{"id":6670,"date":"2020-10-04T10:26:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-04T14:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/blog\/?p=6670"},"modified":"2020-10-04T10:26:11","modified_gmt":"2020-10-04T14:26:11","slug":"a-sentimental-journey-to-dayton-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/a-sentimental-journey-to-dayton-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sentimental Journey to Dayton, Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

A LONG write-up about a small contest.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saturday, I went to an FAC Contest.\u00a0 The McCook Field* Squadron, #5 in the FAC lore, is a low-key group of flyers that has been around since the beginning, thanks primarily to Frank Scott.\u00a0 He’s been running on-again-off-again contests in an on-again-off-again manner for probably 40 years or more.\u00a0 They announced they would be having a contest on October 3rd at the comically-named “Jackass Flats” location.\u00a0 (Jackass Flats turns out to be a local PeeWee football and soccer facility.\u00a0 It’s not a big field, but big enough for a small contest.)<\/p>\n

* – the real McCook Field was the government’s first aeronautic research facility – and it was in Dayton, Ohio.\u00a0 Read about it HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Something told me I needed to go.\u00a0 Google told me it was a 3.5 hour trip and since the contest was scheduled from noon-4pm and only had three FAC events, I felt I could manage this.\u00a0 I wouldn’t have to leave super early and I could get back before 8pm.\u00a0 In addition, I like the McCook group.\u00a0 We fly at their McCook Contest at Muncie every June and I used to go to their Dayton Sector Skirmishes back in the day when they were held ON Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the shadow of the Air Force Museum.\u00a0 As an Ohio Boy, ex-Air Force employee, and an aviation fan, Dayton is special and holds much aviation history that I don’t need to go into here.\u00a0 But I wanted to go and go I did.<\/p>\n

I got there about 1 hour early – before anyone else.\u00a0 I parked where I thought would be a good spot to be discovered by incoming contestants that would eventually decide from where we would fly.\u00a0 It turns out we just stayed right there.\u00a0 I got out some Jet Cats to test while I waited.\u00a0 I got a couple figured out and broke one on the hard driveway.\u00a0 When you’ve got more than one JetCat, you have to test them before a contest – each one flies differently and you need to re-discover the quirks of each one.\u00a0 I flew my F-4, F-86, and Star-Jet.\u00a0 I broke the Star-Jet – too bad, I wanted to show Frank, as he had built one, too.\u00a0 I decided to fly the F-86 and my Heinkel in the contest.<\/p>\n

The turnout was surprising (to me).\u00a0 About 8 or so contestants showed up, and there were a higher-than-average number of family there, too.\u00a0 Per Frank’s contest announcement, most of us were wearing masks, especially when nearing each other.\u00a0\u00a0 Actually, this was a four-state meet!\u00a0 While the host club is from Ohio, I traveled from Michigan and Archie Adamisin came up from Kentucky and Archie’s dad came down from the Detroit area, too.\u00a0 And Bill Garrison came from Indiana!\u00a0 In all, there were somewhere between 15 and 20 people at the field.<\/p>\n

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Before I got to my planes, I timed a flight for Archie.\u00a0 It proved to be cautionary.\u00a0 While the temperature was not really “warm” and the wind was nothing more than a breeze, the air was buoyant.\u00a0 Archie got out his own-design Scout Embryo that he flew last season indoor at Pontiac.\u00a0 He didn’t change anything, even the rubber, and after a short test flight, he called for a time.\u00a0 The little model ROG’s just fine and went up.\u00a0 On about the second circle, it hooked a light thermal and we then watched it go up, up, and away.\u00a0 At 7 minutes, I lost sight of it, still going up.<\/p>\n

After that, I decided to get down to flying business.\u00a0 In addition to the JetCats mentioned above, I would enter my old Ta-Go and my new Bird Dog in Dime Scale.\u00a0 And finally, my DeHavilland Discard (a Frank Scott design) and maybe my new Durham Stretch Limo in Embryo.\u00a0 Given only 3 events and 4 hours, this was a good selection, maybe too many flights, since I did not bring my chase bike – meaning each flight would need to be retrieved Old School – on foot.\u00a0 Long flights mean long hikes.<\/p>\n

