Wow...years ago, I bought a terrific flying PA plane powered by an ST 46....Steve Tapp was painted on the wing.....
I think the bones are still hanging in a garage in Bedford, OH
@peabody, I'm glad that old bird did well for you. Not sure which one you had but it was most likely a USA-1 derivative as I was heavily influenced by Bill and his designs. Do you remember the colors?
Hi Steve:
It's great to hear from you again!
For those who don't know Steve, he was a very good flier around 1981 or so and was improving rapidly. Everyone thought he was
going to go right to the top, and then he was gone!
Hope you come back and pick up where you left off, Steve! Give me a call and I'll hook you up with Bill. Send me an email
through this forum and I'll give you my number.
For the musicians here, Steve is the spitting image (or at least used to be...) of Larry Coryell!
Later - Bob Hunt
Bob,
Thanks for the kind words
Have been away for so long from the PA community was not sure anyone would remember. Life has a way of changing directions. I certainly don't need to tell this forum about all the resources needed to be successful in PA: the time, commitment/obsession, skills, light quality airframe, smooth engine/prop/tank combo, accessible field (with noise tolerant neighbors), but most importantly a dedicated support team of family, friends, coaches, equipment experts, etc. Any winning flyer is a team effort. After Vincennes in '93 I found myself making a career, getting married, and raising a family which crowded out competitive flying.
I'm happy to see all the activity on this forum and was afraid the sport would atrophy. Electric power is interesting and I'll wager has extended the sport in a good way.
Every young person should be engaged in a long term, difficult, deep, creative activity as it teaches important life skills of perseverance, creativity, and mastery. Soccer and video games are not enough. We had our kids play piano all though grade school if they wanted to eat. Both optional of course
Happily they became proficient and have stayed with piano even through high school. I am thankful to have found PA as a kid, it taught me more than I knew when I needed direction.
Not sure I'll be able to come back the way it once was as the time/resource curve is high. Have always liked things that fly and a few years ago found sport kites to fill the flying void which have some similarities to CLPA but take much less time and fewer resource. Remember that "Wind Flying" article in Sep '72 AAM with the U-Reely handle and Sig Banshee? Sport kites are something like that. I know some folks here have messed around with them.
Twenty years later now and the oldest is looking at colleges. Last week I took her to a day event at Ball State in Muncie IN of all places. Dropped her off and headed over to AMA headquarters to tour the museum and look at the fields. Have not flown a model or the pattern in years but always have kites in the car trunk and the wind was blowing so thought why not give the old figures a go? Certainly not the same as a stunter but it was fun! If you want to have a laugh, I took a little video and posted up on youtube for a kiting forum. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. I still suck and make the same mistakes now as twenty years ago LOL! Wish we had inexpensive pocket cameras capable of HD video back then. Judges would tell me my mistakes but seeing them makes more impact. Wasn't going to post this here with such serious flyers but what the heck:
I know I lose pattern points for not entering the outside squares from 45 and some of the mistakes are cringe worthy. Ha! Level laps are pretty tough without an engine so I took a few liberties there. With some smooth winds, I'll work to clean up that pattern a bit.
I wax nostalgic and wanted to say hi and
Thank You to the PA community and friends for all the good times - even though I didn't make the finals cut at Vincennes.
Very interesting to read about the FAI worlds - some things do remain constant
Go team USA!
I just looked up Larry Coryell on Wikipedia and I've got the graying hair for sure ...
Peace,
Steve
Topic: Is Billy Werwage on the net? (Read 2598 times)
