|============== Azalea City Model Aeronautics, Mobile, Alabama,
USA ===============|
============ “From the Pits” Field Activities
— May 30/31, ’09 Armageddon ============
………….....….. All photos and videos
by Frits Jetten unless otherwise indicated …………………..
The other day longtime modeler Art Connor showed up at Irvington
field. He spent some time with Dewey
Brown. And with Alvin
Reed… Tommy Sheffield brought out about half his fleet one
day… Justin Peacock showed off his latest, an electric HK-450
CCPM 3D helicopter, which is a T-Rex 450 clone.
Armageddon day came with beautiful weather. Early in the day Jeff
Foster and JC Day got the PA system hooked
up. Rob Baker, organizer of the Fun Fly, brought the prizes that
his business, HobbyTown USA, had donated. And they were nice prizes:
An electric laser 200 EP ARF kit, an electric E-flite Nieuport biplane,
and a small electric helicopter, the Novus
CX… Alvin rolled in with all the groceries and kitchen supplies.
JC Day was the scorekeeper again this year... Billy Ray Krebs and
others had stuff for sale, as always. I saw a nice Uproar, a couple
of Cubs and a Funtana
90. It didn’t take long for Russell Ward to snap up the
two Cubs! He
now has a total of three Cubs in his growing and dusty collection
of aircraft.
Fifteen pilots signed up for the competition events. There were three
non-members from out-of-town who signed up: Nick Neville from Fairhope,
AL, Mike Hess from Evergreen, AL, and Garry Busby from Moss Point,
MS. The rest were our own usual club
members.
Rob held a pilots briefing, and explained the rules.
What follows is what I can remember in each event:
Carrier Landing: Jade made a couple of nice landings.
Frankly, I thought Jonathan Festa and his tiny plane didn’t
have a snowball’s chance in hell competing in half of these
events. But this is where Jonathan proved me wrong, and he blew everyone
away. He flew his small, electric, all-foam Great Planes Turmoil
330S. He did four Harrier landings, accumulating 20
points! Andrew Smith and Nick split second place in this event.
TJ Rohyans dropped out early because of engine problems, I believe.
Garry made a couple of landings in the box.…
And Frank Rowell survived.
3 Loops, 3 Rolls, Touch-‘n’-Go, 3 Times:
This is usually where Nick Neville shines, and he did again this
year. His self-designed Bantam speeded its way to victory with
a total of 135
seconds… Jon Koppisch was second in this event, taking only
two seconds longer! Jonathan wiped out when he took off with ailerons
reversed! The
plane sustained no damage, but Jonathan did not participate in this
event any further.
Mike Mclaughlin whipped his plane around too tightly after his first
set of Loops & Rolls and knocked the main gear out from under
the plane. He decided to sit the rest of the Armageddon competition
out… Frank Rowell didn’t have a lot of great luck, but
he participated in all
events. His attractive ground crew, Julie, did a great job on
his Twist, which survived.
Rob and Bill Culberson were optimistically sharing airplanes, but
that didn’t always work out. Rob crashed his Venus.
He managed to make repairs.
But when he flew it again, something happened, and it crashed pretty
hard… Bill flew Rob’s U-Can-Do, and did okay in some
of the events.
But then, and I don’t know during which event, Bill had some
bad luck.
Johnny Turner started out strong, but then he smacked his Escapade
into the runway.
Oh, he repaired it all right, and used it again, but later, disaster
struck…
Garry tried hard, but this year things didn’t work out too
well. But as always, Garry had fun anyway…
While all this was going on, at the far end of the North pits, Robert
Sanderson had set up his mobile workshop, and he had been feverishly
working on getting his combat plane ready. Rob was to do a test
flight…
Combat: Then, about halfway through the day, it
was time for the popular Combat, an event separate from the Armageddon
events. An unprecedented eleven pilots signed up for this battle!
Andrew Smith is our official Combat General, and he participated in
the battles also. Randy Bodiford (on right) spotted for
him. And then we had: Mike McLaughlin, with Jade Taylor as his
spotter; and
Johnny Turner and Alvin.
Also Tim Humbert (right) and Tristan.
This was Tim’s first combat with his new combat
plane. And Nick and Kelly
Davis; Garry (left) and David
Etheredge; Rob (right) and TJ;
Jon (right) and Jonathan;
and Russ and Frank
Madison (left). I don’t have pictures of the others. Robert
Sanderson was one of them, but he was having many problems with his
engine. Here’s
the start.
