dirty Birdy with an Enya 35 in it. He convinced his father to
buy him a used Tower Hobbies 4-channel radio for $100, which was a lot
of money for him to find as the family were very poor and did not have a
lot of money when they moved to the States. That whole summer, Don would
pick Yuchol up every morning and teach him how to fly. They later found
out that the Dirty Birdy was not in good shape and Don ended up giving
Yuchol a retired Scat Cat to fly. That was a very popular Quickie 500
racer and Yuchol learned to solo and had his first landing with this
plane in a 30 mph wind! He grew very fond of Quickies and got into
racing them - that was when Rossi engines were the thing, he says. By
building planes for others, Yuchol managed to get some more gear to
support his hobby. He learned to be a good builder and his reputation
grew enough to have "regulars" call him up to build models for
them. Don and Yuchol always went along with their mutual friend Tom
Gillespie. Tom was in his late 80's and liked Telemasters of which
he built and owned several. Yuchol recalls that they had many wonderful
summers together, until Tom passed away. Don ended up with all the
Telemasters - which he still has - and Yuchol has built a couple of them
for himself to remember the good days they shared. Yuchol
went off to college and took a couple of years off until he found out
that there was a club at Bozeman, Montana. He built a Sig Four Star 40
and joined the club and flew actively. He's participated in combat,
pylon racing, scale, and the latest, electrics. After
graduation in 1999, Yuchol moved to the Seattle area and joined
Snohomish Radio Aero Club. It has about 60 members and boasts a paved
runway. The land is somewhat small, but certainly works for Yuchol. His
current, large, fleet consists of Tower Kaos, Telemaster, Cermark Extra
300S, GP Extra 300S 40, scratch-built Islander with two Astro 035G
motors, Lite-Stick, Sig Riser converted electric with MEC Turbo 10 plus
motor, GP ElectriCub, and GP ElectroStreak. He has started building a
Four Star 400 and Super Kaos 400, powered by a geared 400 motor. He also
plans to build a CL-215 and a C-130, both for Speed 400's. Phew! - and
where on earth does he find space to store that lot?  Yuchol
has a very nice website dedicated to his model flying interests, and it
looks as though he is planning to shortly add a page to cover his wife
Jen's interests, too. His latest update proudly announces his recent
marriage and if you or your wife/partner/girlfriend would like to see
the wedding picture from which I cropped Yuchol's portrait, then click
this small screen shot of Yuchol's homepage.
His
site has links to pages dedicated to Glow, Electric and Other
R/C stuff with some good r/c pictures and some useful and
interesting links.  Although
I don't use them much myself, I'm always intrigued by the little animated
.gif files that adorn other people's websites, and the one that caught my
eye on Yuchol's site was this little chap flagging the date of the
latest update!
The site URL is http://pages.prodigy.net/yuchol/mainpage.htm There
are three pictures of Yuchol's models on the photo
gallery page. |
It's
true! It would be good to meet YOU on this personal profile
page, so please join the fun and send some details of yourself, your
family, modelling and other interests and anything else you care to tell us about and let's get to know you!
David has been in the hobby for
just 9 months and is keen on fixed wing r/c models. He flies a Sig Kadet
LT-25 tail-dragger, 63" wingspan, with an OS 40 LA
engine. David has just made a deal with a fellow club
member and is purchasing his second model - a Goldberg Tiger 2 40 size from him; it's
fitted with a Saito 65 4-stroke (nice gear!). He flies with Conway R/C
Association.
