Dani Row
Lincoln NE

Ron Vogel has loved airplanes and flying his entire life. As a child, he’d watch air shows at the Waverly airfield, and when he turned 18, he joined the Air Force. After graduating from college, Ron followed his passion for airplanes by joining the Air National Guard, where he worked for 40 years.

Now at age 81, Ron lives at Grand Lodge at the Preserve retirement community, and still has his eye to the sky. He loves spending time flying and building his own radio-controlled planes with the same skills he had decades ago.

The nitromethane-powered planes have a wingspan of about six feet and can cost anywhere from one hundred to thousands of dollars, and they can take months to build. But all the time and money is well spent when Ron is able to step outside and fly the plane he built with his own two hands.

Ron often works on his planes in his apartment at Grand Lodge, and when the weather is right, he’ll be outside playing with the planes he worked so hard to build.