A Winter’s Weekend in Southern California

[madmax]

A Winter’s Weekend in SoCal..

Friday night, 10pm. Brett (Heydick) and I are throwing darts at Chez Bayless in Huntington Beach. In between charging Lipos and figuring out what to do with the re-kitted mess of an Extra, I mentioned “Dude, you gotta come with me to San Diego tomorrow and check out this new electric IMAC thing they got going!”. “Uh, sure!”. “Dude, let’s go to Trabuco and check out our friends over there on the way back”. “Uh, okay!”. So was the beginning of our one day roadtrip.

Saturday morning at 8:00am, we hit the road to San Diego. It’s a pretty quick shot down there from my parts, right down the coast on The 5 Freeway, off at Sea World Drive, and blammo! A killer electric field that overlooks Mission Bay with a killer backdrop of the classic California beach setting. The boys at Silent Electric Flyers club have started something pretty darn cool – Electric IMAC with a one day format. Pilots competed in one of two classes – Basic and Sportsman. The entire contest rotation lasted 4 hours, and was incredibly low maintenance, and most of all, fun!

Tim Attaway and Steve Dente have brought this concept to fruition through a lot of hard work, and have created a great event for IMAC newbies to take a shot at precision competition. That factor alone was very cool, and these guys deserve major props for all of their hard work.

At the end of the day, our buddy Pedro took first in Sportsman, rounded up by Bruce Brown, and Stephan Villard. Basic saw Steve Neu (yes, that Steve Neu) take the top slot, followed by Randy Marsden and Craig Hunter. From what I observed, the vibe was excellent, and pilots were totally stoked just to have a chance to actually fly and compete.

Great job guys, and a HUGE THANKS to The San Diego Crew for putting this on. We’ll be back in 5 weeks for the next competition – heck, I might even bring down the AJ and give it a whirl!

On the way back from San Diego, Brett and I drove through an area of Orange County called Trabuco Canyon to see our friends from The Trabuco Flyers. These guys have a great facility, and are great to hang out with. When we arrived, I was stoked to see a buddy who haven’t seen in sometime, and is well known on FlyingGiants – Ken Adams! Recently back from deployment, and newly appointed Captain to his own landing craft, Ken was hovering a big 40% Carden Edge owned by Eric, a local club member.

After reacquainting ourselves with some old friends, and making some new, not to be outdone by Ken, I took a pull on Eric’s Carden as well. Brett also got some stick time, and we wrapped up the day with beverages at the field’s killer clubhouse. Watching the sun set on a perfect 80 degree California winter’s day, Brett looked at me with a slow nodding head, and said, “Yup”.

Special thanks to all of our friends in San Diego and Trabuco for the killer time! These guys are Giants Style to the n’th degree, and we’re stoked to be a part of an incredible group of modelers in Southern California.

[madmax]

Photos...

[madmax]

more...

[madmax]

and more...

[madmax]

and more again...

[JeeUm]

I'm so jealous I can't even begin to explain it. Today was the first day in a couple months we've been able to get to the field. High winds, still patches of ice and snow plus a mud pit .

I hate you SoCal guys!

[TheTank]

No doubt Jeeum. We went out today, Total mudhole. I didnt pull my bird out of the car. In fact... the only one crazy enough to fly was Elie.

[JayB]

Here too, Went out and only took out the foamy... the field was covered in ice and a bout 14 tons of geese crap.. Fun flying in 20mph winds with a foamy you can drag the rudder around pretty good.

[SmokinKat]

That was an awsome day to say the least....the whole Vibe at Trabuco is incredible!!!

[1bwana1]

MadMax,

It was great having you down for the E-MAC event this weekend. Those pictures are incredible. As always Giant coverage is first class. I hope you can come and compete at the next one. We keep a very competative loaner plane for guest fliers. I will post some more pictures and more info about the event this evening when I get some time, I'm out flying the big gas IMAC planes today!

I really feel for you guys out East. You are really challanged by the weather. We often forget how lucky we are in San Diego. I recently read a ranking of cities by number of playable golf days. The criteria sounded pretty much the same as it would be for flying. From memory the criteria was, a Playable (flyable) day must have:
1.) Less than 1/4" of rain
2.) Winds less than 15 mph
3.) Minimum daytime temp greater than 40 degrees
4.) Maximum daytime temp less than 100 degrees

I think San Diego ended up having 360 days a year on average that fell within these parameters. Darn, that means we had to miss 5 days a year. Actually I bet at our field it is even better than that because we are right on the ocean and even milder than the rest of San Diego. Thie weekend we are enjoying temps in the high 70s, light winds and I don't think I have seen a cloud in a while. Guess thats why housing costs so much. What is a building season anyway?

-STEVE-

[wizard]

Sounds like you guys had a blast. I can't complain about the weather here right now. Today was the 4th day in a row at the field. Yesterday was the only day that wasn't perfect. Every day has seen sunny close to 60 deg. Yesterday the wind was kicking about