Tom is a 53 year old Mechanical Engineer living in San Diego. Tom has been modeling for over 40 years. Tom has lived in San Diego for 16 years with his wife, Betty and their many cats.Tom is a 53 year old Mechanical Engineer living in San Diego. Tom has been modeling for over 40 years. Tom has lived in San Diego for 16 years with his wife, Betty and their many cats.
Tom was a member of the 2004, 2006 and 2012 US F3J teams. Tom has also represented the USA as a pilot for the 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2019, and 2023 US F3B teams, and was an alternate for 2001, 2003, and 2015 teams. He was the second alternate for the 2011 US F3K team. He has been a multi-time National Champion in F3J, F3B, Unlimited, and Two meter classes. Last but not least he has been a multi time Eastern Soaring League Season Champion. The Eastern Soaring League is where Tom got his start in competitive soaring and owes much of the foundation of his soaring journey to the ESL.
While relatively new to F5J with 2022 being his first competition year in the class, Tom went all in. He designed and built his own molded models based on Mark Drela's Supra Airfoils. He placed 6th in the US F5J tour and earned a spot on the 2023 US F5J team. While things didn't quite go as expected at the 2023 WC in Bulgaria, he is looking forward to a second chance by representing the US in Argentina this spring and seeing old friends and making new ones.
Steven Willcox Jr. started flying RC gliders in Arizona when he was 3. The first time he flew an RC glider was on the slopes of Greens Peak flying a foamy wing with his dad Steven Willcox Sr. Even though Steven Jr was a kid he loved flying RC gliders and for being so young he was also pretty good.
As he grew up, Steven Jr started to focus more on sports. He played football from the ages of 6 to 13. He also played baseball and basketball. Despite being busy with all the sports he played, he and his father always found time to go to a field and mess around with RC gliders.
After years of practice, Steven Jr started to get good with F5J planes when he was about 15 while also attending high school playing basketball and competing in cross country.
But when COVID came in 2020 he realised that sports weren't really for him. He wanted to pursue a career in aviation. So in 2023, Steven Jr moved to Reedley, CA to attend Reedley College to pursue his dream of becoming an airline pilot. He is in his final year of college and will be graduating in 2025.
When he moved out of his dad's house and lived on his own, he always found time to practice at his local field in Visalia and make it to as many F5J contests as he could while dealing with schoolwork.
With such dedication to flying RC gliders, he started to win a few contests and was able to compete with the top guys. After 17 years of flying RC gliders, Steven Jr was finally able to make the USA F5J championship team in 2024.
Some other things that he is into are camping and going on drives in his Datsun. He also enjoys playing beach volleyball and he also enjoys flying.
John Butler has been flying RC planes since he was 11 in Upstate NY.
His first experience was seeing his neighbor fly an RC gas plane down the block from him. He instantly became hooked when his neighbor helped him fly and build his first RC glider, the Ace High MK2.
Although not very talented, he managed to have a few successful fights without crashing the motorglider but couldn't find the elusive thermals he day-dreamed about. Throughout high school and college his interests turned to sports, competing in the both Indoor and Outdoor New York State Track Championships and becoming the leading goal scorer on his Varsity Soccer team. John attended SUNY Geneseo in 2003 and graduated with a BS in Interpersonal Communications. Set on getting out of Upstate NY after college, John moved to Orange County CA where he enrolled in Americorp working at 2 different non profits aimed at helping family's in need. He also developed a love for Surfing and the beach. While surfing John saw people fly RC slope planes at the Beach and the next day he decided to try getting into RC slope soaring.
For 2 years John flew in Long Beach and Palos Verde on the slope with fellow slopers. During this time John decided to go back to school pursue Nursing while working as a Certified Nursing assistant at the local hospital. In January 2020, John graduated Nursing school he started working on a COVID unit at the very beginning of COVID. Starting during COVID forced him to realize what is important to him and really focus on things that he loves. After COVID calmed down in 2021, John decided to look for a glider on RC groups to get back into flying. He met some DLG pilots at El Dorado park in Long Beach and got them to help tune his first DLG. From there he has really taken to F5J and has spent countless hours doing 10 min fights and understanding how to compete with everyone.
Currently he has been working for the past year as a Travel Nurse in Visalia, CA where you can find him at the local glider field on any day he is not working at the Hospital. Other interests include, but are not limited to Hiking with my dad, golf with friends, local surf trips, spending July in Upstate NY with family, and finding the best food in every place that he travels.
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Jim's Dad, a lifelong modeler had taken a break to start and raise a family. His brother discovered some old free flight kits in the attic and they were up and running. Jim began RC soaring in the early 80's with an OLY II and Futaba 3CH radio.
Soon after he joined the Chicago based SOAR club and has been competing ever since. Some thermal duration and F3B in the late 80's and early 90's and then migrated to F3J in the late 90's. Jim was TM for the first F3J team that competed in England in 1998. The team won gold and Joe Wurts won the individual world championship.
Jim is an LSF Level V and has served on the LSF board in some capacity for the past 8 years. Jim's level V voucher features 6 wins in the contest portion. Jim credit's his recent success in F5J to the group here in Knoxville. They have a group of very dedicated F5J pilots that all work to improve everyone's performance. Jim has won the F5J Tour Championship 2 years in a row. Jim is honored to be the Team Manager for the US.