WINSLOW — Ron Gregory laid out a spread of doughnuts and coffee while the other men gathered around in his camp and discussed the news of the day.

“This is half of the float fly right here,” Gregory, 73, said of the conversation.

Joe Gilbert, a fellow model airplane pilot, agreed.

“My wife thinks we do more talking than we do flying,” he said. “She’s not wrong.”

The men belong to the Kennebec Valley Model Aviators club. On a sunny Saturday in early October, five of its members convened at Gregory’s camp to fly small, remote-controlled floatplanes over the still, reflective waters of Pattee Pond.

Before liftoff, however, there was paperwork to be done. The men took turns jotting information into a sign-up sheet: names, planes and frequencies. Gregory explained the reason for choosing a frequency.

“On the older FM radios we use, they’ve got certain frequencies. If you get two of us going at the same time at the same frequency, that could cause problems,” he said with a laugh.

Club member Art Aubé, 79, has been flying remote-controlled planes since 1982, and had been tinkering with other forms of model aviation for much longer. For the past 43 years he has operated a hobby shop from the basement of his home in Skowhegan.

Aubé said luck doesn’t have much bearing on the hobby. Rather, it takes two things to become a good pilot: practice and passion.

“You’ve just got to love the doggone thing,” he said.

A recent national event could have a big impact on the hobby.

In late September, a Massachusetts man was charged with a plot to use explosive-filled model planes to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. The suspect, Rezwan Ferdaus, allegedly planned to reconfigure three remote-controlled planes into GPS-guided weapons, according to the FBI.

The foiled plot quickly made national headlines and also caught the attention of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, the official national body for model aviation in the United States.

“Modelers everywhere are outraged by the literal hijacking of model aircraft for such a nefarious purpose,” said Rich Hanson, AMA’s Government Relations and Regulatory Affairs representative, in a news release. “Our 143,000 members follow a strict safety code, always fly within sight, and remain clear of frangible property or people. When we hear this sort of item and activity labeled as a ‘model’ we are concerned that our recreational and educational hobby is being misrepresented.”

Kennebec Valley Model Aviators member Roland Woodworth said the terror plot could impact his hobby.

“It’s not going to help our cause,” he said.

Gilbert said the Federal Aviation Administration was already drafting a set of rules to govern model aviation, which are due to be published in 2012. He speculates those rules might become more restrictive in the wake of the terror plot.

“When they do come out with the rules, we want them to make the airspace safer,” Gilbert said. “At the same time, we want to be able to continue our hobby. Who knows what they may or may not ban or what they may or may not restrict.”

In the meantime, the aviators said they’ll continue doing what they love, and they hope to grow their membership.

Gilbert said the club currently has about 60 members, which is down from a peak of about 80 members in the mid-2000s.

“It’s fantastic,” he said of the hobby. “Too bad more kids aren’t involved in it. It would keep them out of trouble.”