Welcome to Torrey Pines GullsMark Baldacchio – Modeler of the Year – 2022
Mark Baldacchino’s family hails from Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. During World War II, his father worked as a 16-year-old to help with overhauls of tail wheel assemblies for the British Spitfire, giving his father a connection to the aero-industry. The family moved to Ontario, Canada after the war, with Mark’s father assisting with the AVRO Canada company CF-105 Arrow jet fighter. But having just moved from Malta to snowy Canada, he found it difficult to handle the snow and cold temperatures. He took a job with Garrett in Phoenix working as a machinist, and Garrett later was purchased by Honeywell. Mark was born during this time in Phoenix, the only American-born Baldacchino in the family.
Mark grew up in Tempe. He and his father enjoyed RC boats of all types starting at roughly age 11 at Chaparral Lake in Scottsdale. This included power boats (A, B, C, (.20, .40 .60 nitro)) hydro and mono-hull classes and sailboats. By age 15, Mark job his first job at Arizona’s largest hobby shop, Desert Hobbies, and proceeded to spend most of his income on RC gear and bring that home on his 10-speed bike. Boat racing was his specialty and he and his father would travel to various contests regionally including the famous boat pond on Vacation Island at Mission Bay, San Diego.
He remembers racing at age 12 in the Marblehead 50/800 sailboat class at Mission Bay, against some very top-quality skippers; Bob DeBow, Chuck Black, Terry Allen and others. National champion Terry Allen ended up befriending Mark and served as his mentor in the Marblehead class. The Baldacchino’s enjoyed visiting San Diego on a regular basis. Even when Mark was just 4 or 5, they visited on a family vacation and went to the Torrey Pines Gliderport, enjoying the spectacle of what that was like in the 1970s with hang gliders, RCers and manned sailplanes all flying at the same time. He saw a Hobie Hawk in a hobby shop and even as a kid remembers thinking to himself “I gotta have one of those someday.” But throughout elementary and middle school, RC boating was Mark’s passion with his father.
In high school, Mark purchased a Gentle Lady kit with an interest in getting into RC soaring, but his dad wasn’t as interested. Mark built it anyway, took it to a local park, and without any prior instruction or assistance, got up the courage to throw the plane to see how it would fly. Sure enough, it started to fly across the entire length of the park. Mark panicked, pushed down on the control stick hoping to get it to come down – it came down – and busted the nose. Without anyone helping him to progress, he decided to sell it instead of continuing down that path at the time. Instead, he migrated to RC cars, enjoying on-road and off-road racing, both electric and nitro. He got into RC car racing and continued that for a few years.
Following his high school graduation, Mark took a position right away in 1985 as a stock clerk at Honeywell, the same company where his father and brother worked. Mark began a career that took him from stock clerk to administration to planning and filling orders to purchasing and acquisition, eventually to project management. He got married in 1987 and started a family.
However, not done with RC soaring, he purchased a Great Planes Spirit kit in 2003, built it, and taught himself how to fly with a hi-start on a football field in Glendale, Arizona. Fortunately, this time there wasn’t a lot of crashing involved, so progress was made. The day he caught his first thermal and specked out – he was HOOKED! This was seriously fun. He sold his power boats and focused more on family and RC soaring. He tried to encourage his two kids to also get into RC soaring but that never took hold.
In 2005, Honeywell made the decision to outsource all of its customer support programs to India and Mark was left unemployed. He fortunately found a position at Pratt & Whitney Composites in San Diego, a small facility in Kearney Mesa, producing fiberglass interior panels for the C-17 Globemaster. Mark and the family moved to San Diego and as a part of this job Mark also had the fortune to start interfacing more directly with customers like Boeing. He also joined the San Diego Argonauts and started sailing RC boats at the boat pond again just like old times. He volunteered his service to both the Argonauts and the American Model Yacht Association, serving as the national secretary of the Santa Barbara sailboat class for eight years.
In 2008, he took a new position with Maxwell Technologies providing customer support for their radiation-shielded semiconductors for satellites (the Single Board Computer (SBC)). This effort allowed Mark to further expand his network to include support for NASA JPL, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Space X, and many other customers. In 2015 he became a Project Manager for General Atomics, being solitarily responsible for all of the spare parts, (everything except the fuselage), and ground equipment for the USAF, MQ-9 Reaper. His main task was to ensure the warfighter had the needed parts overseas on time, and under budget. He would also coordinate efforts of getting the production MQ-9’s out of Poway’s production line to Grey Butte’s flight test facility in the high desert.
By about 2017, Mark had grown proficient enough with sailboat racing that something was missing. He reached out and joined the Torrey Pines Gulls and was trained and checked out by Ian Cummings and Ray Pili at Torrey using Ray’s foamy Ka-8 and a buddy box. No problems; and slope flying provided its own fun, camaraderie and skill set. Sort of like three-dimensional sailing. He dropped membership in the Argonauts and joined the TPG. Having served as slope coordinator already for several years, Ray Pili saw an opportunity in an enthusiastic new member with program manager experience and asked Mark if he wanted to serve as slope coordinator, to which Mark was pleased to say yes. Mark proceeded to build a Bird of Time, Aquila, and other woodies – all of the planes he wished he could have afforded and flown as a kid. This included donated planes for his restoration, etc. He now has considerable expertise restoring woodies. He helped coordinate F3F races at Torrey for Tim Traver and for a time got into F3F but while he loves speed, he also bought three, 4-meter, scale glider and loves the look and feel of scale gliders in flight. Ian Cummings, Marty Zimmerman, and Ray Pili have been the ones to have helped Mark the most on his journey, Mike Lance. Thomas Moller, and Sal Peluso, also have helped him the most for scale soaring and building.
Unfortunately, in 2021, Mark suffered a serious retinal detachment in both eyes. Doctors have suggested that the root cause for this issue was not wearing sunglasses for years while in the sun. Twelve surgeries later his eyesight continues to make improvement, but it is a long road. He wishes to remind everyone to wear your sunglasses whenever flying! But Mark has not let these challenges stop him from assisting the TPG. In 2022 as Slope Coordinator, he helped coordinate the installation of astroturf in the pit area and landing strip, and helped with weed abatement, etc. He continues to do everything he can for the club with his super coordinator skills. Mark feels that the TPG is a wonderful collection of people with diverse interests, backgrounds, and ages. It always makes him smile when his efforts help put a smile on someone else’s face.
TPG awarded Mark with the Modeler of the Year award for his efforts to expand interest in activities at the Gliderport, helping to maintain good relations between the RC and ultralight communities and coordinate the Katie Martin International Tribute Fly-In. Since that time, he helped to restore the TPG Modeler of the Year trophy itself so that it will be able to last another 50 years.