I logged three flights on the Ta-Go (all in the 40 second range) and went on to my new Bird Dog.\u00a0 I didn’t change the short loop of 1\/8″ rubber that I used as a test motor.\u00a0 And I didn’t trim out the nose-down glide.\u00a0 I didn’t want any super-long flights and I didn’t want the 11 gram plane to hook any thermals – it was too new to fly way.\u00a0 The first flight was almost a minute and the next two were less, around 40 seconds.\u00a0 All were long hikes.\u00a0 I finished out Dime and then went on to Embryo.<\/p>\n

I saw lots of Embryos flying.\u00a0 Mike Smith was trimming his Discard, Bill Garrison had a Bad Axe and a Born Loser, Frank had some other self-design, Jim Bair had a cute one with oval flying surfaces and a round formered body (recently featured in the McCook newsletter), Arch Adamisin (Archie’s dad) had one, too.\u00a0 On one of my hikes for the Bird Dog, I brought back Jim’s model so I got a good look at it.<\/p>\n

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Mike Smith and his Discard<\/p><\/div>\n

That may have been the last “good look” anyone got on that plane.\u00a0 His next flight also hooked a thermal and flew away.\u00a0 Here’s a picture of Jim and his wife watching the model for the last time (while the model is likely in the photo, no one knows where).<\/p>\n

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Wow, Embryos are flying away and I still have yet to fly.\u00a0 I don’t want to lose any models – but I want to give Frank a good show with my Discard.\u00a0 He pointed out that this contest likely has the highest concentration of Discards ever: including mine, his original and Mike’s new model.\u00a0 This contest would be a nominal challenge for my Discard – this would be it’s retract-gear ROG debut (it had been hand-launched at previous Cloudbuster contests).\u00a0 I was confident, since it goes near-vertical on a torqued-up hand launch.\u00a0 And so the next part was a learning process:\u00a0 hold the model on the table, hold the gear down, hold the prop, and release.\u00a0 The weight of the model will hold the gear open, so that wasn’t really a worry, but table launches can be tricky.\u00a0 The Discard performed flawlessly, jumping up and the gear making a characteristic “snap” as the plane zoomed up.\u00a0 I put in a\u00a0 string of 90+ second flights, managing to avoid thermals and staying on the field.\u00a0 I decided the field was too small to wring out my Stretch Limo.<\/p>\n

The JetCats were last.\u00a0 Here come long hikes for sure.\u00a0 That’s just the nature of decently-flying Jet Cats.\u00a0 The F-86 has always delivered less than expected.\u00a0 It gave me probably some of it’s best flights in the overcast of the afternoon:\u00a0 16, 15, and 16 seconds for the best three.\u00a0 The Heinkel performed as expected with a best three of 35, 32, and 27 seconds.\u00a0 I was done just after 3pm and had logged over 11,000 steps (according to my watch) in those 3 hours.\u00a0 I could relax, chat, time, take pictures, and gradually pack up before the end of the contest.<\/p>\n

Archie flew his Cloud Tramp off and on throughout the day.\u00a0 This was his first outdoor contest.\u00a0 He had been flying with 3 loops of 3\/32″ and it was zooming around.\u00a0 I told him that 2 loops would be fine.\u00a0 He did change the motor – and promptly put it in a thermal.\u00a0 That was plane #2 that he lost on the day.<\/p>\n

As the contest wound down, Frank called for a Sky Bunny mass launch.\u00a0 I forgot and left mine at home.\u00a0 Well that let me take a picture and film the mass launch.\u00a0 They are here.\u00a0 Note that Archie’s Sky Bunny is the one I track in the video.\u00a0 That was #3 fly-away for Archie.\u00a0 He may not want to fly outdoors again!<\/p>\n

NOTE: there is much more story following the video.<\/p>\n

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L-R: Archie Adamisin, Jim Bair, Frank Scott<\/p><\/div>\n