Combat was fierce!
It looked like a swarm of crazed
bees. There were many cuts.
And some midairs, but none fatal that I can recall.
The pilots looked intense.
So this year we didn’t have the usual carnage that you’d
expect with eleven contestants in the air at
one time. Here’s the start of round
three.
During a break in the contest, Andy Anderson showed off his new F-86
Sabre turbine jet that he and Bill Culberson now
own… Azalea City Model Aeronautics club President helped
out by calling out and awarding some raffle
prizes… Alvin did his rendition of Delta Dawn on the PA
system. Lucky for you I only caught the last
part… Then the remaining Armageddon events continued.
Egg Drop: Looks easy. You just drop a raw egg from
a cup affixed to the top of your
plane. Jon set the bar high when he dropped the raw egg only about
three feet away from the target. Jonathan — the egg precariously
balanced on top of the small plane — came in second with 12
feet… Nick hopped the plane, releasing the egg, but, things
didn’t go too
well… Russ Green hit the target too, but not with his egg
— he actually ran right through the target!
I don’t think he got points for that…
Limbo: This event did away with some of the competition
that was left over after the egg drop! In this event you got 1 point
for a normal pass under the string, 2 points for an inverted pass
and 3 pints for a knife-edge pass. Jade started out with a bad experience.
And of course the line got snagged a couple of times. Bill needed
a few more inches to roll inverted…
Johnny competed with his backup plane because he had pretty much destroyed
the Escapade earlier. He used his very green flying wing, the Avenger.
It didn’t help him, though.
Jon forgot there were two poles holding up the string!
But damage was not too severe.
It didn’t take long for Jon to start repairing.
The one who excelled at this event was Jonathan and his little foamy.
He slowly passed under the string while doing knife-edge!
Time and time again.
All four
times. For a maximum of 12
points. During a break, Jonathan showed off his hovering skills.
So another great Armageddon came to an end! After Rob and score keeper
JC tallied up the points, the winners were announced. Jonathan Festa
won 1st Place. He chose the Laser
kit. Jon Koppisch came in 2nd and he picked the Novus CX helicopter.
And Nick Neville ended up in 3rd Place. He was left with the Nieuport
biplane kit. Unfortunately Nick had to leave early and I have no picture
of him and his prize..
Andrew and Jon split the combat prizes. Jon took the $20.00 cash
which is the standard prize for winning
Combat. Andrew took the assortment of glues.
We owe Rob and HobbyTown USA a big thanks for donating three nice
aircraft kits and other goodies to the fun fly. He’s been doing
that every year... Thanks also to all the club members who helped
out by buying food and kitchen supplies; handled the registration;
kept score; announced raffle numbers; cooked; collected money; and
who cleaned up afterward.
Robert had been promising that he’d have the Double Trouble
twin-engine speed plane ready by Saturday
evening. Well, it was! Frits took it up and flew it. Even Rob
and Bill flew the fast plane. But while Bill was flying it, it went
out of control and crashed. Damage was not bad, as this plane appears
to be pretty indestructible! Robert said it would be ready again on
Sunday.
Rob Baker showed off a tiny new helicopter, a Heli-Max Novus CP.
He let Frits and Alvin fly the tiny
heli. Rob claimed that Alvin chipped one of the main rotor
blades. Frits really likes this little chopper! For about $220
(everything included) this amazing little heli really performs!
The box claims you can “perform aerobatics in your living room!”
Great! But if you never could fly a helicopter before, chances are
slim that you will be doing any of that now… HobbyTown USA sells
them.
The following day, Sunday, everything was back to normal again. Well,
almost. There wasn’t that large of a crowd, even though the
weather was perfect again. Billy Frost flew a couple of his electric
warbirds. One
was a P-51D Mustang.
The other was a Japanese warbird…
Joe Krebs tuned TJ’s cranky engine on the Stinger 60, and it
runs fine now.
Can you tell that TJ LOVES
RC?
Robert had set up at the North end again. And again he was working
on his Double Trouble. But he had also recruited Gary and Rhonda to
work on the CoroPlast Triangle. The tent was a blur of activity.
Even the Johnson girls, Christy and Mariah, helped decorate the Double
Trouble prior to its flight.
The flight was to come later in the afternoon.
Billy Toliver had a couple of nice flights with his T-34
Mentor… And Sam Chest did some 3D aerobatics with his giant
scale Dietrich Extra-260…
Jim Quint showed up with wife Annette and his Piper
Cub. Frits helped Jim put it together.
