February 19th, 2008

President's Day Fun Fly

The fun fly was scheduled originally for the 12th, but that day was forecast for very cold and blustery winds over 20 mph and yours truly, the event director, postponed it for one week. Sunday the 19th turned out to be a great flying day considering it was February in South Dakota. Winds were 1-5 and the temps were in the 40’s.

You may remember from the last meeting, that this year we are going to try to spice up the fun flies just a little. We still have a lot of hot dogs left, so slightly burned hot dogs will be featured at each event until the dogs run out. Also donuts and other assorted goodies will be on hand. As an added bonus, I brought a handful of helium balloons to use in a ribbon cutting event. We tied about 30 feet of crepe paper to the first couple of balloons and launched them from the south boundary of the property. They climbed pretty good, but even the light southerly breeze soon had them out of range to the north. Even so, Zac Roller and Gene Steeley took quite a few spirited passes toward the streamers before they floated out of sight. On the second attempt we moved the balloon release point south about 100 yards into the plowed field. On this attempt, Darrell Cassidy, Ken Gatzke and Gene Steeley took a whole lot of shots at the ribbon before it left the area. With his agile profile biplane, Ken Gatzke probably made the most passes and on one of his final tries -- well to the North of the field -- he succeeded in cutting the ribbon on the rapidly disappearing balloons. Most agreed it was quite a bit of fun and we might give it shot again at a future event.

If we do, we may try tethering the balloons somehow. That would make it a more leisurely event and also would reduce the risk of a midair collision. If any of you engineer types can figure out how to tether the balloons so they still have some altitude on a windy day, we need your input.

Lots of other flying took place including the maiden flight on Bob Olson’s Saito 100 powered Frenzy. Even with the new motor running very rich, it looks like that airplane is going to be a real sweetheart. As the day progressed, the dogs and donuts were passed out and lots of great flying took place on the warm pre-spring day.

The only casualty was my LA Racer. I managed to put it through the fence on take off as I lost elevator control just before lift off. As it turns out the battery was bad and I guess it was lucky I didn’t get it farther into the air. It has since been repaired and awaits our first racing event scheduled in March.