[Boulder]

AMA District VII Fly-in

Held at RCCD – July 29th & 30th, 2006

Hosted by the Radio Control Club of Detroit (RCCD), AMA District VII held its first Fly-in in Michigan’s summer heat. The weekend was warm, but ideal for flying, and 75 registered pilots and many more interested club members and spectators enjoyed some spectacular model aircraft and flying.
The control-line guys kicked off the flying at 10:00am on Saturday, and throughout the flying hours of the weekend there was never a lull in activity: helicopters, park fliers; sport and giant R/C; U-control; all had their time. In addition to the general flying, we were treated to some unique demonstration flying:
Guest announcer, Corky Heitman flew his big 40% J-3 Cub and Dave McDonald ‘s clipped wing Cub towed a banner advertising the event. Dan Horan flew his Raptor helicopter and displayed the incredible ability of these aircraft in the hands of a champion. And also in that league was a demonstration 3D fixed-wing flight by Andy Jesky who was in the area for a pattern contest. He flew the Funtana X 1.00 of Cody Soward, who is himself quite an accomplished 3-D pilot after only 2 years of flying.
Our combat guys gave a demonstration that always entertains: Fresh from the Nats, they were in a classic “fur ball” when planes of Jay lawless and Don Veres II mid-aired, leaving Keith Jones to do the victory roll. And speaking of classic flying, Frank Carlisle put his Pathfinder through the control-line pattern for us. Frank also risked turning over control of his U-control Bi Slob to some of the R/C “pukes” (your author included!) Spectators Ooo!-ed and Ah!-ed as the Bi Slob flirted with, and sometimes embraced mother earth. Despite Frank’s apparent death wish on the Bi Slob, it survived the R/C gang’s attempts to re-kit it!
RCCD’s friends, Chris Tucker, Vic Kerster, Curtis Wade, and others from neighboring Flying Pilgrims of Canton, MI joined us with their large warbirds. It is easy to imagine being the WWII ground targets as they bring a flight of P51s in for repeated strafing runs. One’s emotions are torn between wishing the darn enemy will fly into the row of trees; and hoping our friend, Chris can haul his beloved Mustang’s nose up in time to clear them. Great scale flying guys!
During WWII John McGinn maintained Waco CG 4A transport gliders. John’s declining health interrupted his construction of a model CG’. Led by Darrell Rohrbeck, Dennis Trombley completed the model and at the Fly-in Skip Gizowski took the controls of the 60 inch glider as Paul Newby’s Advance 40 towed it to altitude. After release, the glider descended to the field prototypically (rather quickly) terminating in a beautiful touchdown. Well done guys. Sadly, John passed away later that same day.
Steve McClain flew a 76lb Derringer twin with the same confidence that most of us fly a 40-size sport plane. How about an 8-point roll down the length of our 1200 foot runway! Another super-large aircraft was Curtis Wade’s 123 inch Skyraider. In a taxiing incident James Smith’s P47 shredded the Skyraider’s port wingtip Some teamwork by fellow pilots performed very scalelike battlefield repair on the wingtip (duct tape!) and the Skyraider took to the air for another mission. A new prop was all the P47 needed.
Jim Young brought his electric Hughes H-1 Racer that is featured in the August 2006 edition of AMA’s Model Aviation magazine, as well as two other beautifully scratch-built electrics. John Miklas, Richard Lukasik and Burt Eisenberg gave a number of us our first look at, listen to, and smell of turbine jets power plants. This proves yet again that in model aviation, there really is something to appeal to everyone.
Of course, it is not possible to mention all 75 pilots and more than 100 aircraft, but take a look at the pictures to get an idea of the event.
The weekend was punctuated by a great chicken and ribs dinner on Saturday evening. Served under the club pavilion, this was a great opportunity to chat with friends, both existing and new.
A sudden weather change on Sunday afternoon brought cooler temperatures, rain and an end to the Fly-in. There will never be another inaugural AMA District VII Fly-in. But roll on the 2nd annual event! The standard has been set.
Noel Hunt
Building what I fly and flying what I build (if you don’t fly it, is it still an aircraft?)