Frits then made a couple of flights on it.
Mike flew Frank Madison’s scale F8F Bearcat, nicknamed “Rare
Bear”. I think this was the first time for Mike to fly this
warbird turned racer.
All went well, until Mike tried to lower the retracts.
One wheel fell off, and then, after Mike tried to retract the main
gear to make a clean belly landing, the gear would not pull
up. So he put it down in the grass.
Mike did a nice job minimizing damage to the Bearcat…
Mike also flew his Four Star 40 and Decathlon, the latter with smoke
on. The smoke system works very
nicely. Looking good, Mike!
Scotty Cameron and Wayne Boudreaux flew their KIA
plane. This plane can drop bombs, parachutists, and candy.
Well, pretty much whatever you can stick in its rather large dropping
compartment.
They dropped some water bottles from its bomb
bay. One finally managed to hit the runway…
Melvin Farmer came out with a brand-new electric T-34 Mentor, I believe.
He decided to take it off himself. That went okay, but it was a bit
too sensitive for Melvin and he handed the controls over to Tony.
The canopy flew off in flight. But they found it not far away, and
it all ended well…
That’s more than we can say for Tony’s experience with
his electric Mini Ultra Stick. He was flying it just fine when suddenly
I heard it slam into the runway. Apparently Tony zigged when he should
have zagged…
Alvin flew his Thunder Tiger Raptor 50 Titan helicopter a couple of
times. Being very comfortable in his flying chair, he made Russell
check the fuel level.
That wore Russell out pretty
much.
It was late in the afternoon when Robert’s Double Trouble was
ready for another
flight. The engines were a bit balky but eventually synchronized.
They sounded great when they their RPM matched.
Then it was time!
Robert tossed it in
the air. He did a nice hand
launch. The flight went very well and frits did some loops
and rolls. Even inverted
flight. Frits had a ball!
He finally managed to make a relatively “smooth
landing”. He didn’t even break either prop. Thanks
to TJ for taking those videos.
And thanks to Andy I now know that I DO have a way to turn off the
auto focus feature on my camera in video mode. And I did! So hopefully
the videos will improve after this week. No more focus motor noise
and blurry videos! When I first started taking videos with this still
camera, I looked for that deactivation control once, but I failed
to find it, so I looked no further. My apologies…
Robert’s delta wing Coroplast Triangle was ready too, but no
flight was planned for
today. Finally Robert was ready to pack all of his stuff into
his van. He
was going to drive it to SPAD Fest, somewhere up North, where once
a year all the plastic plane guys in the country come together.
And Robert plans to enter the Double Trouble in a speed record run
there. Good luck, Robert! Bring it back in one piece!
Earlier this past week, Jeff Lee brought his T-Rex helicopter and
his Mini
Ultra Stick. I understand both went home in one piece… And
Bill Slagle flew his Avistar trainer. At one time he and Russell showed
off on the bench what they could have done in the air — that
is, fly them in formation.
Bill also flew his Pulse 40, a very nice flying airplane. It was Bill’s
first flight on a low-wing, tail-dragging airplane. He lost one of
its wheels in flight, but he landed it himself just fine. Bill said
that was because he had an excellent instructor…
I’ll see you at the field. Fly safe!
=========== Keeping those videos for sharing with others ===========================
Several people have asked me about this… The videos that I
take are stored on my computer. The files are large, and that’s
why I always make short videos, usually less than a minute, but always
less than two minutes long. It’s normally too impractical to
share them by e-mail.
But once a video has been posted on YouTube, it’s there “forever”.
You can always go back to it. Just copy that string of characters
in the browser window right above the video, and save it in a text
file on your computer. That string looks like this example > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5QpxUdZFYU
.
By clicking on it later, or, if that doesn’t work, by placing
it back into your Internet browser and hitting the enter key, you
can see it over and over again.
If you want your own copy of videos that features you and your plane,
let me know. I can put them on a DVD for you. They’ll be in
.MOV format. The quality will be much better. The image will be much
sharper, that is. The way I video taped it will remain the same!…
E-mail me > fjetten@aol.com.
========= Advertising Your For Sale Stuff in the Swap Shop
===========
You know you can advertise your For Sale items with photos in the
Mobile Area RC Aviation Forum’s Swap Shop.
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.
If you have questions or need help with this, just 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.
Azalea City Model Aeronautics Website > http://www.acma-rc.com/index.html
Frits Goes Hollywood - Click For Details
