My name is John Boren and have been a model designer and builder since I was six years old.  I started building Comet & Guillows stick and tissue models and clearly remember bringing my Aeronca Champ wing to school for show and tell.  One of my older brothers, Daniel, was into model building as well and he unknowingly exposed me to the world of model building.

Somewhere around ten years old I got into model rockets as well and I have actively designing and building both model airplanes and models rockets since then.

At the age of 15 my parents purchased my first radio unit which was a Cox Sanwa 2-channel system.  I proceeded to build a Guillows F4U Corsair covering the entire model with 1/32” balsa. A Cox Baby Bee engine up front completed the package.  The first flight ended in crash destroying the model.  My second model was a Sterling F4U Corsair powered by a Cox Medallion .15 engine!  It too was quickly destroyed. You can blame the television show Baa Baa Black Sheep for my love of the Corsair.

A year older and wiser I purchased a used Proline, Competition Seven radio from a new friend.  An Andrews Big H-Ray Airplane was built and a K&B .40 engine was installed.  With help, I proceeded to learn how to fly this model and put hundreds of flights on it.

Although I’ve built dozens of kits over the years I take more pride in designing and building my own creations. I’ve built well over 300 RC models over the past 32 years and hopefully I’ll get in a bunch more built in the years to come.

Model rockets were built and flown during all these years as well.

In my early 20’s my parents and I took ownership of a Hobby shop named M-n-M Hobbies.  I ran this shop for three years but finally closed it since the business didn’t pick up as hoped.  My next career was designing, building and test flying large RPV’s for a local company. This job lasted only eighteen months but it was one of the best jobs I had.

From here I moved into a career as a PC Tech.  After many years I got a designer job at Midwest Products.  At this time Midwest was wasn’t doing much in the way of model airplanes but new boat kits were needed so I proceeded to create the last three model boat kits the company is producing.  While there new owners took over and new kit designs were not in the future for the company. 

I packed up the family and moved to Colorado to work for Estes\Cox.  My job there was to bring back the PICA line of models as ARF models.  I never did get to do this but instead designed a new line of small scale foam models powered by electric motors.  Seven designs later and three being tooled and almost ready for production, COX was winding down and I quickly found myself designing models for Estes, the rocket side of the company.  Two of my designs were put into production but things started slowing down on the Estes side so I found myself unemployed. A few months later I started doing CAD drawings for a Company named Trane. Eighteen months later and with the economy slowing down even more I was laid off from Trane.

Now 47 years old and with lots of time on my hand I created this website.  Well not long after creating this web site I am now the Head of the Estes R&D Department. 

If you wish to contact me please send emails to:

borenjohn@comcast.net

Me in front of my favorite fishing hole.