=================== ACMA Irvington Field Pits Report ======================
The Flying Event Schedule for the remainder of 2011
is located at the end of this report.
Lots of flying events going on this spring! I’m having a hard
time keeping these Pits Reports current... Pictures I took on Sunday,
the 8th of May, will be in the upcoming May 22 report, along with
the Brewton Fly-in event of May 14, and Sunday the 15th at our field.
I hope you’ll have the patience to wait...
April 30, ACMA Spring Scale Fly-in — Our scale
event was well-attended. Forty-five pilots registered. This panorama
shows the pit areas and the pavilion about midday.
(You may have to scroll right to see the full picture.) The weather
was great, although a bit windy. But that didn’t stop people
from flying! Andrew Smith brought several of
his planes. Here’s his A-10 Warthog...
Another one who brought plenty of planes was Tony
Pirkle. Tony said he planned to fly all
of them... Jonathan Festa’s dad was visiting from Phoenix,
AZ. He even got to fly Jonathan’s new 3D
plane... Jonathan and Jon Koppisch did some 3D routines. This
is Jonathan’s Edge-540...
Mike McLaughlin did some nice stuff with his smoking
Citabria.
JC Day was the DJ and raffle
announcer... Alvin Reed was one of the cooks.
The food was great.
The kitchen staff made sure everyone got
fed... Here’s Carl Broughton and a couple of
friends... This is Paul Verger and Nathan Rische from the Mississippi
Coast RC Club of Gulfport.
I’m sorry I forgot the name of the gentleman in the back...
Here is Larry Peavey from Baldwin
County.
Mike Chilson is a RC scale builder who showed off a couple of his
nice planes. Here’s
his business card...
Garry Busby spent some time teaching model aeronautics to a pretty
little girl... Jimmy Kennamer had some of his family with
him. Dane Kinman flew Jimmy’s Pilatus Porter and did not
crack it up this time.
Really! Here’s what the landing looked
like.
Scott Cameron and Wayne Boudreaux made a candy drop for the kids
with Scott’s KIA
plane. The children waited patiently.
Scott prematurely released the candy and it fell north of the
group. Nevertheless the kids had a good time scrambling for the
candy.... Later in the day the senior bench at the north end was
filling up.
Guess who came back and reclaimed his lounge
chair? Yep, Russell is baaaack!...
Wayne Miller and Dewey Brown had it made
in the shade. Dewey flew his beautiful P-51 Mustang...
Here’s a nice warbird, but I don’t remember
whose it is... Tommy Shields brought several
planes. I think he flew them
all... Roger Geil flew his electric
F-16...
Rob Baker flew two of his
turbine jets. This one is very
nice! The Flash had a flameout when it ran out of fuel. It’s
not good when you see that puff
of smoke! It was tight, but Rob made a nice landing anyway...
Bill Culberson also flew a couple of turbines. Here’s his F-86
Sabre. Nice to see both Rob and Bill do formation
flights... Bill also owns an L-29 Delfin, a
full-scale one. As an added attraction, he made a couple of nice
passes over our flying
field. Awesome and loud!
Paul Verger never flew his nice big plane. Too windy, he
said. That’s Lee Carroll of the Koast Air Modelers club
in Ocean Springs next to him... Justin Peacock flew his Cessna 310
twin-engine plane.
Nice flying in this picture by Dean!
And Justin rolled it and flew it inverted too, of
course... Here are Linda Koppisch, Julia White, Henry Waltman,
Jim & Annette Quint and David
Doss.
Paul won the pilots’ raffle, an electric ParkZone P-47D Thunderbolt.
It was donated by Rob Baker of HobbyTown USA... The fly-in was a big
success! Thanks to everyone for participating and attending! I took
about 15 more pictures than the ones in this report. To see them all,
click here to view my ACMA
Scale Fly-in web album.
Later that weekend Alvin was intrigued by Aaron Carpenter’s
tiny Blade mCPx helicopter.
I wonder if the parts list includes a magnifying glass?... New club
member Willie Boan showed up with three tiny toy helicopters.
He let Justin, Alvin and Frits have one to set up and fly. Piece of
cake, right? These are little toys! So how hard could it be to fly
them?
Well, it ain’t easy! The three managed to get them all airborne,
sorta kinda. Alvin
had some problems with his
2-rotor Chinook. But he finally got it flying. Justin did okay.
And so did Frits.
The slightest wind is these tiny helicopters’ worst enemy! And
they make it look and sound so easy...
During the following week a couple of exiting things happened. Max
Needels had a problem with his brand-new LamYak on its first flight.
At first it was doing very well. The plane was highly maneuverable
and fast! But Max lost communications with it while it was at high
speed and in a fast roll. The LamYak screwed itself into the ground.
Max decided it was not
a keeper...
Speaking of first flights... The engineering students from the University
of South Alabama were back with their project.
It’s a flying wing that they designed and built as a team.
