John Benario started flying helicopters in 1977 at 13 years old. John had some contest wins in the next few years culminating with a first in Expert in the 1982 Schluter Cup.John took 8 years off to earn degrees in aeronautical engineering and nuclear engineering, serve as an engineer in the Navy, and to get his full scale helicopter career started in a Robinson R-22.In 1989 John started flying Bell 412 and Bo-105 helicopters for offshore support in the Gulf of Mexico. Taking advantage of his new found free time, John embarked on a 10 year period as an FAI contest pilot. During that period, there were a few side projects including setting an unofficial world speed record of a 109 mph in 1998.In 2000 John had a career change to flying airplanes and is currently flying DC-9s for Airtran Airways.Along with the career change John changed his model helicopter focus from FAI to 3D and in the subsequent two years, John progressed to being invited to the XFC in 2003.John has been writing for RC Modeler magazine since 1991 and is known for his technical analysis of helicopter problems and his quest to always build his models better. John's philosophy is to put his time and money into better building rather than buying upgrades.John flies Futaba radios, Cool Power fuel, and OS 91 C-spec engines.