Frost Your Buns 2008

by Jim Tiller.

It has been a Propbuster tradition for more years than most of us can remember to meet at the field on the first day of the new year to spit in the mother nature’s face and fly our intrepid aircraft regardless of the weather. Now some of us are older than spit and the idea of spitting into a 20 knot wind and wind chill of less than zero on January 1st, 2008 was more spit than we could muster. So, for the first time in what memory we old guys can muster, the annual Frost Your Buns Fly was postponed until Sunday, January 6th.

The few days lay off made quite a difference in both the temperature and the wind. The day was sunny with the mercury pushing 40 and, contrary to the forecast, there was only a breath of light and variable wind. Quite a few flyers lined the field and put their old beaters into the air.

The only exception was Zac Roller who used the day to maiden flight his new 35% Aeroworks Extra. The DA 80 engine allowed Zac two good long test flights hinting at the great potential of this well built and great looking ARF. Then some gremlin in the ignition system refused to let the gasser start and the eye-catching laser was packed away.

Most of the rest flew their tried and tested mounts. Ken Gatzke gets the award for the most flights with his fire engine red bipe with the flame job. I put a couple of flight on my veteran Rapier. Bob Olson put several flights on his Super Tiger .45 powered Extra. Clancy Kingsbury aired his Twist several times. Darrell Cassidy put his LA Racer in the air a couple of times. Doc McGuigan hit the snow fence with his Spacewalker and his day ended early.

But that was all to our benefit because Doc also tended two pots of chili -- the other Frost Your Buns tradition. As usual we were asked to vote for the best chili: Arlene McGuigan’s or Sheree Bernal’s. After exhaustive testing the vote was a tie 143-143. This tally may, however, be in dispute. I think someone may have voted twice.

By the way, you may be interested to know, Sheree’s chili was delivered to our event in Denny’s absence. He chose to snowmobile instead of fly with us this day. Scuttlebutt has it, a motion might be made at the meeting to cross out Denny’s name on the membership list and put in Sheree’s.