It has a wingspan of 139 in. and is powered by a .61 2-stroke engine.
This was going to be its maiden flight. After some linkage adjustments
it was ready.
Rob Baker has been their advisor and the test
pilot. Unfortunately the CG must have been way off, because the
flight was brief. My apologies for missing the first few seconds on
the run-up. You aren’t missing much, because the wing became
airborne in less than a couple
of feet. The firewall appeared to have suffered the most damage.
The team hopes to come back for their second flight soon.
May 7, Roy E. Ray Airport EAA Fly-in —This
airport is only three miles from our flying field. I arrived around
9:30. Phil Hooper was already there and he had brought his own shady
spot. Soon after I got there, Tony Pirkle flew over in his Kolb...
Then Mike and Dawn McLaughlin landed in a Piper
Cherokee. Smooth landing! Mike had rented the plane at Brookley
Field.
Then other planes came. So many different
kinds... Many people liked this
one. It’s for
sale... Here's Donnie Hammett hanging onto a beautifully crafted
laminated wooden prop with brass
inlays. Wayne Boudreaux and Frank Madison also showed
up. Here they are reflected in a highly
polished spinner... Mike and Dawn posed in front of a Texan.
How do you like Dawn’s royally hat?... Here’s the Texan’s
takieoff.
Hillary Grice’s Model T Ford was on display in front of the
“Spirit
of Irvington”. The plane obviously is in dire need of repairs...
Now here’s a unique
ice cream churner. It was loud and needed constant attention and
lubrication... Here’s a different plane, and I don’t know
its name. It had German markings. Nice dash.
With a warning in “German”!
But it sure doesn’t look like the German I learned in school...
Tony Pirkle had both his Kolb ultralight and his Rans S-9 Chaos light
sport plane there.
Here’s the Rans landing.
He let the builder of the Rans, Than Van der Bosch (good ol' typical
Dutch name), fly the Rans. That guy can do some fine aerobatics!
Now Tony cannot say that the Rans can't do this and can't do that.
We saw it do EVERYTHING! Hammerheads, rolls, Immelmann Turns, Split-Ss,
loops, inverted flight, you name it! Tony has not rolled the Rans
yet and we are not pushing, Tony. But we can always hope...
I got an offer that I couldn't refuse... Out of the blue Mike asked
me if I wanted to take some REALLY GOOD pictures... It took me a couple
of seconds to get what he was asking me... Then I got it. Of course!...
So I got a fresh battery for my camera and made a quick phone call
to my wife, and then Mike took me up in the Cherokee.
Here’s the cockpit
view.
We flew by Bayou
Le Batre. Then over the Katrina Cut, now blocked off by a dam
of rocks... Over Dauphin
Island... There's Fort
Morgan. Mike explained some of the gadgetry, not even holding
on to the stick, nor looking straight
ahead. (I asked him if he shouldn't be watching where he was going,
but he said the plane flew itself... Really?... I wasn’t sure...)
Here’s the Dauphin
Island Bridge. There's Fort
Gaines...
Dauphin Island Airport on
the right. And here is the DI bridge. The airport sort of juts
out into the water like an aircraft
carrier. Then we flew by Roy E. Ray Airport’s runway before
the
landing... Here’s the landing from my point of view. A bit
bumpy in the turbulence
over the trees. That Cherokee was the smallest plane I had ever
ridden in. Thanks, Mike! That was a great ride and it definitely made
my day!
Here’s a plane that’s definitely
green. How about this
maroon one? And here’s one of the Stearman
biplanes... Mike and Dawn had a picnic in the shade in front of
Tony’s
Rans....
There were some really nice airplanes to see. Lots
of them. (Scroll right to see the whole panoramic view.) I estimate
60 or more aircraft.
Stearman biplanes, Taylorcraft, Bonanzas, Cubs, and several ultra-lights.
Also an Extra-260L and a Pitts Special, both aerobatics
planes. The pilots who own those two planes actually compete in
aerobatics
contests.
This really was a nice fly-in. If you couldn’t make it for
whatever reason, try to go next year. I took more pictures than what
I have here in my report. To see them, click here to go to my Roy
E. Ray Fly-in web album >
Bonus Feature — This is a video of a stunt
pilot who, in real life, is a Delta Airlines pilot. His act at air
shows is to pretend that he is a drunken spectator who rushes from
the stands and jumps into a Piper Cub and takes off without any understanding
of how to fly a plane.
The Piper Cub is actually specifically built to withstand an enormous
amount of stress and has a very powerful engine. This type of stunt
is actually the most dangerous of air show acts, because of the low
altitude at which the pilot performs. Obviously, this pilot possesses
unbelievable skill. Check out the landing at
the end!
That’s it for now! Fly safe!
====================== Flying Event Schedule =======================
May 27-29, Fri., Sat., Sun. — Northwest Florida Modelers,
Inc. — Mid South Soaring Championship, Pensacola, FL.
