He was flying in a field close to his grandparents’ house in Greene County, Indiana with his grandpa, John Matson, and family friend, Danny Gill. After a while, Var began to goof off with the plane and push his limits.
He lost control. The plane hurtled down soaring past Var, then flying between John and Danny, who were standing behind him. The plane kept going right into Danny’s car. The flight was over.
“What are you doing?” one of them asked. “You need to be careful!”
Var, a junior majoring in informatics, has been flying model planes for about a decade, and during that time he has been no stranger to plane crashes. Since receiving his first plane as an 11 year old, he has collected 18 different models. And, he has crashed every single one of them. He can even remember his first plane crash.
While he was flying, his plane got too far away and he lost control. It fell and almost hit a horse that was standing in a neighboring field.
“You have to laugh at yourself, otherwise things like crashing your planes would kill you,” Var says.
He quickly had to learn to get over his mistakes, especially since he was self-taught. While learning to fly model planes is harder than people probably think it is, he says the learning curve isn’t huge.
“I sat down on the ground and just started flying it,” Var says. “I learned from there on my own. No one was really teaching me.”
He might have taught himself most of what he knows about flying, but it has never been a solitary activity for Var. His grandfather has been an important influence to his hobby.
John, his grandfather, who was the manager of composing and I.T. departments at the Herald-Times before retiring, says he mainly acts as Var’s crew.
Var has a physical disability, arthrogryposis, which prevents him from doing things like plugging in batteries, starting the engines, and carrying the models to the area where they are flying.
He also can’t stand while flying the planes, so John made him a bench that allows him to spin around, keeping him from facing only one direction while he flies. Even Var refers to John as his pit crew.
“We are so used to Var exceeding beyond our expectations that nothing he does is very surprising,” John says. “Var’s disability necessitates his learning to do things differently than others. In no time, he was more capable than many more experienced fliers.”
Arthrogryposis is a shortening of the muscles around the joints that affects the ability to extend and flex the affected joints. Many people have responded to Var’s abilities with amazement and admiration, something Var doesn’t agree with.
“People always say that I had to overcome a lot, and I don’t understand it, honestly,” Var says. “Everyone would do it if they were in my situation. You’re just living life. Either you want something or you don’t. If you want something, do it. Do what it takes. I don’t really think it’s all that special. I think anybody would do it in my situation if it was something they wanted to do.”
This mindset is apparent in all of Var’s aerial photography, a feature of his hobby that started at the beginning of this year. It was something he had wanted to do for a few years, so he got a GoPro camera and a quadcopter, a model helicopter that has four rotors, and started shooting.
“I had seen other people work on videography from aerial platforms and I had seen people do photography,” Var says. “I thought it was really cool. I always loved working with Photoshop and thought I could do that, too.”
A lot of his shots are taken from the field near his grandparents’ house, but he has also taken some aerial photography on campus.
“I prefer taking photographs further out in the country,” Var says. “It makes for prettier shots. Although, I would definitely love to fly somewhere in a bigger city.”
Currently, Var doesn’t sell any of his photos and confesses that he doesn’t think they are good enough to sell. He does, however, see himself using his aerial photography for some career in the future.
He could have many different jobs with his aerial photography and flying skills, such as photography for real estate, monitoring crops for farmers, working on a police force to help track criminals, or crop dusting.
For now, however, Var is content to use aerial photography and model flying as a relaxing and amusing hobby.
“It’s enjoyable, just flying the models around and doing aerobatics or whatever you want to do,” Var says. “You get some unique photography that a lot of other people don’t have. It’s just relaxing and a lot of fun.”
