MICHAEL MOHN – Host
Michael grew up in Texas with an eye to the sky. He knew he wanted to fly from early on and got his first taste of RC one Christmas when his uncle gave him a COX control line aircraft. Setting his sights on an aviation career it was off to college where he met Jay and became fast friends. He graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a professional Aviation Degree and has spent the last 31 years in the Aviation profession. He has an Airline Transport pilots license and is currently Captian on Airbus 320 for American Airlines. He has flown RC for over 25 years and is an AMA instructor as well as a full scale CFII-MEI. He also flies Aerobatics and competes with the International Aerobatic Club in full size aircraft. You can usually find him at Sun valley Fliers club flying Turbine Jets or sometimes on Tuesday mornings at Flyers park with the North Scottsdale Foamie League.
JAY NEELEY – Host
Jay grew up in upstate New York and joined the US Air Force out of high school. He would later attend Louisiana Tech University (befriending Michael) where he completed AFROTC and retired after 20+ years as a commissioned Officer. Jay has flown RC for over 25 years and currently resides in Wimberly, TX. Jay has worked variety of jobs since retirement; artillery simulator tech, Alaska Partnership for Infrastructure Protection w/Homeland Security. Jay is a hardy soul, and has been known to be flying in freezing weather in the winter and into the late evenings of Alaska “midnight sun” during its short summers. You will find him out at parks flying RC aircraft with one eye on the plane and the other on an occasion bear or moose crossing the field! Since moving to Texas you can find Jay at his private field there in Wimberly.
SHANNON GALLAGHER – Host
Shannon G from Mesa AZ was born and raised in Arizona. Shannon has been a life long enthusiast of aviation. From rides in his neighbor’s Cessna 170 at a young age to working for America West Airlines he has always been excited about all aspects of flying. Radio Control was a common love of both him and his father and it started with a few airplanes bought at the local swap meet of 40 years ago, and only grew from there. They ran a hobby store in the Tempe/Mesa area in the mid 90’s and were heavily involved in the local R/C community for many years. After taking a break from the hobby to start his own family, Shannon got back into flying small park flyers and eventually working up to larger aircraft and EDF’s. Shannon Took more interest int eh support of the hobby and has been an active board member, Vice President and President of the Arizona Model Aviators Club in Mesa,AZ. He is also the Contest Director for the Arizona Electric Festival in Mesa where he Met AZ Mike, Jay and AK Mike. Joining them on the podcast as a guest and representing the AZEF he has been a supporter of the podcast and has now joined the team as a permanent addition!. You will probably find shannon at a local R/C event or even out at his field flying new projects and supporting the hobby!
“AK” MIKE BARSOLU – Staff
Mike grew up in Virginia where he graduated high school. Shortly after he found himself in Alaska. Most of his career he has been working with computers in some way, programming, fixing or administering them. His current work involves project managment with AT&T. Mike has been involved in RC for the majority of his life but has become more involved after being caught by the foam build bug. He recently built a foam plane CNC cutter to help him make more complicated foam parts and his most recent plane was a “paper airplane” looking coreplast plane that he uses as a target for others to shoot at with paintballs. After having moved to Dallas Texas you can usually find Mike down at Jays place or on the Paramotor Field flying with the guys or testing his latest RC Plane.
Welcome to the Park Flyer Podcast, where we discuss the ups and downs of the RC flyer. We are open to new topics and look forward to helping you develop your building and flying skills through our discussions.
Your hosts Michael and Jay are both RC enthusiasts who have over 50+ years of combined RC experience in building and flying foam, balsa wood, gas, turbine jets and ARF park flyers, Through their success and mistakes over the years we hope to make your transition to the RC flying world easy and enjoyable.
We look forward to your input:
The park flyer podcast staff would like to thank you for your support and look forward to any input that you might want to share. Please feel free to email us suggestions and topics @ parkflyerpodcast@gmail.com or just send us a note on our contact us page.
Everything you hear on our podcast has happened to us at some point in our flying career and we hope by sharing our adventures it will keep you from the troubles and heartache we have experienced, we understand that there are many ways of accomplishing everything in this sport but the main thing is to Have fun!