Rae Fritz Field. Here are the FritzFieldMap,
the SoarFlier,
the SoarRegistration
and the SoarSchedule.
May 28, Sat., — Crescent City RC Club — 24th
Annual Memorial Day Fun Fly, Edgard LA., about 20 miles SW
of New Orleans. Open to all types of RC aircraft, helicopters to jets.
Here’s the CCRCCmap.
Jun. 4, Sat. — Mid-Mississippi RC — Spring Fly-In,
Jackson, MS.
Jun. 11, Sat. — Bay Area RC Society — Magnolia
Sailplane Festival, Foley/Magnolia Springs, AL. Magnolia
Field. Here are the maps:
BARCSmap1, BARCSmap2,
BARCSmap3.
Jun. 18, Sat. — Mississippi Coast RC Club —
Spring Fly-in, Gulfport, MS. Bob Miller Field.
Jun. 18, Sat. — Northwest Florida Modelers, Inc. —
Vista Sailplane Contest, Pensacola, FL. Rae Fritz Field.
Here’s the FritzFieldMap.
Aug. 20, Sat. — Northwest Florida Modelers, Inc. —
Vista Sailplane Contest, Pensacola, FL. Rae Fritz Field.
Here's the FritzFieldMap.
Sep. 10, Sat. — Azalea City Model
Aeronautics — 2nd Annual Sailplane Fly-in, Irvington,
AL. Irvington Field.
Sep. 17, Sat. — Northwest Florida Modelers, Inc. —
Annual Swap Meet, Pensacola, FL.
Oct. 1, Sat. — Koast Air Modelers Society — Fall
Fly-in — Ocean Springs, MS. Ludlow Field. Here's the
KAMSflier
? Oct. (1-3 last year), Fri., Sat., Sun. — (TENTATIVE)
— Rally of Eagles — Holley Flyers, Holley, FL, near Navarre.
Holley Field.
Oct 8, Sat. — Azalea City Model Aeronautics —
Fall Scale Fly-in — Irvington, AL. Irvington Field.
Oct. 15, Sat. — Mississippi Coast RC Club — Fall
Fly-in — Gulfport, MS. Bob Miller Field.
Oct. 15, Sat. — Northwest Florida Modelers, Inc. —
Vista Sailplane Contest, Pensacola, FL. Rae Fritz Field.
Here's the FritzFieldMap.
Nov. 5, Sat. — Pine Belt RC Association — Fall
Fly-in — Hattiesburg, MS.
? (Nov. 5 last year), Sat. — (TENTATIVE) (Full-scale
fly-in) - Annual EAA Fly-in, St. Elmo Airport, Highway 90, St. Elmo,
AL.
Nov. 12, Sat. — Azalea City Model Aeronautics —
Charity Fly-in — Irvington, AL. Irvington Field.
Nov. 26. Sat. — Northwest Florida Modelers, Inc. — Toys
for Tots Fly-in, Pensacola, FL, Rae Fritz Field. Here's the FritzFieldMap
Dec. 17, Sat. — Northwest Florida Modelers, Inc. —
Vista Sailplane Contest, Pensacola, FL. Rae Fritz Field.
Here's the FritzFieldMap..
=================== Want to Advertise Your Business?
=====================
Our club includes several people who are businessmen with whom I
wouldn’t mind doing business. And neither would other club members
if they knew about it. Examples are plumbers, home air-conditioning
services, electricians, home re-modelers, lawn equipment service,
etc.
I don’t mind mentioning your business in my Pits Report, or
perhaps here, in this section. Send me a scan or picture of your business
card. Or give me a business card the next time you see me at the field.
I offer this to club members only.
===================== Mobile Area RC Model Aviation Forum
========================
Come chat with some of us on Alvin’s Mobile Area RC Model Aviation
Forum (MARCMAF). There’s always something or somebody being
talked about there…
============Advertising Your For Sale Stuff in the Swap Shop/Flea
Market ==============
You can advertise your For Sale items in the Mobile Area RC Model
Aviation Forum's Swap Shop/Flea Market. You can even include photos,
which is always helpful when you try to sell RC stuff.
To use this feature, go to the main menu
shown on the left of this report and select Swap Shop.
First-timers must register with a username and password, but that's
free and it is very easy.
Inactive topics will be pruned when 160 days old. Listings will be
displayed for about five months before being pruned. Please edit your
topic to reflect any changes, if the item(s) sold, or if they are
no longer for sale.
In addition, you can send the detailed information to me by e-mail,
preferably with pictures, and I'll forward it to the 108 members of
our club. I have all the members' e-mail addresses, and I don't mind
doing it. E-mail me > fjetten@aol.com.
=============== If You Have Any Comments About These Pits
Reports… ===============
I welcome any comments regarding these Pits Reports - good or bad.
E-mail me > fjetten@aol.com.
Frits
Goes Hollywood - Click For Details
