Retired, these hobby flyers have escaped Canberra's changing work place and avoid weekends, when airspace on the city's fringes becomes crowded with model aeroplanes, gliders and helicopters.
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Cheaper, more reliable technology, on-line merchandising and break-away groups specialising in aircraft, including a dedicated heli-pad near Williamsdale, reflect a hobby on the rise.
Among the flyers is Ken Lee, who joined Namadgi Sports Flyers Club at the foot of Mount Tennent two-and-a-half years ago, opting out of Centrelink after 40 years in the public service, when it was being merged with other departments.
While fly fishing in the mountains he decided to try his hand at gliding and progressed to model war birds made of moulded foam and now makes balsa wood models.
"These days you can buy planes in almost ready to fly condition, they don't install the tail because it makes it a smaller box to pack it all in,'' Mr Lee said.
"You can be up and flying within a day with them.''
Qualified instructors welcome newcomers with trainer models, generally a high-wing outfit where much of the plane's weight hangs under the wings.
"A lot of people are attracted by the World War II and World War I planes. Because they are fighters they are intrinsically more unstable than the trainers. They have a wing on the bottom of the fuselage rather than the top, so the centre of gravity is above the wing.
Hobbyists build models with metre to three metre-long wingspans and power them with either electric, petrol or nitro engines. A high octane fuel with oil mixed in, nitro is a popular choice.
Mr Lee attaches a little high-definition video camera which runs for 20 minutes on to his models to record flights which are uploaded to YouTube.
"I am at that point where I am confident enough to invest a bit more money, I am jumping from planes which cost $100 to planes which cost around $200. You can pay thousands if you want a perfect scale model of something.''
At Namadgi air space is not controlled. But flyers keep a sharp eye out for ducks, which land and take off from a nearby pond. Mr Lee suspects the paddock is part of a corridor for migratory birds moving to the coast.
"In spring and autumn flocks of birds come through from tree to tree in their hundreds; little finches, honeyeaters, grass parrots.''
In spring wedged-tailed eagles with young offspring become possessive of air space when they encounter gliders 200 or 300 metres above the ground.
"They quite often assert their authority, so yeah, there are quite a few gliders out there with talon marks across them.
"They are very quick, you see them above you, the time between them stooping and actually hitting you is very small, so you don't get much time to react.
"It is not something you curse, it is a blessing, an experience.''
Mr Lee said other clubs had better surfaces for land high performance models, but the Namadgi mid-week flyers liked their rustic, rural ambiance.
Once, all Mr Lee could manage was a plane that flew in circles on the end of a wire .
"That's all I could afford as a teenager. The radio equipment has gone down so much in price, it's much more reliable and safe, I guess I am re-living a childhood dream,'' he said.
